Digital Storytelling

How digital visual effects in film can be used to support storytelling: a guide for scriptwriters and students.Computer-generated effects are often blamed for bad Hollywood movies. Yet when a critic complains that "e;technology swamps storytelling"e; (in a review of Van Helsing, calling it "e;an example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood computer-generated effects movies"e;), 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 "e;experimental"e; 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.Effects artists say-contrary to the critics-that effects always derive from story. Digital effects are a part of production, not post-production; they are becoming part of the story development process. Digital Storytelling is grounded in filmmaking, the scriptwriting process in particular. McClean considers crucial questions about digital visual effects-whether they undermine classical storytelling structure, if they always call attention to themselves, whether their use is limited to certain genres-and looks at contemporary films (including a chapter-long analysis of Steven Spielberg's use of computer-generated effects) and contemporary film theory to find the answers. McClean argues that to consider digital visual effects as simply contributing the "e;wow"e; factor underestimates them. They are, she writes, the legitimate inheritors of film storycraft.