More Than Digital Makeup : The Visual Effects Industry as Hollywood Diaspora

Abstract: This thesis assesses the marginal field (niche unit) of visual effects while taking into account visible and invisible vfx in virtual and actual geographies in Hollywood movies as part of industry-level studies, all the while seeking to bridge the gap between traditional, theoretical approaches of cinema studies and practitioner experience in the context of production culture. The focus of this essay remains on the many temporal aspects of production processes that identify vfx film production as chief, and vfx for television as subsequential. Encouraging scholars to consider a previously limited and repeatedly mislabeled area by demonstrating the pandemic presence of effects and its workers as a form of Hollywood diaspora, this thesis also seeks to demonstrate the need for involvement by means of scholar-practitioner methodologies.