Camera Effects was a film opticals (

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. Th ...

and

visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...

) studio based in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

, London from 1964 till its closure in 1987. It had a world wide reputation for producing film special effects and titles for television commercial and feature film projects. The company produced title sequences for major features such as

The Three Musketeers ''The Three Musketeers'' (french: Les Trois Mousquetaires, links=no, ) is a French historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight f ...

, The Rocky Horror Picture Show,

Tommy Tommy may refer to: People * Tommy (given name) * Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Tommy'' (1931 film), a Soviet drama film * ''Tommy'' (1975 fil ...

, the Superman films and

Supergirl Supergirl is the name of several fictional superheroines appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The original, current, and most well known Supergirl is Kara Zor-El, the cousin of superhero Superman. The character made her ...

. The company was started by Roy Pace using an animation rostrum camera in a basement at 2 Bourchier Street in 1964. It moved premises to 6 Dean Street, then to 147 Wardour Street before finally settling at 8–11 Bateman Street as the biggest optical house in Soho with six camera rooms, an optical printer and two film studios. Film opticals were created using Oxberry aerial image cameras, with "many animation techniques used in the process." The combination of an animation stand with a 35mm projector enabled the fast turnaround of film opticals and was a system popular with designers demanding precise title layouts by

rotoscoping Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, animators projected photographed live-action movie images onto a glass panel and traced ...

directly from the

animation stand An animation stand is a device assembled for the filming of any kind of animation that is placed on a flat surface, including cel animation, graphic animation, clay animation, and silhouette animation. Traditionally, the flat surface that the ...

. Referring to her own experience at the company, Janet Yale said "This was before

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great deal ...

and all film effects work was done with chemicals, rostrum cameras and optical printers. It was basically a craft skill, there was no formal training for it." As demand grew in the Spanish and Turkish commercials sectors, Camera Effects set up a production office in Barcelona and an independent aerial image camera unit in Istanbul, with cameramen from London doing 'tour of duties' on a rotation basis.

Ownership

Roy Pace sold Camera Effects to Brent Walker in 1979 who in turn sold on to the Rank Organization in 1981. The company directors (Sheldon Elbourne, Malcolm Bubb, Gary Pearlman and Pat Conway) acquired the company in April 1984, bringing the company back into private ownership for a few years before selling to Rushes in 1986. The

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding ...

bought Rushes the following year, shutting Camera Effects down in 1987 as the industry embraced new digital technologies, keeping the profitable motion control film studio side of the business going. The Virgin Group dissolved Camera Effects on 25 September 2001.Company House UK

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Camera Effects (Company) Entertainment companies established in 1964 Entertainment companies disestablished in 1987