Special Effects Usage
In 1975 a small group of artists and technicians revived the long dormant format to create the special effects shots for George Lucas' space epic Star Wars. A retooled VistaVision camera dubbed the Dykstraflex was used by the group (later called Industrial Light & Magic) in complex process shots. For more than two decades after this VistaVision was often used as an originating and intermediate format for shooting special effects since a larger negative area compensates against the increased grain created when shots are optically composited. By the early 21st century computer-generated imagery, advanced film scanning, digital intermediate methods and film stocks with higher resolutions optimized for special effects work had together rendered VistaVision mostly obsolete even for special effects work. Nevertheless, in 2008 ILM was still using the format in some production steps, such as for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and a VistaVision camera was used in the semi-trailer flip scene in The Dark Knight when there were not enough IMAX cameras to cover all the angles needed for the shot. More recently, certain key sequences of the film Inception were shot in VistaVision, and in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, shots that needed to be optically enlarged were shot in VistaVision.
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