Section A Practice

‘Visual effects are a main attraction for audiences.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

Visual effects are an element of film which can invite an audience solely on the fact that the audience likes the thrill of the fantasy environment. To some, visual effects can be a significant role in the film and can decipher whether the audience can get lost within the fantasy world or not. Films such as Life of Pi and Prometheus give evidence that visual effects can attract a wide audience but there are also arguments against this.

Evidence from the film Life of Pi includes the film grossing over $580 million worldwide and winning  awards such as Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects can tell us that the film was successful but doesn’t tell us that the visual effects were what made the film successful. Although the film may have astounding visual effects, this may not be the reason that the film was successful. We also know that the film was based off a well known book, therefore providing the film with an existing audience. We also know the film had a budget of around $120 million so the marketing campaign would be well done and the cinematography would also appeal to a wider audience.

Westenhofer’s quote simply tells us that visual effects are good at fooling the audience into thinking they're looking at something real when they aren’t. This doesn’t tell us that this particular film was effective on it’s release because of the visual effects. We know that Ang Lee appreciates the special effects technicians that worked on his film but we also know this is a significant part of the film. Visual effects can be seen as an attraction for the audience and can be seen as a feature that can improve a film’s overall quality. We know films can be congratulated from having outstanding visual effects as the 2014, Christopher Nolan film Interstellar won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. This is significant as it further cements the importance of VFX in modern day film’s and their success.

However, the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project is a direct counter to this argument. With a budget of only $20,000 and little visual effects. The main attraction of this cult horror film would be the sheer fear factor that the storyline produced. In my opinion I think that the fact this film is a psychological horror is important because the lack of visual effects can force the audience to produce their own idea of the monster/spirit that is killing the characters off. This is evidence that a film should not only rely on the visual effects to become successful. However this film could be countered with the argument that it is a relatively old film in terms of visual effects. Due to it being produced in the late 1990s. We know that visual effects weren’t as effective in that time compared to how advanced they are in modern films.

Although we cannot compare The Blair Witch Project and Life of Pi in this manner due to the time difference between them which causes the advancement of visual effects and how important they become to the audience. I think although visual effects can be a highly significant feature of modern films and attracting an audience but we cannot assume that this is the main reason it attracts these audiences.