The very first movie to feature a fully CGI character
Special effects have come a long way since the infancy of cinema when early pioneers experimented with camera trickery. During the early days of the silent era, filmmakers such as Georges Méliès and Alice Guy-Blaché pioneered new techniques such as double exposure, colour tinting, masking, slow motion and fast forward.
However, the first example of “special effects” predates cinema. In 1857, Oscar Rejlander collaged together different negative images to create one finished product. This early example of incredible creativity has shaped the state of modern cinema, which now allows audiences to watch computer-generated characters that appear incredibly life-like.
One of the first instances of special effects in cinema appeared in 1895’s The Execution of Mary Stuart by Alfred Clark. The director made the cast stand incredibly still while switching out the actor with a beheaded dummy so that he could splice the two scenes together. However, special effects changed dramatically with the introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and graphics.
The first ever computer animation appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo title cards in 1958, created by John Whitney in collaboration with the graphic designer Saul Bass. Through the 1960s, a few short videos were created with CGI, although the technology didn’t become widely used in movies until the 1970s.
In 1972, the short film A Computer Animated Hand was released, demonstrating exactly what the title suggests. However, Westworld depicted a 2D animation using raster graphics the following year, becoming the first mainstream feature film to include the technology. Its 1976 sequel Futureworld became the first movie to use 3D computer graphics.
In the 1980s, CGI became more popular following its usage in 1977’s Star Wars and 1982’s Tron. In fact, it was Star Wars creator George Lucas who was responsible for aiding the development of CGI with his company LucasFilm. Founded by Lucas in 1971, it soon expanded to include the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic. The prolific company have made significant advancements in the special effects world, including creating the first entirely CGI character for a feature-length film.
The character appeared in 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes, directed by Barry Levinson. Although the CGI-generated knight had just ten seconds of screentime, it was a revolutionary cinematic moment. Looking back, the character is far from polished, but it marked an important step towards genuinely naturalistic CGI-generated characters, which would appear over the following decades.
Although the film wasn’t incredibly well-received, its use of special effects was praised, signalling that cinema had the capacity to champion new technology. In 1995, the world’s first CGI-generated lead character debuted in Casper; now, CGI is commonly used, with movies like Avatar heavily relying on the technology to create realistic sets and characters.
