The history
130 years of real tricks on real sets, from a dummy swapped mid-shot in 1895 to a real jumbo jet crashed for Tenet.
Almost as soon as films could be shown, film-makers learned to fool the camera: stop it, swap something, start again. Craftspeople then built mirrors, miniatures, puppets, rotating rooms and mechanical monsters, while stunt teams learned to make danger look real and stay safe. Computers took over many shots in the 1990s, but lots of directors still prefer effects you can touch, because actors and audiences can feel the difference.
1895
First film special effect (stop trick)
Alfred Clark, The Execution of Mary Stuart
1896
Méliès's first substitution splice
Georges Méliès, The Vanishing Lady
1927
Mirror-and-miniature shots in camera
Eugen Schüfftan, Metropolis
1937
India's first credited trick photographer
Babubhai Mistry, Khwab Ki Duniya
1940
First competitive Special Effects Oscar
Fred Sersen and E. H. Hansen, The Rains Came
1959
Largest film set built at the time
Ben-Hur chariot arena, 18 acres
1967
Honorary Oscar for stunt safety devices
Yakima Canutt
1977
Motion-control camera for model shots
John Dykstra and ILM, Star Wars
1982
First competitive Makeup Oscar
Rick Baker, An American Werewolf in London
1895 – 1926
Stop the camera, swap something, start again. Magicians and early film-makers discover that the camera can be fooled.
1895
28 August 1895
The Execution of Mary Stuart lasts about 18 seconds. Just before the axe falls, the camera was stopped, the actor was swapped for a dummy, and filming started again. On screen the swap is invisible.
Why it mattered. It is the first known film to use a special effect, the stop trick or substitution splice.
1896
Stage magician Georges Méliès filmed a trick where a woman under a cloth vanishes and a skeleton appears. He used the substitution splice instead of a trapdoor. Méliès later said he found the trick when his camera jammed, but historians think he probably saw it in an Edison film first.
Why it mattered. Méliès turned a simple camera trick into a way of doing real magic on film.
1896
September 1896 onwards
Méliès built a glass-walled studio in his garden so that sunlight could flood in for filming. Inside he built painted sets, trapdoors and stage machinery, just like a theatre.
Why it mattered. It was one of the first buildings made for creating film effects on purpose.
1902
A Trip to the Moon used painted scenery, costumes, stage machines and camera tricks to send explorers to the Moon. The shot of the capsule landing in the Moon's face became one of the most famous images in film history.
Why it mattered. It showed that effects could carry a whole story, not just a single surprise.
1927 – 1959
Big studios hire effects departments. Mirrors, miniatures, stop-motion puppets, fake storms and huge sets become a craft of their own.
1927
January 1927
For Metropolis, Schüfftan placed a specially made mirror at an angle in front of the camera. Part of the mirror reflected a small model city, and part was scraped clear so the camera could see real actors behind it. In one shot, actors seemed to stand inside giant buildings.
Why it mattered. The Schüfftan process joined miniatures and live actors in the camera itself, and was still used decades later.
1933
2 March 1933
The Kong that climbs the skyscraper was a puppet only about 14 to 18 inches tall, made of a metal skeleton padded with cotton, latex and rabbit fur. O'Brien's team moved it a tiny bit for every frame, a method called stop-motion. For close-ups they also built a giant mechanical head covered in bearskins.
Why it mattered. It proved a puppet could become a movie star that audiences cared about.
1937
For the film Khwab Ki Duniya, Babubhai Mistry made objects seem to move on their own by using black threads that the camera could not see. People nicknamed him Kala Dhaga, meaning black thread. He went on to direct mythological films full of trick photography.
Why it mattered. He is remembered as Indian cinema's first credited trick photographer.
1939
In Stagecoach, stuntman Yakima Canutt dropped from a moving coach, passed beneath the horses and climbed back on. He also invented safety gear for stunt riders, such as special stirrups and cable systems for controlled falls.
Why it mattered. Canutt showed that great stunts are planned and engineered, not just brave.
1939
August 1939
For The Wizard of Oz, Gillespie's team tried a rubber cone first, but it was too stiff. The final twister was a long muslin sock, about 35 feet according to accounts, hung from a moving crane and twisted as it moved. Dust and wind machines finished the effect.
Why it mattered. A simple piece of fabric became one of the most convincing storms in film history.
1940
29 February 1940
At the 12th Academy Awards, honouring films of 1939, the Academy gave its first competitive award for Special Effects. It went to The Rains Came, a film with a huge earthquake and flood.
Why it mattered. Effects work was now officially recognised as its own art.
1951
March 1951
In Royal Wedding, Fred Astaire seems to dance up the walls and across the ceiling. The whole room was built inside a turning drum, and the camera was fixed to it so it turned with the room. On screen, the room looks still and Astaire looks weightless.
Why it mattered. A rotating set tricks your sense of up and down without any camera trickery at all.
1959
November 1959
Ben-Hur's chariot race was filmed on an arena covering 18 acres, the largest film set ever built at that time. The race took five weeks of filming spread over three months. The film went on to win 11 Oscars, including one for special effects.
Why it mattered. It set the standard for real, full-size action that audiences still compare against.
1960 – 1989
Rubber, foam latex and machinery bring creatures to life. Stunts and sets grow bigger, and hard lessons make safety part of the job.
1960
5 August 1960
For Mughal-e-Azam, a Sheesh Mahal set about 150 feet long was covered in small Belgian glass mirrors made by workers from Firozabad. It took two years to build. Cinematographer R. D. Mathur tamed the glare with wax on the mirrors and cloth strips to bounce the light for the song Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya.
Why it mattered. It shows how a set and clever lighting can be a special effect on their own.
1963
In Jason and the Argonauts, seven skeleton puppets fight real actors with swords. Harryhausen animated them frame by frame and blended them with the live footage using his Dynamation method. The sequence took over four months to animate.
Why it mattered. It became the most famous stop-motion scene ever, and inspired a generation of film-makers.
1968
April 1968
For 2001: A Space Odyssey, engineers built a real rotating wheel about 38 feet across and weighing around 30 tons. Actors walked at the bottom while the wheel turned, so they seemed to run all the way round the ship. It cost about 750,000 dollars.
Why it mattered. It made fake gravity look real by actually turning the whole set.
1969
April 1969
Make-up artist John Chambers designed the ape faces for Planet of the Apes, letting actors speak and show emotion through the rubber. There was no make-up Oscar yet, so the Academy gave him an honorary award.
Why it mattered. It showed that make-up effects deserved their own prize, which came in 1982.
1973
December 1973
For The Exorcist, Dick Smith created shocking make-up and body effects for Linda Blair's character. He made masks in several separate pieces instead of one, so actors' faces could move naturally. A young Rick Baker assisted him on the film.
Why it mattered. The way prosthetics are stuck onto faces today comes largely from Smith's methods.
1975
20 June 1975
Mattey's team built three full-size mechanical sharks powered by air pressure, nicknamed Bruce after Spielberg's lawyer. In salt water the foam skin soaked up water, hoses corroded and frames cracked. The shoot grew from 55 planned days to 159.
Why it mattered. Because the shark rarely worked, Spielberg hid it, and the suspense made Jaws scarier.
1975
15 August 1975
The famous train robbery in Sholay was filmed on a real railway line near Panvel, with riders chasing a moving train. According to accounts of the production, the sequence took more than seven weeks to film.
Why it mattered. It showed Indian audiences that home-grown action could match any Western on screen.
1977
1975–1977
For Star Wars, Lucas set up Industrial Light & Magic in a warehouse in 1975. Its team filmed small model spaceships with the Dykstraflex, a computer-controlled camera that could repeat the same move exactly. The film won six Oscars in 1978, including one for visual effects.
Why it mattered. Motion control let many models be filmed separately and combined into one huge battle.
1979
May 1979
Alien's monster was designed by artist H. R. Giger and brought to life with costumes, puppets and mechanical effects. The team won the Oscar for visual effects. Much of the creature stays in shadow, so your imagination fills in the rest.
Why it mattered. It proved a practical creature, shown carefully, can be scarier than one shown in full.
1982
29 March 1982
At the 54th Academy Awards, Rick Baker won the first competitive Oscar for Best Makeup for An American Werewolf in London (1981). The man-to-wolf change happens in bright light, using stretching rubber skin and mechanical parts. Baker went on to win seven make-up Oscars, a record.
Why it mattered. Make-up effects finally had an award of their own every year.
1982
June 1982
Rob Bottin was just 21 when he led the creature effects for The Thing. He worked for more than a year without a day off and ended up in hospital from exhaustion. Stan Winston helped with one creature and asked that Bottin take the credit.
Why it mattered. Its gooey, impossible creatures are still held up as a high point of hand-made effects.
1982
23 July 1982
During night filming, a helicopter crashed after being hit by debris from special effects explosions. Actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed. Afterwards studios and unions set up safety committees, safety bulletins and hotlines, and aviation rules were extended to film helicopters.
Why it mattered. Modern film sets treat safety as the first rule of any effect, partly because of this loss.
1990 – 2009
Computers arrive, but the best films mix them with real robots, models and make-up so each covers the other's weak spots.
1993
June 1993
Stan Winston's team built a full-size robotic T. rex, about 40 feet long and reported to weigh around 9,000 pounds, moved by powerful hydraulics under latex skin. It shared the screen with new computer-made dinosaurs from ILM. The robot was used for close shots, and the computer dinosaurs for running and full-body shots.
Why it mattered. Jurassic Park showed that real robots and CGI work best together.
2001
2001–2003
For The Lord of the Rings, Wētā Workshop built huge, detailed models of places like Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep, some very large. The team called them bigatures. Computers then added armies and blended the models with live action.
Why it mattered. Real models give light and detail that early digital sets struggled to match.
2010 – today
Some directors go back to real vehicles, real sets and real explosions, filmed safely, and use computers mostly to tidy up.
2010
July 2010
For Inception, a 100-foot hotel corridor was built inside an old airship hangar. It hung on eight giant rings and could be turned a full circle by two big electric motors. Actors really fought while the room rolled around them.
Why it mattered. It updated the rotating-room idea from Royal Wedding and 2001 for a modern action film.
2015
May 2015
The team built around 150 working vehicles for the desert chases, and only 88 survived filming. Stunt coordinator Guy Norris led more than 150 stunt performers. The film is reported to have done about 90 per cent of its effects for real, then won six Oscars.
Why it mattered. It proved that real vehicles and real stunts could still thrill audiences in the CGI age.
2020
August 2020
For Tenet, the film-makers found that buying a real Boeing 747 was cheaper than building models and adding visual effects. The plane was rolled into a building at an airport, under tight control. Special effects supervisor Scott Fisher oversaw the scene.
Why it mattered. Sometimes the real thing is both cheaper and more convincing than faking it.
2023
July 2023
To show the Trinity test in Oppenheimer, the effects team filmed big, carefully controlled fuel explosions at night. They also filmed small experiments with metal particles, balloons and water tanks. Clever camera work made them look vast.
Why it mattered. It showed how scale can be faked with real footage instead of computer images.
Did you know?
The first film special effect, in 1895, was simply stopping the camera and swapping an actor for a dummy.
King Kong's famous puppet was only about 14 to 18 inches tall.
The Wizard of Oz tornado was a long sock of muslin cloth, not a real storm.
Jaws's mechanical shark was nicknamed Bruce after Steven Spielberg's lawyer.
Breakaway glass used to be made from sugar; professional sets now mostly use special brittle plastic resin.
The set for Ben-Hur's chariot race covered 18 acres.
Mughal-e-Azam's mirror palace set took two years to build.
Rick Baker holds the record for most make-up Oscars, with seven.
For Tenet, buying a real Boeing 747 was cheaper than faking the crash with models and computers.
The people
1861 – 1938 · Magician and film-maker · France
Made over 500 films full of camera tricks, including A Trip to the Moon.
1893 – 1977 · Cinematographer · Germany
Invented the mirror trick used in Metropolis; later won an Oscar for The Hustler.
1886 – 1962 · Stop-motion animator · USA
Animated King Kong and taught Ray Harryhausen.
1899 – 1978 · MGM effects chief · USA
Made the Wizard of Oz tornado and won an Oscar for Ben-Hur.
1918 – 2010 · Trick photographer and director · India
Nicknamed Kala Dhaga for his black-thread tricks; later advised TV's Ramayan and Mahabharat.
1895 – 1986 · Stuntman and action director · USA
Invented stunt safety gear and directed Ben-Hur's chariot race with Andrew Marton.
1920 – 2013 · Stop-motion animator · USA
Created the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts.
1922 – 2014 · Make-up artist · USA
Invented multi-piece prosthetics; worked on The Exorcist and won an Oscar for Amadeus.
born 1950 · Make-up effects artist · USA
Won the first competitive make-up Oscar and seven in all.
1946 – 2008 · Creature and animatronics designer · USA
Built the Terminator, the Alien Queen and Jurassic Park's T. rex.
born 1943 · Special effects supervisor · UK
Shared the visual effects Oscar for Alien.
born 1958 · Special effects supervisor · UK
Built Inception's rotating hallway and worked on 15 James Bond films.
Where it happened
Sources
Dates marked “c.” are approximate, and historians sometimes disagree about who was first. If you spot a mistake, tell us.
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