Since the early days of Cinema special effects played an important role and appeared as a valuable mean of expression for this newborn art.

First the introduction of Television and later the arrival of the digital era made special effects much more relevant in production and post-production and at the same time made them more understandable to the public at large.

Furthermore, the development of new technologies, the transition from an analog to a digital world still in progress, the widespread presence of the web, the growth of cross-media and several other events make the knowledge of special effects (SFX) and visual effects (VFX) highly relevant, since new professions are now needed, not only in the film or television industries.

The course intends to provide overall basic tools to understand what is needed to work in this area, and how to meet the requirements to do it.

More in detail, the purpose of this course is to explain the main principles of making SFX and VFX from the technological as well as the artistic viewpoint, using several examples; also, it wants to make the students aware of what is needed in terms of software and hardware to produce a particular effect, how long it can take, which kind of budget and, most of all, which professional skills are involved in the production process.

Most of the course will take place in the Lab, where the students, divided in small groups, will produce a specific effect, which will be part of a bigger project of Story-telling.

Particular care will be given to future developments and current research.

- Adobe production studio premium (Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Encore DVD, Audition, Photoshop, Illustrator)
- Maya PLE

Mitch Mitchell - Visual Effects for Film and Television - Focal Press, 2004

Réjane Hamus-Vallée - Gli effetti speciali. Forma e ossessione del cinema ' Lindau- Collana Strumenti. Cahiers cinema, 2006

Giulietta Fara e Andrea Romeo - Vita da pixel. Effetti speciali e animazione digitale -
Il Castoro, Gli imprevisti, 2000

Vittorio Storaro - Scrivere con la luce - Electa, 2002
Vari articoli e white papers in prevalenza dell'ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).