Special Effects: Anything Can Happen is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Academy Award-winning

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 sound design

Sound design

Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software...

er Ben Burtt

Ben Burtt

Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. is an American sound designer who has worked on various films including: the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and WALL-E...

 and narrated by John Lithgow

John Lithgow

John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...

. It was released to IMAX

IMAX

IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...

 theaters in 1996.

Overview

This documentary film is an exploration of special effects techniques used in motion pictures, including traditional special effects up to modern computer generated effects

Computer-generated imagery

Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...

. It is also notable for featuring the making of the new digital effects created for the special edition version of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, which was released to theaters one year later in 1997.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short

Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject

This is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...

, but lost to Breathing Lessons

Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien

Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien is a 1996 short documentary film directed by Jessica Yu. It won an Academy Award at the 69th Academy Awards in 1997 for Documentary Short Subject....

.

External links

• Special Effects: Anything Can Happen at The Internet Movie Database
• Official website