Written by: Kaja Sunde

Positioned as number 59 on IMDB’s top 100 greatest films of all time, Avengers: Infinity War gained tremendous recognition upon its premiere. With both visual and special effects spectacularly created throughout the film, gaining nominations and awards, the film consists of an impressive level of these effects.

Before diving into the film’s example, we shall look into the difference of special and visual effects:

• Visual effects (VFX) is used to describe imagery that is created, manipulated or enhanced for films and moving images, and does not take place during live-action shooting (Maio 2021).
• Special effects (SFX) are the visual tricks and techniques that filmmakers in motion pictures and visual mediums use to create an illusion. This illusion may be impractical or even impossible in a live-action shot; furthermore, these effects can include mechanical effects, prosthetic makeup and motion-capture photography (MasterClass.com 2021). 

The Thanos vs Everybody scene from Infinity War consists of both VFX and SFX, with a great level of manipulations, mechanical effects and creative illusions, in order to create the extraterrestrial environment intended:

As Steven Shaviro states, mentioned in Scott Bukatman’s article from 2003:

‘Cinema is at once a form of perception and a material perceived, a new way of encountering reality and a part of the reality thereby discovered’ (Bukatman 2003: 113).

In the example scene from Infinity War, a new reality, and, in addition, a new encounter of such reality, is created. Although discussion of the negative and positive aspects of VFX and SFX in films blooms with the development of it, one cannot deny the rescuer of it: VFX and SFX works greatly as a tool for films that so desperately need a certain power shot or sequence, which could not have been created physically (McClean 2011: 67). Furthermore, the world created in films such as Avengers, Interstellar (2014), and Star Wars (1977) would simply not exist if it weren’t for the emergence and development of VFX and SFX throughout the years.

References:

Bukatman, S. (2003): Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century

Duke Universtiy Press, Durham N.C., ISBN 0822331322, 0822331195

Maio, A. (2021): What is VFX? Defining the Term and Creating Impossible Worlds

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-vfx/ Retrieved 23rd of November 2022 (Online).

MasterClass.com (2021): Special Effects in Film: A Brief History of Special Effects

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/special-effects#2mG5RpYRBvITtygtFUW0Jy Retrieved 23rd of November 2022 (Online).

McClean, S. (2011): Digital Storytelling: The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film

Journal of Film and Video, (63:1), 67-69, URL https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jfilmvideo.63.1.0067