Overturning conventional wisdom that digital effects have taken over Hollywood and destroyed good storytelling, McClean shows that the classical art of storytelling is very much alive in contemporary film and that it shapes and motivates the use of digital effects, not vice versa. Drawing on her professional experience as a script editor and visual effects consultant, her analysis of the interplay between narrative and visual effects is sophisticated and clearly presented, and includes case studies of films such as Alien, The Lord of the Rings, and Hero. Smart, compelling, and incisive, Digital Storytelling is an essential text that will change the debate over the place of digital effects in contemporary film.
Stephen Prince, Professor of Communication, Virginia Tech
This is an important book for screenwriters. Shilo McClean provides a thoughtful study of the role of digital visual effects in filmmaking, and she does so in a manner that challenges, provokes, and inspires the writer to embrace the technology in order to liberate the imagination. I recommend this work to all my students, as well as to any aspiring screenwriter.
Paul Thompson, Associate Professor, Department of Film and Television, New York University, and former Head of Film and Television, Austrailian Film, Television and Radio School
Engaging and insightful, well-researched and intelligent, McClean's book effectively chronicles the development of, and increasing reliance on, digital visual effects, the use of which is now virtually indespensible to the filmmaking process. More important, she contextualizes the use of visual effects as an evolving set of techniques that, while greatly expanding the possibilities for contemporary filmmaking, remain simply another powerful set of tools in the service of the ancient art of storytelling and mythmaking. Essential for 21st century filmmakers.
Mike Chambers, Visual Effects Producer
Shilo T. McClean, in her Digital Storytelling: The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film, agrees with much of what we have claimed about the survival of classical filmmaking.... She builds upon our case by examining systematically and imaginatively the question of whether digital special effects support narrative interest. McClean convincingly demonstrates that DVFx (digital visual effects), as she terms them, are used in an enormous variety of ways, and most of these help to tell classically constructed stories.... McClean asks questions of aesthetic import, and she treats films as artworks—some good, some bad, but all to be taken seriously as evidence for her case.
Kristin Thompson
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