DIGITAL STORYTELLING - THE NARRATIVE POWER OF VISUAL EFFECTS IN FILM

Computer-generated effects are often blamed for bad Hollywood movies. Yet when a critic complains that "technology swamps storytelling" (in a review of Van Helsing, calling it "an example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood computer-generated effects movies"), it says more about the weakness of the story than the strength of the technology. In 'Digital Storytelling', Shilo McClean shows how digital visual effects can be a tool of storytelling in film, adding narrative power as do sound, color, and "experimental" camera angles--other innovative film technologies that were once criticized for being distractions from the story. It is time, she says, to rethink the function of digital visual effects.