Titanic: Special Effects

Special effects have the ability to make a movie more interesting, and realistic. Once impossible to realistically convey, the use of special effects makes it possible. Explosions, natural disasters, monsters, and gory bullet scenes can all be created with the use of these special effects.


Most of my favorite movies do not contain very many special effects, but one movie I remember the numerous special effects was Titanic. I remember seeing that movie in 7th grade and being in awe of how real some of the effects were produced. This movie actually won the Academy Award for best visual effects. I have not seen the movie for a while, but it was definitely one that I remember for the use of special effects. It has the huge boat, of course, but I also remember the huge iceberg that was hit and how the special effects made it look realistic. Smaller things also use special effects, as well. I remember seeing a dolphin jump up and down a few times by the "ship", for example.





Many of the visual effects were produced by Digital Domain, and they used both CG and miniature models to depict the ship. Miniatures were used for underwater and bow-to-stern shots of the ship, and a CG version was used for the ship extensions. An interesting thing I learned was that Digital Domain created hundreds of passengers, many of the paintings on the ship, smoke, and some water elements digitally. I found this information at http://www.vfxhq.com/1997/titanic.html. I was able to find quite a few photos of the ship, but it was harder then I expected to locate other areas of the movie where special effects were incorporated.




Most of the shots in the movie had some type of special effect. Without the special effects, the movie could have never been created to generate any type of revenue. However, I realized how costly special effects can cut into a film's budget. The movie Titanic's final budget was around $200 million! However, it was worth it because it is the biggest box office hit in history, and has grossed over $600 million. I looked up the numerous awards that Titanic won at http://imdb.com/title/tt0120338/awards, but there are way too many to name and I had no idea that many awards were even given out!



I have seen many movies where the special effects have been instances such as gun shots, tornados, and types of monsters. I believe this movie stands out in its' own right, even though it was created almost 10 years ago and technology has increasingly advanced. Titanic has gone down in history, and will continue to form it's right as a classic, and this is heavily due to the special effects that were implicated.