Unless you've been living in an isolated igloo in Antarctica for the past 20 years, it's obvious that technology is advancing at an unprecedented speed. Movie production has been dramatically affected. Filmmakers have relied on various practical tricks to create a variety of visual effects since the earliest years of the cinema. They worked around the medium's limitations, because the technology wasn’t there to do anything else. Today, most special effects are done through CGI (computer generated imagery),but there is one question which is worrisome. Is the era of practical effects coming to an end? Is it definitively being substituted with use of digitally generated and enhanced images? While practical effects bring ca ertain nostalgia, the truth is that the capabilities of computer-generated images are surpassing anything that prior film-making generations could have probably imagined.

<strong>Broad Application and Unlimited Potential</strong>

Using computer-powered graphics entire scenes as well as characters can be altered, created and enhanced. The post-production has becoming a segment of film-making which is just as important as the actual acting and role-playing. Digital buffing is capable of making the actor appear younger or older, it could drop or increase their weight and to properly enhance their acting by adding artificial tears, for instance. The latter has long been a struggle for a lot of professional actors and actresses.

Some producers joke about computers being able to actually replace entire characters. Perhaps soon the actors themselves will become redundant. Of course, this is a far-fetched idea which isn’t likely to happen. However, the effects that the computers are capable of bringing have definitively raised the bar regarding special effects.

<strong>Block Buster Statistics</strong>

If you look at the 50 top-grossing movies of all time, you are going to find that most of them are powered by CGI, or are entirely animated. Yes, there are certain blockbusters that don't rely on visual effects, but that’s only because their particular genre doesn’t require it. Yet it's clear that the emphasis is shifting, and practical effects could be gone soon, along with the artists that created and implemented them. <a href="http://qz.com/674547/hollywoods-special-effects-industry-is-cratering-and-an-art-form-is-disappearing-along-with-it/">This article</a> goes into detail, offering more info on this topic.