I watch the program “Mythbusters” on the Discovery Channel and the hosts’ original job (before they started that TV show) was making special effects in movies. It’s cool if you know how to make a certain special effect in a movie. For example, a car in movies always explodes in a giant fireball. How do you do that? Pour a few buckets of petrol into the car and light it…
Answer
There are different kinds of ‘special effects’. What you are referring to works with real fire and real cars and stuff, but the effects are filmed with different cameras and then “stitched” where one can magnify the fire effects enormously compared to the objects. You sometimes see that in older films, where the “raging sea” is actually an enlarged bucket 🙂
Nowadays, more and more effects are no longer actually performed and filmed at all, but simulated on a computer.
So: the two fields of study that bring you closest to special effects are computer science (to program graphically realistic simulations) and mechanical engineering (to best understand the realism value of the special effects and convert them into mathematical formulas that the computer scientist can then use start programming).
Answered by
Professor Herman Bruyninckx
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
.