Randy Lindsay

Dan Wells

Wendy Nikel

Edward Ahern

Gustavo Bondoni

D. J. Butler

Vonnie Winslow Crist

Emily Martha Sorensen

Liam Hogan

Stephen McQuiggan

J. D. Robinson

Joe Vasicek

Jenean McBrearty

Rachel Lewis

Kelly A. Harmon

Jude Reid

Victoria Lisowski

Bob Rehak

David J. West

Donna J. W. Munro

Michelle Ann King

Steve DuBois

Ralph Benton

Bill Housley

Scott R. Parkin

Kirk Eckstine

Mike Munsil

Jeanna Mason Stay

S. B. Houghton

Nate Givens

Kary English

Twilight Tales

A rare look at the role of special effects in creating fictional worlds and transmedia franchises From comic book universes crowded with soaring superheroes and shattering skyscrapers to cosmic empires set in far-off galaxies, today’s fantasy blockbusters depend on visual effects. Bringing science fiction from the studio to your screen, through film, television, or video games, these special effects power our entertainment industry. More Than Meets the Eye delves into the world of fantastic media franchises to trace the ways in which special effects over the last 50 years have become central not just to transmedia storytelling but to worldbuilding, performance, and genre in contemporary blockbuster entertainment. More Than Meets the Eye maps the ways in which special effects build consistent storyworlds and transform genres while traveling from one media platform to the next. Examining high-profile franchises in which special effects have played a constitutive role such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as more contemporary franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter, Bob Rehak analyzes the ways in which production practices developed alongside the cultural work of industry professionals. By studying social and cultural factors such as fan interaction, this book provides a context for understanding just how much multiplatform storytelling has come to define these megahit franchises. More Than Meets the Eye explores the larger history of how physical and optical effects in postwar Hollywood laid the foundation for modern transmedia franchises and argues that special effects are not simply an adjunct to blockbuster filmmaking, but central agents of an entire mode of production.

Special Effects and the Fantastic Transmedia Franchise

More Than Meets the Eye

Dan North

Michael S. Duffy

As blockbusters employ ever greater numbers of dazzling visual effects and digital illusions, this book explores the material roots and stylistic practices of special effects and their makers. Gathering leading voices in cinema and new media studies, this comprehensive anthology moves beyond questions of spectacle to examine special effects from the earliest years of cinema, via experimental film and the Golden Age of Hollywood, to our contemporary transmedia landscape. Wide-ranging and accessible, this book illuminates and interrogates the vast array of techniques film has used throughout its history to conjure spectacular images, mediate bodies, map worlds and make meanings. Foreword by Scott Bukatman, with an Afterword by Lev Manovich.

New Histories, Theories, Contexts

Special Effects

Bob Rehak

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