Special Effects

The film The Matrix Reloaded was packed with special effects, including one where Agent Smith is multiplied into 100s of agents to fight against Keanu Reeves’s character Neo. Smith’s image, which was three-dimensionally scanned with a laser, served as a model for the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to design safety gear for high risk jobs, such as body armour for police.

The Matrix's 3-D technology is also being used to prevent accidents and injuries in the workplace. For example, we are now able to analyse an employee’s body with a 3-D scanner to determine how much weight the employee can safely carry. Due to the growing significance of this technology, a special Academy Award was created and bestowed in 2001 to computer software designers.

Industrial, Light & Magic (ILM), founded by George Lucas in 1971, was the pioneer of the special effects industry. George Lucas’s arsenal of special effects made history every time it was used in productions such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET (the movie that practically defined the look and typical gestures of an extra-terrestrial), and Star Wars, which became a special effects bible.