10 Movies That Pushed The Boundaries Of Visual Effects
9. King Kong (1933)
Over 70 years before Peter Jackson's over-indulgent, CGI-bloated effort, the original King Kong was created entirely by hand using a combination of models created by Willis O'Brien. There were four full figures of Kong two 18-inch, one 24 inch and a smaller model used only for the scene where Kong falls from the Empire State Building. There was also a large bust comprising Kong's head and chest for close-up shots, featuring 12-inch eyeballs and 10-inch fangs. The facial expressions were controlled by using wires, levers and an air compressor. The models used for the dinosaurs were animated using painstaking stop-motion: the scene where Kong fights the pterodactyl took 7 weeks to film. The famous finale on top of the Empire State Building featured a stop-motion Kong. Such scenes were a direct influence for another master of the special effect, Ray Harryhausen. Miniature rear projection was also used, in order to combine live action actors with the visual effects. A notable instance is where Kong reaches into a cave to grab Jack Driscoll - the scene combined a miniature set, a model of Kong's hand, and film of Bruce Cabot projected onto the same piece of film. Kong was also added into the film by optical printer, which had been used in the 1920s but was advanced by Linwood G.Dunn for the movie the development of optical printers continued right through to the 1980s and was one of the main technologies used by Industrial Light & Magic when creating Star Wars. Dunn also went on to work on visual effects in Citizen Kane and the original Star Trek TV series.
