Creating Special Effects for TV and Film

ILLUSION IS THE STUFF of which television and film drama is made. Explosions, flying bullets, smoke and fire are not easily controlled, but when they take place in a studio or outdoor set, their effects have to be totally predictable. The special effects designer and his staff have to know exactly what they are doing and the most suitable methods for doing it. Bernard Wilkie calls on his long experience in the field to deal comprehensively with a wide range of effects and techniques.

Gunshots, explosions and fire are obvious applications for special effects but there are innumerable less obvious scenes on the screen that are not what they seem. The dials of instruments, molten metal, rocks, snow, breaking bottles and crockery, even faces can be products of the special effects department. Bernard Wilkie deals with them all, as well as models and miniatures, scoring devices, seas and storms, rain and swamps, knives, swords and daggers. Special effects do not only concern imitation products. They include techniques for combining scenes from different sets, animation, making corks pop and scenery collapse, creating a foggy night and making a car radiator boil. So Bernard Wilkie tells you about the techniques of matte and glass shots, chroma key, puppet construction, mirror shots, plastics fabrication and moulding, glass fibre lay-ups, mould-making, mixing and turning plaster, and so on.

The text is basic and practical, fully illustrated with simple, easy-to-follow diagrams. The subjects have been carefully chosen to illustrate principles that can be applied to a variety of problems or that can give alternative solutions to the same problem. This is a book of ideas as well as instruction.

BERNARD WILKIE has been producing special effects for the BBC for nearly 30 years. He is now the Corporation's Manager of Visual Effects and is responsible for all the special effects on BBC Television. As television is such a prodigious user of visual effects and special props, his large section is kept busy on all types of programme. Bernard Wilkie's experience is backed up by an easy writing style and an ability to produce first-class sketches of equipment and processes. His earlier book, The Technique of Special Effects in Television, first published in 1971, is an established reference work. Now he provides a detailed notebook for producers, directors and designers in film and television as well as those more directly concerned with the subject and those aspiring to a special-effects career.