Holey moley, Michael Crichton’s ‘Westworld’ is 50 this year The film celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and included a huge step forward in digital VFX. August 16, 2023 Articles·Retro
How ILM’s MORF tool nearly became the way the stop-motion dinos were motion blurred on ‘Jurassic Park’ On the film’s 30th anniversary, learn how the VFX studio was going to motion blur Tippett’s stop-motion puppets, before things went CG. June 13, 2023 Articles·Retro
Just add bats On the 30th anniversary of 'Cliffhanger', a look at the, er, very efficient bat art direction for a particular scene. May 28, 2023 Retro
Optical Dogs, dailies and the origins of ‘CBB’: 40 years of ‘Jedi’ We look back at the four decade anniversary of 'Return of the Jedi' with Industrial Light & Magic’s production supervisor on the May 26, 2023 Retro
‘The Matrix Reloaded’ is 20. What it did for digital humans was HUGE A celebration of Universal Capture, and what was invented at ESC for the Matrix sequels. May 15, 2023 Retro
It’s Bamfing time! Has there ever quite been anything as cool as the original Bamfing effect in ‘X2’? UPDATED! May 2, 2023 Retro
Celebrate the release of the new 4K UHD ‘Dragonslayer’ SteelBook release with this Phil Tippett gallery Re-visiting the go-motion work by Phil Tippett at ILM. March 21, 2023 Articles·Retro
An old Amiga with ‘Titanic’ miniature shoot ‘video taps’ on it is a treasure-trove of VFX history The Commodore Amiga 4000/040 was used by Digital Domain to help craft effects shots and review miniature shoots for Titanic, Apollo 13 February 10, 2023 Articles·Retro
‘Flubber’ turns 25: how ILM made the shape-shifting green goo come to life Flubber! November 24, 2022 Articles·Retro
Celebrating 25 years of ‘Starship Troopers’ "The only good bug is a dead bug." November 7, 2022 Retro
You can now re-visit one of the greatest ever SIGGRAPH presentations in history ACM has made 50 years of their publications open and freely available, including this killer animation-related session. September 18, 2022 Articles·Retro
‘Event Horizon’: You just don’t get to see this kind of raw effects footage these days This old-school footage is direct from the miniatures set on Paul W.S. Anderson's horror film. August 14, 2022 Articles·Retro
‘Predator’: VFX supe Joel Hynek recalls the days of optical compositing, thermal cameras and *that* red suit Before you see 'Prey', read about the old-school way the VFX in 'Predator' were crafted. August 4, 2022 Articles·Retro
The last-minute roto tool that saved the ending of ‘Death Becomes Her’ A new article on the 30th anniversary of the film. July 30, 2022 Articles·Retro
Head stretching and stomach holes: re-visiting the visual effects of ‘Death Becomes Her’ “Bob had said to Meryl Streep: ‘Whatever Ken asks you to do, no matter how silly, just go with it. You can July 29, 2022 Articles·Retro
Why ‘Air Force One’ has some of the most talked about visual effects in history The film has turned 25! July 25, 2022 Articles·Retro
‘Men in Black’ and its crazy collection of real and CG creatures “I’ve always told people that when you have a movie that's fairly complicated be sure to have a talking pug dog in July 2, 2022 Articles·Retro
The forgotten freeze-frame moments from ‘Batman & Robin’ The infamous 1997 film had its own form of bullet-time, before bullet-time. June 20, 2022 Articles·Retro
Multi pass and motion control: re-visiting the VFX of ‘The Fifth Element’ ‘You know, Mark, I don’t want to do these ‘fancy panning around and seeing the whole world shots’. I’d much rather set May 8, 2022 Articles·Retro
Looking back at the practical and digital effects of ‘Anaconda’ Happy 25th birthday to the film's animatronic snake. April 19, 2022 Podcasts·Retro
‘David had the picture of the movie in his head’ The VFX supervisor of ‘Panic Room’--the film is now two decades old–shares key moments from its production. March 30, 2022 Retro
A deep dive into the history of ‘The Lawnmower Man’ The film just turned 30! So I talked to director Brett Leonard. March 24, 2022 Retro
‘Ice Age’ turns 20: a celebration of Blue Sky Studios Looking back at Blue Sky's first feature film and the art and tech behind it. March 15, 2022 Retro
PDI won the bid to do a CG cape in ‘Batman Forever’ for an amazing reason The cape heralded a new wave of cloth simulation in movies. March 4, 2022 Articles·Retro
It’s 25 years since ‘Dragonheart’; learn the VFX secrets behind the film One of the befores & afters retro panels happening at VIEW Conference October 6, 2021 Articles·Retro
The secrets behind the ‘Independence Day’ cloud tank effects Learn more about the spaceship arrival/cloud tank VFX at this exclusive VIEW Conference panel. September 20, 2021 Articles·Retro