Computers in Film

Movie Review of The Mask

One of my favorites movies would have to be The Mask (1994) starring Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey plays a man by the name of Stanley Ipkiss who is a bank clerk who is a pushover and is in love with a lounge singer (Cameron Diaz). “Stanley Ipkiss is a bank clerk that is an incredibly nice man. Unfortunately, he is too nice for his own good and is a pushover when it comes to confrontations. After one of the worst days of his life, he finds a mask that depicts Loki, the Norse night god of mischief. Now, when he puts it on, he becomes his inner, self: a cartoony romantic wild man. However, a small time crime boss, Dorian Tyrel, comes across this character dubbed "The Mask" by the media. After Ipkiss's alter ego indirectly kills his friend in crime, Tyrel now wants this green-faced goon destroyed,” http://imdb.com/title/tt0110475/).

While watching this movie the special effects made the movie good and funny. For example after Stanley finds the mask in the ocean and brings it back to his apartment, he debates about whether or not he should put it on. When he finally does there is smoke and he begins to spin in a tornado. Every time he puts on the mask the same thing happens. When the villain Dorian (Peter Greene) gets a hold of the mask and puts in on they show cloud and thunder to show the evil of him.

The special effects were developed mostly by Christopher Gilman Global Effects Inc. who had the prop masks, Cinelease who had additional production equipment provided, Columbia Records soundtrack published and EFX Systems digital sound and re-recording

The effects of this movie were much better than in the movie called Ace Ventura: Pet Detective which Jim Carrey also stars in. This movie really didn’t have any special effects since Ace Ventura: Pet Detective he man role is to find a stolen dolphin mascot of a football team. The effects of The Mask and another movie called The Number 23 were both good. In this movie Jim Carrey character is going nuts because he realizes that everything adds up to be the number 23. The special effects are shown by scene after another screen is flashbacks.

Three Facts that I learned:

The first fact I learned is how blue screens work. “This technique allows actors and scale models to find themselves in totally imaginary situations,” (http://www.howstuffworks.com/blue-screen.htm). This technique is used so often.

The second fact I learned is what morphing is. “Morphing is the process of transforming one image into another. Here you'll find information about morphing, Macintosh and PC software programs for creating morph animations and movies, plus examples and galleries of morph transformations and distortions,” (http://graphicssoft.about.com).

The third fact I learned is what fizt is. To be honest I have never heard of fizt before. “Fizt is an animation program that can speed up the production of special effects in some cases by a factor of more than 150 to 1 -- and can also make the effects appear more life-like than has been possible with less sophisticated programs,” (http://whatis.techtarget.com).