Practical effects

Practical effects are physical illusions created during production, using real objects, materials, performers, or mechanisms rather than relying entirely on digital imagery.

Animatronics: Mechanized puppets or figures that reproduce lifelike movement, often through remote control. Servos and articulated frames give practical creatures repeatable movement on set.
Special effects: Physical or mechanical techniques used to create illusions and events for filmed productions. Practical effects are one major branch of the broader special-effects craft.
Computer-generated imagery: Images created or substantially altered using computer graphics techniques. CGI can depict events that practical effects cannot safely or economically stage.
Stan Winston: An American special-effects artist known for creature design, animatronics, and prosthetic makeup. His workshop built influential practical creatures for films including Jurassic Park.
2001: A Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 science-fiction film about a journey from human prehistory to an encounter with an advanced intelligence. Its spacecraft models and photographic effects created convincing space imagery without modern CGI.
Prosthetic makeup: Applied sculpted materials that alter an actor’s appearance, such as simulated wounds or creature features. Layered prosthetics transform performers physically before the camera records them.
Creature effects: Techniques for designing and realizing nonhuman beings through makeup, puppetry, suits, or mechanisms. Creature effects combine physical builds and performance to put tangible beings on screen.
Visual effects: Images created or altered for a production, often through digital compositing after filming. Visual effects include digital work as well as practical elements combined in postproduction.
Ray Harryhausen: An American stop-motion animator known for bringing fantastical creatures into live-action films. His frame-by-frame creature animation made small physical models interact with actors.
Jurassic Park: Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film about cloned dinosaurs brought into a modern theme park. Full-scale animatronic dinosaurs shared scenes with digitally animated creatures.

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