Category Just for Fun

When the 18-year-old Austrian Sepp Bradl became the first person to ski-jump more than 100m (328ft) in 1936, the engineer who had designed the jump – in Planica, Yugoslavia – shouted: ‘That was not ski-jumping. That was ski-flying!’

It was true. A new sport had been born, in which the skiers had to develop a totally new skill, turning themselves into aerofoils. Their ability to win now depends less on jumping than on flying. As he glides through the air, the skier leans forward with his body slightly curved. The same aerodynamic forces that keep an aeroplane flying help the ski-jumper to remain in the air longer and travel farther. The air passes over his curved back faster than under his front, creating a partial vacuum which causes lift.

Since Bradl’s 100m jump, the world record has been almost doubled, to 180 m (590ft) in 1989.

Sky jumpers start learning at practically any age. First, the jumper learns how to build up speed. This is done on a normal ski slope. The skier crouches down in a position that minimises air resistance, with the arms are swept back. World-class jumpers take off at up to 60mph (100km/h).

Before making his first real jump, in the skier must know how to land. He learns to touch down with 1 foot slightly in front of the other, and the knees bent.

Fledgling skiers buildup experience by making small jumps from low banks or platforms. This teaches them to cope with the takeoff. If balance is wrong on take off – in particular, if the weight is too far back – wind will flip the jumper over.

The true glory of ski-jumping is the flight itself. The beginner‘s first real jump will probably carry him about 10 m (30ft). Only when they become teenagers are most children able to make jumps of 40 m (130ft), for which they must adopt the true aerofoil position.

The flight itself is a complex operation. As he loses his horizontal motion, the jumper contracts his body a little, ready to meet the slope beneath him. As he falls, he loses speed but bends forward, and with skill can extend his glide.

In-flight, perhaps the greatest danger of all comes from wind. However, although injuries happen, fatalities are there.

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High above the hillside in a jungle clearing, the man balances precariously on two planks projecting from the top of 100 feet 30 m rickety looking wooden Tower. Spectators hold their breath.

Suddenly the man tosses a spray of leaves in the air. As it spirals down, he leans slowly forward and falls head first after it in a spectacular dive. But just as it seems his head is about to strike the ground, he is jerked up again into an arc which swings him to a safe landing on the hillside.

For both the man’s ankles are tied with the lianas – tough jungle vines – tethered to the top of the tower. The death-defying dive is the climax to an annual ceremony called the Naghol or Gol. It is held on Pentecost, one of 80 islands of the pacific republic of Vanuatu – until 1980 the New Hebrides.

The ritual features many diverse leaping from progressively higher platforms, the lowest around 40 ft (12 m).

Why do the Pentecost islanders risk their lives in such a bizarre and dangerous way?

The true origin of the Gol is unknown, but the participants see it as a test of courage the closer they swoop to the ground, the greater their bravery.

The ceremony has Ali Diwali Hai safety record, but sometimes it goes wrong. In 1974, one diver’s lianas snapped as they were jerked taut and he was killed. The ceremony was witnessed by the Queen and other members of the British royal family.

The tower is a flexible structure of palm trunks and bamboo, constructed around the living tree, stripped of most of its branches. The lianas that tether the divers are the real key to safety, however. They must be the right age and diameter and are cut two days before the ceremony. If they were cut earlier, they could try out, become brittle and lose the elasticity. They are also carefully cut to suit the height from which each diver plans to fall. The cutting is done by an experienced man who can calculate the elasticity of the vines.

Although the Gol’s origin is lost, a legend tells that the first driver was a woman. Her husband, discovering she was being unfaithful, chased her, intending to beat her. She climbed a tall palm, but he scrambled up after her. At the top he demanded to know why she had been unfaithful. She replied that he was a coward and dared him to jump in with her from the tree top. The husband agreed. They jumped. The man was killed, but his wife had surreptitiously tied a vine to her ankle to break her fall.

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Silently, the file of barefoot men and boys the oldest nearly 60, the youngest eight emerged from the hut. Still in silence they walked to a pit full of stones, where a log fire had been burning for many hours. The embers had been raked away, but heat haze still shimmered over the pit. Without a pause they walked and unhurriedly across the stones and out the other side. The temperature in the pit was about 1200°F (650°C). Yet their feet were unharmed.

It is a feat often performed on the Fijian Island of Mbengga, whose firewalkers are world-famous. Similarly rituals are practised in India and Sri Lanka and by the Greeks sect of Anastenaria. They have been reported in South America and Suriname, and the tiny Pacific island of Rarotonga. In Hawaii, hot lava has been used instead of stones or hot coals. Firewalking has also taken place in the USA and Europe.

In Fiji, India, Sri Lanka and Greece the ritual is associated with the religious ceremonial. Fire walkers of the western world usually prepare by psychological training. All maintained that a particular state of mind is the key to the remaining unharmed. Unlucky aspirants who suffer burns are often deemed to be mentally unprepared.

In Fiji, preparation includes avoiding the company of women during the days beforehand, and no firewalker should try it if his wife is pregnant.

Scientists tend to discount the ‘mind over matter’ theory. They suggest that walking over damp grass beforehand, which some fire walkers do, provides temporary protection through a phenomenon that accounts for the surprising amount of time that a drop of water bounces over a hot griddle before evaporating. The bottom of the drop vaporises providing a brief insulation of vapour between the drop and the griddle. The dampness of a fire walkers feet could have a similar effect.

Scientist also think the stones used in Fiji and elsewhere – and the coal is used in the West – give off heat relatively slowly.

But most are convinced that, whatever the reason for the fire walkers apparent immunity, it can be dangerous.

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The first white man to describe an Aboriginal boomerang was Sir Joseph Banks, the English naturalist who was a member of Captain cooks landing party in South East Australia on April 29, 1770. Among the reception party at Botany Bay were two natives who eyed the explorers with suspicion.

‘Each of these held in his hand a wooden weapon about 2.5 feet long, in shape much resembling on scymeter (scimitar),’ wrote Sir Joseph. ‘The blades of these looked… smeared over with the same white pigment with which they painted their bodies.’

The explorers regarding the weapons as no more than what Captain Cook called ‘wooden swords’. Then, in the early 1830s, another naval officer – Lieut WH Breton – became the first person to record an Aborigine throwing one of the banana shaped objects. It moved in ‘a very considerable curve,’ he stated, to ‘finally, fall at his feet.’

Boomerangs are made from hardwoods such as black wattle and sandalwood. They are sometimes coated in red ochre – and, for ritual use, are decorated with red, yellow and white.

As well as for killing game, Aborigines used them for cutting open the bellies of dead animals, for clearing fire sites, digging cooking pits, and unearthing honey ants. Sometimes they were used for lightning fires, by rubbing them against logs. And they were banged together to beat out the rhythm of a dance.

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The dimples that cover the surface of golf balls revolutionised the game when they were introduced the century. A well driven modern golf ball and travel up to 300yds (275 m). If it were smooth, it would only travel about 70yds (65 m).

When golf was first played in Holland and Scotland in the 15th century, smooth leather balls stuffed with feathers were used. In the 19th century, balls made of rubbery substance called gutta-percha were introduced. They were found to fly farther after being marked my club blows.

Makers began pattering balls with crisscrossed grooves. Then, in 1906, when rubber cored balls had arrived, the first dimpled ball was produced.

Why do Dimples help the ball to go so far? When a ball is in flight, a thin layer of air clings to its surface at the front. As the air passes over the ball, it breaks away from the surface, setting up turbulent eddies behind. The eddying air draws its energy from the ball, slowing it down. Dimples cause the air to cling to the surface until it is well towards the rear of the ball. When it finally breaks away, and narrower stream of turbulence is created, causing less drag than for a smooth ball.

The Dimples have another purpose as well. Since the golf ball always spins backwards when it is struck, the dimples carry air upwards over the top. The air going over-the-top has to travel faster than the air going underneath because of this rotation. This creates a lower pressure above than below, so the ball experiences lift which keeps it in the air longer.

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Cars required to crash or roll over for a spectacular movie or TV scene are strengthened inside. The stuntman also wears a safety harness, padding and a crash helmet, provided he will not be seen.

When a car has to be rolled, it is either driven up a ramp out of camera shot, or it has a hydraulic arm which shoots out beneath and forces it over. Some of the more spectacular crashes are so dangerous that a dummy replaces the stunt driver. In these scenes, the cars can be catapulted by an air cannon, a device like a giant air gun welded to the rear of the car.

The device was used in Grand Prix (1966) in a scene in which a car plummeted into the sea. A camera was mounted behind the driving wheel and dummy hands fixed to the wheel completed the illusion.

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Great precautions are taken for stunts involving fire – they are among the most dangerous of all. Fire gel, usually alcohol based, is rubbed onto the stuntmen’s outer clothing. It produces a vapour barrier between material and flames – the alcohol burns above the clothing, much like brandy on a Christmas pudding, scarcely singeing the fabric. The stuntman wears a fireproof suit beneath the outer clothing, and beneath that, woollen underwear, which does not burn easily.

For head-to-foot engulfment, more sophisticated suits, with helmets and built-in air supplies, are worn. Film-unit members with fire extinguishers stand by.

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A scene of someone being blown through the air by an explosion is usually achieved by the stuntmen launching himself from an off-screen trampoline. Protective clothing shields him from flash burns. Sometimes, powerful springboards, activated by compressed air, are used. The stuntmen usually land in pits of sand or peat moss.

Normally, insurance companies do not like the stars risking injury. But in Douglas Fairbanks’ The Black Pirate (1926) he slid down a ship’s sail, apparently supported only by a dagger which sliced the sail. The ‘dagger’ was a handle attached to a counterweight behind the sail, which gave him stability, while the sail had a seam which tore evenly.

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Falls can range from a tumble down a flight of stairs to a plunge from the top of a high building.

For high falls, giant nylon air bags, which inflate to the area of a living room, are used to cushion the impact, as in Jerry Hewitt’s plummet from an exploding ski lift in The Soldier (1982).

Before air bags were introduced in 1971, stacks of cardboard cartons covered with mattress served the purpose. These were then covered by tarpaulin and roped together. One layer of boxes for every 10ft (3m) of fall was the standard procedure.

When the Olympic swimming gold medallist Johnny Weissmuller – the cinema’s popular to dive off Brooklyn Bridge in Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942), there were rumours that the actor actually did the 110ft (33m) plunge. But it was a trick. Weissmuller dived into a tank of water – then the film cut to a shot of a dummy plummeting off the bridge.

In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), a leap to freedom from a cliff into a raging torrent was also faked. The actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford simply jumped onto a small platform a few feet below the cliff edge. Then two stuntmen were filmed jumping 72ft (22m) into a California lake.

Until about 1960, 60ft (18m) was the maximum unaided high fall. But modern stuntmen now fail more than 100ft (300m) – using low-level parachute rigs and ‘descender wires.’

The American stuntmen Dar Robinson specialised in spectacular falls. He developed a technique of doing head-first falls from high buildings on a thin wire – a ‘deceleration cable’ – attached to a harness under his clothes. A winch slowed the fall as he neared the ground, bringing him to a halt, hanging upside down, a few feet up.

In Highpoint (filmed in 1979), Robinson, doubling for Christopher Plummer, fell from the CN Tower in Toronto – at 1815ft (553m), the world’s highest free standing building. He plunged the equivalent of 120 storeys before making a delayed parachute descent. Robinson was killed seven years later, at the age of 39, while riding home on a motorcycle.

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Fights, whether with weapons or fists, are carefully choreographed – especially if a star is involved. Punches are pulled in a technique first perfected for cinema by Yakima Canutt – and the sound of fist connecting with jaw or body is added later. Protective pads for shins, shoulders, back and elbows are sometimes needed.

However, accidents happen. Christopher Lee, who began his film career as a stuntmen, described a slip-up during a fencing sequence with Errol Flynn during the 1954 making of The Dark Avenger: ‘The director, Henry Levin, hired me as an expert to ensure that none of his stars, particularly Flynn, got hurt. In one scene, I doubled first for Flynn and when he stepped in for close-ups I switched over to take the place of his opponent. I fought for hours. During the final take I could hardly raise my arm. When I did, Flynn ran his sword into it. Just above the elbow.’

In scenes in which people are hit over the head with bottles or flung through windows, the ‘glass’ is a special resin which looks and shatters like the real thing. But it is perfectly safe. It is expensive to produce so in stunts involving large amounts – such as entire shop windows – one take is preferable. Previously, fake glass was made from sugar.

Furniture and other props – known as ‘breakways’ – lay an important role in fight scenes. Chairs, tables, doors, or banister rails – often made of balsa wood – are sawn almost through so that they will shatter or impact. The cuts are painted over to conceal them.

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A world rodeo champion, ‘Yakima’ Canutt became one of Hollywood’s most famous stuntmen – specialising in working with horses. He began his career in the silent era. At that time, studios liked audiences to believe the stars did their own stunts.

Canutt’s most celebrated feat was in John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), when he leap from his war pony onto one of six horses pulling the coach. Shot by the hero John Wayne, Canutt fell between the horses and was dragged, before finally losing his grip. The stagecoach thundered over him, its wheels passing on either side, and Canutt struggled to his feet, proving it was no dummy in a trick shot. The stunt has been imitated many times since. Canutt won an Oscar in 1966 for his lifetime stunt achievements and developing protective safety devices for stuntmen.

Even the best-planned horse stunts carry element of danger. Former doyen of British stuntmen Bob Simmons described how his friend Jack Keely was killed during the desert adventure film Zarak (1956): ‘All appeared to be going well. Both our horses fell beautifully. The call came, “Cut!” And then the familiar, “Everyday all right?” I looked around for Jack. I saw that he had gone down just short of the camera pit. He didn’t get up. He was lying there motionless. Tragically, his horse had fallen on top of him and broken his neck.’

Training a horse to fall is done by strapping up one of its forelegs so that it stands on only three legs, then tugging the reins to the opposite side.

The animal, off-balance, with fall. After constant repetition, the horse will fall to order while galloping or cantering when it feels the bit being jerked sharply to one side. The technique is called falling ‘on the hit’. So that the animal is not injured, the spot where it will fall is dug up and filled with sand or peat moss.

In the early days of the cinema, trip wires were used, rigged to the horse’s foreleg, with the other end firmly tethered. But the cruel technique was banned because it could injure a horse’s back or neck and the animal would have to be shot.

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Because ordinary flames tend to appear transparent on film, chemicals are added to enhance movie blazes.

In the early 1970s, the British special-effects expert Cliff Richardson and his son John developed the ‘Dante’ fire machine – a device which enabled him to produce spectacular fires that remain perfectly under control. A car engine mounted on a two-wheel carriage drives a pump through which two 200 litres drums of fuel mixtures can be squirted. Jet primers ignite the fuel and the machine can create a 60ft (18m) wide wall of fire.

City Hall ‘blaze’

Dante machines were used in the James Bond movie A view To A Kill (1985) when John Richardson was required to set fire to San Francisco City Hall – without causing any damage. He fireproofed the roof with insulation boards, corrugated iron and sand. He also fireproofed window frames through which the Dante units which spout flames to give the impression that a fire was raging inside. Powerful flares created a large aerial glow overhead.

Richardson ‘set fire’ to the City Hall 25 times during three nights of shooting, with city fire-fighters standing by.

 Los Angeles Fire Department was also on standby during the blaze sequences of The Towering Inferno (1974). Officials insisted that each blaze – created by propane pumped from valve-controlled hoses – lasted only 20 to 30 seconds.

Some 57 sets were built, including a five-story, full-scale section of the tower, and a 110ft (33m) tall model of the whole building. Four camera crews shot the movie in only 70 days, and no one was hurt except a studio fire chief who cut his hand on broken glass.

London firemen stood by when Cliff Richardson rigged a Thames-side warehouse with 50 liquid propane gas burners to re-create a Blitz scene for The Battle of Britain. Richardson described it as ‘one of upon to do.’ The disused warehouse, already damaged by a real fire, was flanked by others still in use.

The illusion of an entire city ablaze was created for the 1936 Clark Gable movie San Francisco. It also featured a spectacular and realistic earthquake, for which an entire set was built on a rocking platform. It shook up and down and shifted to and fro up to 3ft (1m). Houses and walls collapsed, roads cracked open and furniture smashed around in a 20 minute quake.

Of 400 extras who were required to stand on balconies which crashed down at the touch of a button, none was injured.

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Violence has been a feature of movies almost from the beginning – starting with the first silent film to tell a story, The Great Train Robbery (1903), a Western.

In the early days, bullets hitting walls, bottles or fences were actually fired by a marksmen using live ammunition. But it was potentially dangerous and other techniques to be developed.

For bullets splintering a wooden wall, detonator caps of gunpowder were inserted and exploded to synchronise with the gunshot. For bullet hits on people, a similar cap was attached to a metal plate that the actor wore under his clothing. The cap was electrically denoted by wires leading to a technician’s ‘keyboard’. But it could result in burns or lacerations from fragments.

So effects men developed the ‘squib’ – a small, smokeless, non-metallic, explosive charge. It can be denoted by small batteries strapped to the actor, by wires from a control board, or by radio control.

For her ‘death’ in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Faye Dunaway had scores of squibs concealed beneath her clothing. The effects man Danny Lee arranged them in sequences, and they were wired to an off-camera battery which detonated them in sequences. The car in which Bonnie was machine-gunned was first punched with holes into which squibs were inserted and then painted over. Faye Dunaway’s body shook with convulsions as the bullets peppered her. The scene was shot at high speed which played back normally gave the killing a slow, dreamlike quality.

The Wild Bunch (1969) made use of lots of fake blood. The effects man Bud Hulburd attached latex ‘blood bags’ to the squibs. The bags were filled with bright red, gelatine-based fluid. When the squibs burst the bags, the ‘blood’ spurted.

To create the effect of a spear, arrow or knife striking someone, the most common technique is to fire the projectile, which is hollow, along a wire from a compressed air device. The wire is attached to a metal plate strapped under the actor’s clothing. The spear speeds along the wire and thuds into a cork pad fixed to the plate.

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Whether they involve ancient galleys hurling balls of Greek Fire or Second World War battleships with blazing guns, naval scenes are usually filmed in a studio tank. The tank at 20th Century Fox studios in Hollywood, for example, is 360ft (110m) square. It was just for the Pearl Harbor sequences in Tora! Tora ! Tora! The effects supervisor, L.B. Abbott, won an Oscar for his work.

He explained: ‘To create the sequences where the Japanese fleet is seen battling a violent storm on its way to Pearl Harbor, we used just about every fan we could get our hands on.

‘To create foam for the storm-driven waves, it was necessary to add detergent to the water.

‘The conventional way of propelling models through a tank is to attach them to underwater cables. In the case of Tora! the models were fitted with engines from golf-carts. These worked satisfactorily in some scenes but were not suitable in the more violent storm sequences because the engines lacked sufficient power to drive the models through the tough water and we had to resort once again to cables.’

The giant ocean liner capsized by a huge wave in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) was a model. But for the chaotic scenes that ensued in the ship’s dining salon, a huge set was built. It could tit 30 degrees, while tilting cameras completed the illusion of the capsize. For the scenes in which the room appeared upside down, the same set was reversed from floor to ceiling.

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Explosions on screen come in many sizes – from the blowing up of models to the destruction of full sized buildings. The most common in war films are stimulated bombs and shells. Since actors and stunt men are usually involved, it is crucial that the explosions are safely carried out.

According to the British special-effects expert Cliff Richardson: ‘It’s surprising how close you can stand to a hole in the ground with several pounds of gelignite in it, which will blow a ton of earth into the air.’

One of Richardson’s biggest explosive jobs was during the making of The Battle of Britain (1969), when he and his team had to blow up a huge, sturdy aircraft hangar.

‘inside the hangar we had the partition walls knocked down to weaken the structure and this virtually left the roof of the hangar supported on 30 brick piers,’ Richardson said. ‘One hundred and fifty shot holes were drilled into the piers to receive the cartridges of explosives which were all lined together with Cordtex detonating fuse.

‘It was necessary to add a number of extra effects to make the shot spectacular. These included two “fougasse charges”, which are a type of mortar made, in this case, with 50 gallon drums of petrol which can be fired horizontally or vertically. I used one vertically to create a fireball effect through the roof of the hangar.

‘The hangar doors were taped with Cordtex and a mock-up Spitfire was suspended just inside. A horizontal fougasse was then positioned to produce the wall of fire which carried the Spitfire and the shattered doors across the roadways outside.’

In science-fiction movies, effects men are often called upon to blow up entire planets – as in Star Wars and Superman. A model of the planet is hung from the ceiling of a shooting stage and the camera shoots from below. When the charge goes off, the pieces fall towards the camera, creating the illusion of an explosion in space.

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Miniatures – often easier to build, manipulate and film than the real thing – can be anything from model cars and aircraft to entire cities and landscapes. The model battleships used so effectively in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) were 40ft (12m) long.

Moving miniatures are usually filmed with high-speed cameras, so that when the film is played back at normal speed, the movement looks more realistic. The movement of model ships in tanks of water, for example, is difficult to capture realistically. The same applies to ships’ wakes and ocean wave patterns. Slowing down the projected film helps to make models look more cumbersome, ponderous and realistic.

‘hanging miniatures’ are models suspended close to the camera to create the illusion that they are full-sized and being photographed from a distance. In the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), the villain’s jet-powered, flying car was, in long shots, a model bout 5ft (1.5m) long, with a wingspan of around 10ft (3m).

Many of the ‘outdoor’ scenes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), such as an Indiana landscape over which superimposed UFOs appeared, were meticulously constructed miniatures, with houses less than 1in (25mm) high.

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In the science-fiction thriller Alien (1979), the actor John Hurt has a sudden fit of violent coughing – and a hideous ‘baby’ alien bursts bloodily from his chest.

The illusion was created by the special-effects man Roger Dickens thrusting a puppet through a hole in a dummy torso.

Puppets have became popular with film makers to create terrifying creatures. Many are sophisticated pieces of engineering.

For Jaws (1975), three 25ft (7.6m) long sharks were built. One was pulled through the water on a type of sled, with scuba divers guiding it and working the fins and tail. The other two models were merely the left and right sides of a shark, to be filmed from only one side. They ran on an underwater rail and a hidden pivot arm enabled them to dive and surface.

The most endearing alien of all, ET (1982), was in fact several different ETs- three full-scale working models, a separate head and torso for close-ups and a midget actor in a costume.

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In the 1957 science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Man, the actor Grant Williams had to appear to shrink in size daily. Part of the film were made by building giant-sized sets, complete with outsized armchairs and tables. But in some scenes, as when Williams is chased by his cat – gigantic in comparison to him – a process called travelling matte was used.

In a similar way to a stationary matte painting, travelling matte involves creating a ‘hole’ in a film background, so that separately filmed action can be superimposed. But the travelling matte ‘hole’ has to shift position or change in size from frame to frame, to match the area wherever the actors or vehicles are required to move.

The system was used extensively in the Superman films, especially when Superman was required to fly long distances o to recede to a very small size.

The most commonly used method is the ‘blue screen’ process. actors, miniatures or other objects are filmed before a blue screen and the colour negative is then printed onto a black-and-white master, which captures only the blue area. The result is a film in which the background is clear, while the foreground action appears in silhouette.

This is the travelling matte. It is then run through an optical camera to mask the unwanted foreground, while the background film is exposed.

Thin blue line

This process is next reversed to mask the background when the foreground action is added to the negative. The film then contains both foreground and background footage combined on each frame.

Sometimes, a thin blue line or fringe is visible around the outline of the actor or model. But modern optical-effects technicians can now eliminate the line, which was caused by reflected light from the blue background screen.

Another – yet more laborious – method of creating a travelling matte was used by Stanley Kubrick for his spectacular film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

To superimpose film of space vehicles on that of backgrounds of stars would have resulted in the stars also showing up the images of the spaceships. To solve the problem, Kubrick needed to have spaceship-shaped holes that would move backgrounds – holes that would move around to match the movements of the various craft.

The oldest, most time consuming and costly method of creating travelling mattes was resorted to: painting spaceship silhouettes onto hundreds upon hundreds of frames of film.

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Any scenery, from the skyline of ancient Rome to an alien landscape, can be added to a film background by a matte painting – a technique used to mask part of a scene which will be added later. The technique evolved from glass painting, invented in the 1930s.

A scene was painted on a sheet of glass, placed in front of the camera so that it merged with the action being filmed. Later silent-film makers developed ‘in-the-camera’ matte. It involved shooting live action with part of the scene ‘matted out’ by black paint on a glass sheet in front of the camera.

The partially exposed film was rewound and transferred to another camera.

A frame of the film was projected onto an easel and an artist added what was required to the matted-out area, leaving the live action area black.

The two segments – painted scenery and live action – were then combined, using a special ‘optical printer’, invented by a Hollywood technician, Limewood Dunn, around 1930. A type of film copying machine capable of superimposing and blending different portions of film, it can create a variety of effects. They include dissolves (in which one scene seems to ‘melt’ or fade into another), wipes (a shot which sweeps off the screen to be simultaneously replaced by another), freeze frames (a pause in the action on one shot) and the combining of several, separately shot sequences.

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In 1922, the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – creator of Sherlock Holmes – showed a film of model dinosaur animation to the Society of American Magicians. It made headlines in The New York Times. DINOSAURS CAVORT IN FILM FOR DOYLE.

Conan Doyle did not explain to its astounded audience that the film had been shot using a technique which had already been used somewhat unconvincingly in other silent pictures – but greatly improved upon by the American effects technician Willis O’Brien. It was a sequence fro the movie of Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, which was released in 1925.

Models are made to move by exposing a single frame of film at a time and adjusting the model to a new position between each shot. When the film is projected at the normal speed, the model – a brontosaurus, giant ape or some other creature – seems to move naturally.

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The action sequences in Star Wars (1977), with speeding spaceships in dramatic dogfights, were achieved with models and never moved. In a technique called motion control, the camera does all the flying.

The effects supervisor John Dykstra wanted to avoid the time-consuming and costly method used in 2001: A space Odyssey. For that film, the camera remained fixed when models were moved past it. For a scene in which the spaceship Discovery travels through space, it was necessary to film the model many times.

This was so that other elements, such as crew members visible in portholes, and star backgrounds, could be incorporated. The model was 54ft (16.4m) long and each camera pass on its 150ft (45.7m) long track took four and a half hours.

Dykstra’s solution was to mount his model spaceships on rigid pylons coloured blue so that they would not show up against a blue screen background. The camera, mounted on a crane, travelled along a track. The crane man arm moved up and down and rotated, and the camera could tilt, take sweeping panoramic shots (a pan), and track (follow any object) in all directions. It was computer-controlled so that each movement could be duplicated precisely to film different images on each pas, using the same film each time. So laser flashes, exhaust glow, explosions and starry backgrounds all ended up on the film in their right positions.

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When mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent became the Man of Steel in Superman (1978), he was made to fly through the sky over Metropolis – through a technique called front projection.

It is the reverse of back projection. The background scene is projected onto a screen behind the actor. But it is beamed from the front. So how do they avoid the background scene showing on the actor?

A projector bounces a low-intensity background image, too dull to show on the actor, off a mirror, angled between projector and camera. The image is reflected back at the camera from a screen, the surface of which is composed of glass beads,. Which intensity the image. Because the light from the screen travels in straight lines, the actor’s shadow is masked by his body.

In the Superman flying sequences, the actor Christopher Reeve was supported by a hydraulic arm protruding fro the screen. Like his shadow, the arm was concealed from the camera by his body.

Zoom lenses on both camera and projector provided the illusion of movement and perspective.

One of the first film makers to use front projection effectively was Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A space Odyssey (1968). It provided the background scenery in the opening sequence of ape men.

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The giant ape King Kong crashes into the jungle clearing to find his female sacrificial victim tied between twin pillars. With one finger he unwinds her bonds, then picks her up and lumbers off, clutching her in his gigantic paw. In fact, for most of this scene in the film King Kong (1933), the ‘monster’ was a model, 18in (460mm) high.

The effect was achieved through a technique called back or rear projection, by beaming film of the ape and background scenery onto the back of a translucent screen, while the actress Fay Wray played her role in front.

The main sang with the system is that the back-projected image tends to look flatter and dimmer than the foreground action. This is because the amount of light penetrating the screen is less than the light illuminating the foreground action.

The system was improved in the 1940s with the development of the triple-head process. it involved one projector shining directly on the rear of the screen and two others on either side bouncing identical images from mirrors so that they were precisely superimposed. This technique produced a brighter picture.

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The traditional method of creating stage lightning is with a flash pot. A small charge of flash powder, containing the flammable metal magnesium, is ignited in a container by an electric spark.

Alternatively, photographic flash bulbs or carbon arc lamps may be used.

Forked lightning can be simulated by projecting a photographic slide of a lightning flash onto ‘sky’ scenery.

Most flash effects on stage are controlled by the fire regulations.

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Three ancient comes gather on a heath. Thunder rolls, lightning flashes. Wispy, white mist swirls. Bit it is an illusion for a theatre performance of Macbeth.

One of the simplest way to create ‘fog’ or mist is with dry ice – solid carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide is a gas which turns liquid when cooled under pressure. If the pressure is removed and the low temperature maintained , CO2 solidifies into snowlike crystals which can be compressed into dry ice cakes.

Then, if a lump of the substance is removed from its refrigerated container and immersed in hot water, it rapidly turns to mist. The fog-making process can be better controlled by a dry-ice machine. This consists of a closed tank with an opening from which the vapour billows. A hose attached to the opening is used to direct the ‘fog’.

For a lighter fog, which will hover, non-toxic oil is vaporised by a heating element in a fog machine. Fog produced from oil tends to linger longer than dry-ice mist which vanishes quickly.

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Smiling broadly – and chatting with a dummy seated on his knee – a ventriloquist exercises his art with breath control and the movement of his tongue.

In order to throw his voice, and make it appear that the dummy is talking, he breathes in deeply and forms his words in the usual way. However, he retracts his tongue, moving only its tip. This lifts and shrinks the larynx (the organ in the windpipe containing the vocal cords), narrows the glottis (the opening between the vocal cords), and puts pressure on the cords. In turn, this muffles and diffuses the sound – making it seem to come from another direction.

He distracts the audience by activating the dummy’s eyes and head with hidden strings and levers, and by moving its mouth in time with the words. His broad smile – which appears to be in response to the dummy’s ‘chatter’ – allows him to talk easily without noticeably moving his lips.

Vowel sounds can easily be pronounced without moving the lips. But consonants – particularly b, p and m – are much more difficult to say. That is why ventriloquists use animal or schoolchild dummies, whose ‘voices’ can be distorted or unformed.

To suggest a voice coming from a distance, a ventriloquists presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, allowing very little of the voice to emerge. With his tongue in the same position., he uses a deep. Harsh voice to suggest that it is coming from, say, the inside of a box – and a sharp, shrill voice to suggest it is coming from a ceiling or roof top.

The word ‘ventriloquist’ come from two Latin words: venter meaning ‘belly’, and loqui, meaning ‘to speak’. The Romans thought that vocal sounds came from the belly; and their sorcerers threw their voices when prophesying the future.

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Blindfolded and with his hands pressed to his forehead, the mind-reader prepares to give a demonstration of his power of ‘second sight’. His smiling girl assistant interviews a subject in the audience – for instance, a prosperous looking woman – and the magician proceeds to reveal all sorts of personal things about her.

In respinse to his assistant’s clearly voiced questions, he states that the subject’s first name is ‘Betty’. She is married and her nationality is America. The article which his assistant is holding up – and which, of course, he cannot see – is the woman’s diamond wristwatch, a Rolex, and on the back of it are engraved the words: ‘From Robert, with all my love.’

Two part code

The secret of the mind reader’s act is a two part code, transmitted in the seemingly innocent questions put to him by his assistant. One part of the code transposes the letters of the alphabet, then uses them to spell out words. In the case of the woman called Betty B is I; E is C; T is P; and Y is N. The term ‘Hurry up’, means ‘repeat the last letter’. So to transmit the name ‘Betty’ to the mind reader, the assistant starts each of her questions to him with the appropriate initial letter.

‘I have a name here,’ she calls out. ‘Can you tell what it is?’ ‘Please try.’ ‘Hurry up!’ ‘Now have you got it?’ In other words, the name is B-e-t-t-y.

The second part of the code consist of tables which cover everything from the contents of people’s pockets to their favourite foods. The number of tables is limited only by the memories of the magician and his assistant. Each table contains about a dozen alternatives, and magician is told which table is coming up by the assistant’s opening question. Betty’s marital status, nationality and the description of her wristwatch are conveyed by means of the tables.

Personal possessions

For instance, when the assistant asks ‘What kind of article is this?’, the mind reader knows that by using this particular sentence she is referring to the table covering expensive personal possessions.

Her next question, ‘Can you say what I’m holding?’ begins with the third letter of the alphabet – and the third article in the table is a lady’s watch. The fact that it is a diamond Rolex is similarly conveyed by means of one or more of the table for the message and another for the name.

If, however, her husband’s first name us an unusual one – and is not in the relevant table – the assistant simply ignores it.

Mind-reading by code was devised in the mid 19th century by the French magician Robert-Houdin, whose skills inspired the American illusionist Houdini.

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On the night of Saturday, March 23, 1918, the packed audience at the Wood Green Empire, in north London, awaited the climax of Chung Ling Soo’s magic act – in which he ‘caught’ two speeding bullets between his teeth and then spat them onto a china plate.

A hush felt as two assistants – one of them Soo’s Oriental-looking wife – loaded their rifles with circular lead bullets marked by two members of the audience. They took aim, fired – and, instead of the sound of bullets pinging onto the plate, a bullet struck Chung Ling Soo in the chest. It passed through his body and lodged in the scenery. Clutching his chest, the magician staggered backwards into the wings. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died the next day, aged 58.

Soo – who was actually a New Yorker named William Ellsworth Robinson and was married to an Englishwoman – had successfully performed his ‘Catching the Bullets’ illusion hundreds of times in theatres on both sides of the Atlantic. Each of his muzzle-loading rifles had a steel tube fitted under the barrel to hold the ramrod when it was not being used. It was the ramrod tube – filled with a blank charge – that was actually fired, not the barrel itself.

The trick with the marked bullets was even more ingenious. Carrying two unmarked bullets in a cup, a girl assistant went down into the audience and asked two people to scratch marks on the. The cup had a false bottom containing another pair of bullets already marked by Chung Ling Soo. It was these that were loaded into the rifles by two more members of the audience on stage. The other two marked bullets remained in the cup.

The magician had a third pair of bullets, which he had also marked, hidden in his mouth. When the rifles were fired, he spat his two bullets onto the plate – and showed them to the members of the audience on stage. They confirmed that the bullets had the marks on them – although, of course, they did not know whose. The girl put the bullets into the cup and went back down into the stalls. Operating the trick bottom for a second time, she showed the first two volunteers the bullets they had marked and which had never left the cup.

The stunt seemed foolproof. But on the fatal night the exploding percussion cap in one of the rifles accidentally ignited both the blank charge in the ramrod tube and the live charge in the barrel. Constant use had damaged the insides of the weapons so that the fine gunpowder worked its way from the ramrod tube into the barrel.

The fault lay with Chung Ling Soo, who – afraid of sharing his secrets with a gunsmith – had insisted on servicing the rifles himself.

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