Week 9 Studio Class

Shilo McClean was week 9’s guest speaker. Author of the book Digital Storytelling: the narrative power of visual effects in film (MIT Press, 2007), and a renown writer, lecturer and specialist in the field of digital visual effects in the film industry.
Shilo explored the use and development of digital computer graphics as a storytelling tool. After showcasing a collage of various films, which used effective digital visual effects. The class was enthralled to find out what this woman was all about. She went on to explain how computer graphics that have largely derived and progressed through the gaming industry, has now over the past decades shaped and revolutionized the way film makers tell a story.
Not only has it impacted greatly on filmmaking, but using computer graphics has also enhanced other fields and professions. Its use as a way of communicating succinct and important information quickly, to those who may know little of its surrounding circumstance. One great example she used was how Spike Lee used a generated computer animation to describe in a documentary, an analysis of how weather patterns can transform and result in something called
“Hurricane Katrina.”

The relationship between narrative and visual effects was once known to hinder and destroy a good story, but now that computer graphics and technology has boomed and excelled, there is now a synergy that allows digital visual effects to add innovative nuances and in some cases, function as the key tool to portray a story. Shilo was once told in a script writing class “..if you cant capture it on film, you cant write it in a script”

She explained the various types of effects used in film making and how each technique distinguishes itself from another.
There was:

• Fantastical effects
• Surrealist effects
• New traditionalist
• Hyperrealist
• Hybrid-real

The importance in utilising computer effects in a context where it is suitable, is fundamental to a successful narrative collaboration.

How all this ties into what this course is all about, is we are using software’s that exemplify digital visual effects. Crysis, 3dsmax and the multitude of other programs we are using, mirror that of the real world. We’re trying to create a story and create realistic 3d images or environments. Because we are somewhat the pioneers of this technology in architecture, it’s our role to collaborate and fully explore its potential and capabilities. A quote from Shilo that I found typifies these concepts was, “..collaborative space still needs to be developed and the contribution, the experience can offer human creativity and its shared meanings.”