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The filmmaker Georges Méliès was first a magician.

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Now movies proved to be the ultimate medium for magic.

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With complete control of everything the audience can see,

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moviemakers had developed an arsenal of techniques

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to further their deceptions.

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Motion pictures are themselves an illusion of life,

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produced by the sequential projection of still frames,

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and they astonished the Lumière brothers' early audiences.

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Even today's sophisticated moviegoers

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still lose themselves to the screen,

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and filmmakers leverage this separation from reality

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to great effect.

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Now imaginative people have been having fun with this

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for over 400 years.

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Giambattista della Porta, a Neapolitan scholar

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in the 16th century, examined and studied the natural world

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and saw how it could be manipulated.

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Playing with the world, and our perception of it,

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really is the essence of visual effects.

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So digging deeper into this

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with the Science and Technology Council

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of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

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reveals some truth behind the trickery.

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Visual effects are based on the principles of all illusions:

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assumption, things are as we know them;

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presumption, things will behave as we expect;

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and context in reality,

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our knowledge of the world as we know it,

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such as scale.

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Now a fourth factor really becomes an obsession,

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which is, never betray the illusion.

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And that last point has made visual effects

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a constant quest for perfection.

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So from the hand-cranked jump cut early days of cinema

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to last Sunday's Oscar winner, what follows are some steps

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and a few repeats in the evolution of visual effects.

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I hope you will enjoy.

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Isabelle: "The filmmaker Georges Méliès

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was one of the first to realize that

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films had the power

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to capture dreams."

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(Music) ["'A Trip to the Moon' (1902)"]

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["2011 Restoration of the Original Hand-Tinted Color"]

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["'2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968)"]

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["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]

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["'Avatar' (2009)"] First doctor: How are you feeling, Jake?

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Jake: Hey guys.

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["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]

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Second doctor: Welcome to your new body, Jake.First doctor: Good.

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Second doctor: We're gonna take this nice and easy, Jake.First doctor: Well, do you want to sit up? That's fine.

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Second doctor: And good, just take it nice and slow, Jake.

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Well, no truncal ataxia, that's good.First doctor: You feeling light-headed or dizzy at all?

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Oh, you're wiggling your toes.

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["'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1972)"]

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Alice: What's happening to me?

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["'Alice in Wonderland' (2010)"]

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["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]

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["'The Lost World' (1925)"]

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["Stop Motion Animation"]

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["'Jurassic Park' (1993)"] [Dinosaur roars]

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["CG Animation"]

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["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]

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["'The Smurfs' (2011)"]

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["Autodesk Maya Software - Key Frame Animation"]

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["'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' (2011)"]

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Chimpanzee: No! ["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]

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["'Metropolis' (1927)"]

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(Music)

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["'Blade Runner' (1982)"]

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["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]

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["'The Rains Came' (1939)"] Rama Safti: Well, it's all over.

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Maharaja: Nothing to worry about, not a thing.

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['Academy Award for Special Effects - (First Year of Category)"]

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(Explosion)

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["'2012' (2009)"]Governor: It seems to me that the worst is over.

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["CG Destruction"]

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["'Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003)"]

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["Massive Software - Crowd Generation"]

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["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]

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["'Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ' (1925)"]

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["Miniatures and Puppets Bring the Crowd to Life"]

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["'Gladiator' (2000)"]

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["CG Coliseum and Digital Crowds"]

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["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]

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["'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' (2011)"]

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["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]

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["Produced in conjunction with the Academy's Science and Technology Council."]

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(Applause)

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["'It is today possible to realize the most impossible and improbable things.' — Georges Méliès"]

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Don Levy: Thank you.