Knowra Special effect Special effect A practical or technical illusion used in a performance to depict events or images that ordinary staging cannot create. Special effects can be produced live, mechanically, photographically, or digitally.
Practical effect : An effect created physically on set or in front of an audience rather than generated digitally. Physical props, makeup, and environmental changes produce effects directly within a performance.
Forced perspective : A visual technique that manipulates apparent size or distance by arranging objects and viewpoints. Stage and set layouts can make small objects appear enormous or distant.
Stage machinery : Mechanical equipment used to move scenery, performers, and other elements in theatrical productions. Hidden lifts, tracks, and rigging make theatrical transformations happen live.
Computer-generated imagery : Images created or altered with computer graphics, often for film, television, or games. Digital imagery can depict scenes that physical effects cannot safely or economically stage.
Visual effects : Images created or altered for film, television, or other media through photographic, digital, or compositing techniques. Visual effects extend what a camera can show beyond physical production methods.
Pepper's Ghost : An optical illusion that uses angled transparent surfaces and reflected images to make figures appear or disappear. It produces ghostly apparitions without requiring a projected image on a screen.
Prosthetic makeup : Makeup involving attached sculpted materials that alter an actor's face or body. It creates durable physical transformations that remain visible under close camera scrutiny.
Practical effects versus visual effects : A production distinction between effects made physically during filming and effects created or altered in postproduction. The distinction clarifies whether an illusion exists on set or is constructed in the final image.
Mechanical effect : A physical effect produced by machinery, rigging, props, or controlled environmental changes. Moving sets, flying rigs, and concealed mechanisms create visible action in real time.
Rear projection : A filmmaking technique in which a background image is projected onto a screen behind actors. It combines live action with a prepared moving background in a single camera view.
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