In the days before Marvel, and even further back, special effects did not make a film, they enhanced it. The effects generated were meant to add another cinematic element to a story. Today’s effects often carry a film with a weak story or plot.
The first film, according to http://www.horrornews.net, was made by Fred Ott and Thomas Edison and was titled, Fred Ott’s Sneeze. This was a short, silent film shot by William K.L. Dickson in black and white. Filmed in 1893, it is said to be the oldest surviving motion picture (with a copyright). It’s only five seconds. It was shown using an exhibition device called a kinetoscope, something used by one person at a time.
There were no special effects used in Fred Ott’s Sneeze but these five seconds proved to be valuable enough for the Library of Congress to mark it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2015.
The first film to include an effect would be three years after. The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1895, holds this place. The scene, itself, is very simplistic. Mary is brought to the block, made to kneel, then beheaded. The executioner then picks up the head and shows it off. Today’s audience would know, the body beheaded was just a dummy, but audiences of the time believed what they saw to be the real thing. Many of the audience members were so convinced, they thought a real person had given their own life for the sake of the scene.
The film can be seen here:
This film was also produced by Thomas Edison, and directed by Alfred Clark. It is also the first to use trained actors and to use editing. Robert L. Thomae, in Shakespearean tradition, played the part of a blindfolded Mary.
As a joke, in 1895, George A. Smith made a film, The Sausage Machine, in which live dogs and cats were fed into a machine which turned them into sausages. The joke was meant to play on the fears of many who did not know the ingredients of their sausages. Shot from a single point, this short film would be remade in 1897 with the same title.
Director, writer, and producer, Georges Méliès, also stars in L’Auberge Ensorcelee (The Bewitched Inn), a 1897 short film in which a traveler has an encounter with supernatural forces. These forces cause his clothes to disappear and his boots to walk away. Special effects were done through a combination of stop-motion and wire work. Méliès was also a magician and theater designer, who opened the first film studio in Paris.
Méliès went on to make other films using trick photography to achieve his special effects. In 1902, he would make La Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) which followed a group of scientists who went to the moon. In addition to trick photography, this film used superimposed imagery and double-exposure to achieve a lot of its effects. This changed the way future films would be shot and how they would incorporate effects. As a side note, La Voyage Dans La Lune is also credited with being the first film to introduce a narrative structure.
Before Steve Barron made a Norwegian synth-pop band famous, newspaper cartoonist, Winsor McCay made Gertie the Dinosaur. In it, McCay interacts with an animated dinosaur, much the same way Morten Harket, is seen doing in Barron’s music video, Take on Me. McCay’s animated film is often credited as being the first of its kind but Emile Cohl, a French caricaturist, and J. Stuart Blackton, an American film producer, worked with animation before Gertie. McCay’s film was the first to use things like tracing paper, animation loops, and key frames.
A key frame uses the same beginning and ending point, which ensures a smooth transition. The 1980s series, Masters of the Universe used key frames in its animation, ensuring smooth transitions in the running, jumping, and flying sequences.
Gertie the Dinosaur has also been preserved by the U.S. Library of Congress in the National Film Registry. It was also voted #6 as one of the 50 Greatest Cartoons (1994).
In addition to animation, special effects would utilize different photography techniques to achieve their final product. In 1915, D.W. Griffiths made a (very controversial) film which recreated the assassination of Abraham Lincoln entitled, The Birth of a Nation. The special effect in this film would go on to revitalize the entire genre – the introduction of color. The effect was achieved by washing specific scenes in different colors.
In 1900, a short film by director, Walter R. Booth depicted the collision of two trains on a mountain track. A Railway Collision (or A Railroad Wreck) was a very simple film but made use of many elements, including stop motion with miniature scale models. It represents a foundational point many other films draw on. Like Fred Ott’s Sneeze, this film was made to be viewed with a Kinetoscope and many who saw it found it very convincing. The appeal was so long-lasting, the film was later converted so it could be shown to a larger audience.
Segundo de Chomón, a Spanish filmmaker, used a form of stop motion to produce Le théâtre de Bob, made in 1906. This film contains three minutes of stop motion animation to depict a fictional theater, owned by Bob, which is animated by dolls and other objects. It is the oldest film to feature both a definitive release date and actual stop motion effects.
In 1925, a silent movie directed by Harry O. Hoyt would introduce audiences to the technique of stop motion photography. This is a process in which still frames are taken of an object, which is moved in some way. When the still frames are combined, they simulate a type of movement or change. Most of the models used in stop motion are made by applying pliable rubber to sculpted metal frames.
The Lost World, would feature stop motion effects by Willis O’Brien, an American pioneer “responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history.” (- ASIFA-Hollywood)
Long before Spielberg, The Lost World used stop motion effects by Willis O’Brien, an American pioneer “responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history.” (- ASIFA Hollywood) Stop motion, paired with live-action footage of actors made it possible for humans and dinosaurs to interact on screen. This involved separating the frame into two parts, a process called split screen(ing). O’Brien perfected this technique as the film went on until he was able to combine the two elements into a single frame.
Reception of The Lost World was fantastic. Many viewers of the film saw the dinosaurs as very life-like. The New York Times, on its front page, said, “(Conan Doyle’s) monsters of the ancient world, or of the new world which he has discovered in the ether, were extraordinarily lifelike. If fakes, they were masterpieces”
This was just the beginning!
Next Week: King Kong!
