A practical effect is a special effect in which a prop appears to work in a situation where it obviously could not in real life (such as a ringing telephone on stage). They do not use trick photography or post-production techniques. This type of effect is normally found in live theatre.
In film, practical effect denotes an effect physically produced on-set, without computer-generated imagery or other post production techniques. Special effect is often synonymous with practical effect. In contrast, visual effects are created in post-production through photographic manipulation or computer generation.
Many of the staples of action movies are practical effects. Gunfire, bullet wounds, rain, wind, fire, and explosions can all be produced on a movie set by someone skilled in practical effects.
Christopher Nolan is a modern filmmaker noted for his preference of practical effects over computer-generated effects. Many of the effects used in his action films, including The Dark Knight and Inception, are practical.
Read more about Practical Effect: Practical Effect Techniques
Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or effect:
“Despair, feeding, as it always does, on phantasmagoria, is imperturbably leading literature to the rejection, en masse, of all divine and social laws, towards practical and theoretical evil.”
—Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870)
“To see distinctly the machinery—the wheels and pinions—of any work of Art is, unquestionably, of itself, a pleasure, but one which we are able to enjoy only just in proportion as we do not enjoy the legitimate effect designed by the artist.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)