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Appendix A. An Abbreviated Glossary

[1st draft july 2023] Appendix A.  An Abbreviated Glossary Every field has its own working language, a jargon, and each studio within that field has its own particularities of meaning attached to even the most common term.  The language often shows its origins from other fields inherited perhaps through many iterations back into the misty days before time.  Sometimes language is imposed from above but often emerges from below and the proletariat.  The following is an incomplete list of terms one might have heard in the ancient days of film and a few of the terms used in the degrading workspaces of the digital age.   There are many paths through the jungle and this is not the only list that could be proposed and not all meanings are universally agreed upon but bear with me, you will be a better person if you give these a glance and inhale them holistically. Animator  Art Director Color Key Art  Composite (v) Compositor (n)    Hero (n) Optical ...
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2.1 - 2.8. Preliminaries and Ground Rules

[1st draft 7/18/2023]   2.1 Common Ground In order to have a coherent conversation about the subtleties and nuance to be found in visual effects it is important to have a common language.  They say that one person's fish is another's  poisson  and this is apparently true.  How often have I gotten myself in trouble by using a term that is well understood in one studio but means something subtly different in another and competing studio?    And people, being how they are, can take offense at the simplest thing.  I once used the term " dilettante " in conversation and to my astonishment discovered later that this film professional thought I was making fun of her by using a French word.   Can't we all just get along?   To avoid this discontinuity in understanding and promote harmony, I am going to propose some basic concepts and terms-of-art for us to use in this discussion we are having about visual effects.  Whether or not this term i...
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Special Thanks

  Most of what I discuss here I learned from other practitioners in the field.  These people have earned the right to their opinions and this is what they told me.  Some of them will be the subject of humorous (I hope) anecdotes.  Lets go over a short list of these people in no particular order.   Richard Hollander, Larry Cuba, Ray Feeney, Richard Yuricich, Phil Feiner, Bob Lambert, Scott Watson, Bran Ferrin, Douglas Trumbull, Doug Kay, George Joblove, Jim Blinn, Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, Lance Williams, Ken Perlin, Greg van der Veer, Dick Stumpf, Jane Nunez, John Hughes, Craig Reynolds, Con Pederson, Tom McMahon, Mike Fink, Richard Taylor, Joel Hynek, Josh Pines, Diane Perlmann, Nancy St. John, Scott Anderson, John Nelson, Frank Vitz, Rob Legato, John Lambert, Rene Daalder, Bob Abel,       Special thanks to Peter Bardazzi of NYU for giving me the opportunity to teach a class that was the beginning of this project.  To all my students at NY...
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Preface

Many years ago I taught a class at New York University's Center for Advanced Digital Applications (NYU CADA) on the topic of the "history of visual effects".  Some of that class is incorporated into these notes but the focus has changed somewhat.  Now this is more of "a study guide to visual effects" or what films/sequences you should have seen, at least once, in order to appreciate and give context to this work.  My joke at the time was that "this was the stuff you have to have seen if you want to work in the slave pits of the rich", by which I was referring to all those who wanted to sell out and work for a large corrupt media corporation. God bless you, all of you, I just want to help you achieve your life's goals. I find it distressing that the noble field of visual effects is relegated to some of the lowest levels of esteem as perceived by the audience, the above the line artists, and the executives of the motion picture industry.  I see this ...
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VFX Book Project Start

There are many paths through the jungle, but for this project we are going to write pieces and post them here.  Eventually these posts and posts on my other blogs will be reedited and coalesced into a LaTEX document and look all professional, I hope. Feel free to read what you see here but be aware that what you are seeing is out of context, and out of order, and sure to be rewritten by the time it reaches the final.  Thank you.    
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