2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2018–2024score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Recommended as a succinct documentary on motion control and practical-effects ingenuity.
Captain Disillusion explains the visual effects behind the Back to the Future trilogy. He covers ILM's motion-control, computer-controlled camera work and clever pre-CGI tricks.
“is a really good yet succinct documentary on it” (HN, 2020)
One solution to this would be to put the camera on a fixture that replays the same motions every time, so they can do a 'dry run' and correct the rendering. (Putting a camera on a fixture is not new, IIRC they did it in Back to the Future - [this video] is a really good yet succinct documentary on it)
Succinct documentary on camera fixtures in Back to the Future
And if you're an HN reader and already know and love Back to the Future, then the Captain Disillusion's 2 part YouTube video about how the visual effects used ground breaking computer control of cameras to advance the state of the art is a good recommendation: [this video]
How Back to the Future pioneered computer-controlled cameras
There was an electro-mechanical landing simulator for the Space Shuttle, which "flew" a video camera over a miniature landscape. Unfortunately, it's very hard to search for, because of all of the Space Shuttle simulator products. EDIT: The lack of references to those electro-mechanical video landing simulators is pretty dramatic. They came at the brief period of time when computers were powerful enough to enable very sophisticated motion control, but too weak for real time 3D simulation. For a brief period of time, they were rare and valuable equipment, then quickly became obsolete junk. There are simply no references to them which show that mechanism! For an example of that period's motion control as used in VFX: [this video] Can anyone help find a reference?
Example of period motion control in visual effects
Computers were also used to control the physical camera. Captain Disallusionment does a video on Back to the Future special effects when he talks about how this was the era before CGI but that used computer controlled cameras to achieve certain special effects. [this video]
Computer-controlled cameras in Back to the Future effects
We gave it up for slightly higher profit margins enabled by hiring slightly less qualified programmers at a slightly lower rate. In a similar vein, Industrial Light and Magic used to have a few highly talented people crafting incredibly intelligent solutions to make their movies possible: [this video] By now, most of those effects would instead be done using CGI and outsourced to Asia.
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