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Special effect

Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual world. It used to be called SFX but this short form has also expanded to include “sound effects” as well.

Special effects are traditionally divided into the categories of mechanical effects and optical effects. With the emergence of digital film-making a distinction between special effects and visual effects has grown, with the latter referring to digital post-production and optical effects, while "special effects" refers to mechanical effects.

Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects) are usually accomplished during the live-action shooting. This includes the use of mechanized props, scenery, scale models, animatronics, pyrotechnics and atmospheric effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds, making a car appear to drive by itself and blowing up a building, etc. Mechanical effects are also often incorporated into set design and makeup. For example, prosthetic makeup can be used to make an actor look like a non-human creature.

Optical effects (also called photographic effects) are the techniques in which images or film frames are created photographically, either "in-camera" using multiple exposure, mattes or the Schüfftan process or in post-production using an optical printer. An optical effect might be used to place actors or sets against a different background.

Since the 1990s, computer-generated imagery (CGI) has come to the forefront of special effects technologies. It gives filmmakers greater control, and allows many effects to be accomplished more safely. As a result, many optical and mechanical effects techniques have been superseded by CGI.

Early development
In 1857, Oscar Rejlander created the world's first "special effects" image by combining different sections of 32 negatives into a single image, making a montaged combination print. In 1895, Alfred Clark created what is commonly accepted as the first-ever motion picture special effect. While filming a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clark instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clark stopped the camera, had all of the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, restarted filming, and allowed the executioner to bring the axe down, severing the dummy's head. Techniques like these would dominate the production of special effects for a century.

It wasn't only the first use of trickery in cinema, it was also the first type of photographic trickery that was only possible in a motion picture, and referred to as the "stop trick". Georges Méliès, an early motion picture pioneer, accidentally discovered the same "stop trick." According to Méliès, his camera jammed while filming a street scene in Paris. When he screened the film, he found that the "stop trick" had caused a truck to turn into a hearse, pedestrians to change direction, and men to turn into women. Méliès, the stage manager at the Theatre Robert-Houdin, was inspired to develop a series of more than 500 short films between 1896 and 1914, in the process developing or inventing such techniques as multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand painted color. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematograph, the prolific Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician." His most famous film, Le Voyage dans la lune (1902), a whimsical parody of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, featured a combination of live action and animation, and also incorporated extensive miniature and matte painting work.

From 1910 to 1920, the main innovations in special effects were the improvements on the matte shot by Norman Dawn. With the original matte shot, pieces of cardboard were placed to block the exposure of the film, which would be exposed later. Dawn combined this technique with the "glass shot." Rather than using cardboard to block certain areas of the film exposure, Dawn simply painted certain areas black to prevent any light from exposing the film. From the partially exposed film, a single frame is then projected onto an easel, where the matte is then drawn. By creating the matte from an image directly from the film, it became incredibly easy to paint an image with proper respect to scale and perspective (the main flaw of the glass shot). Dawn's technique became the textbook for matte shots due to the natural images it created.

During the 1920s and 1930s, special effects techniques were improved and refined by the motion picture industry. Many techniques—such as the Schüfftan process—were modifications of illusions from the theater (such as pepper's ghost) and still photography (such as double exposure and matte compositing). Rear projection was a refinement of the use of painted backgrounds in the theater, substituting moving pictures to create moving backgrounds. Lifecasting of faces was imported from traditional maskmaking. Along with makeup advances, fantastic masks could be created which fit the actor perfectly. As material science advanced, horror film maskmaking followed closely.

Many studios established in-house "special effects" departments, which were responsible for nearly all optical and mechanical aspects of motion-picture trickery. Also, the challenge of simulating spectacle in motion encouraged the development of the use of miniatures. Animation, creating the illusion of motion, was accomplished with drawings (most notably by Winsor McCay in Gertie the Dinosaur) and with three-dimensional models (most notably by Willis O'Brien in The Lost World and King Kong). Naval battles could be depicted with models in studio. Tanks and airplanes could be flown (and crashed) without risk of life and limb. Most impressively, miniatures and matte paintings could be used to depict worlds that never existed. Fritz Lang's film Metropolis was an early special effects spectacular, with innovative use of miniatures, matte paintings, the Schüfftan process, and complex compositing.

An important innovation in special-effects photography was the development of the optical printer. Essentially, an optical printer is a projector aiming into a camera lens, and it was developed to make copies of films for distribution. Until Linwood G. Dunn refined the design and use of the optical printer, effects shots were accomplished as in-camera effects. Dunn demonstrating that it could be used to combine images in novel ways and create new illusions. One early showcase for Dunn was Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, where such locations as Xanadu (and some of Gregg Toland's famous 'deep focus' shots) were essentially created by Dunn's optical printer.

Color era
The development of color photography required greater refinement of effects techniques. Color enabled the development of such travelling matte techniques as bluescreen and the sodium vapour process. Many films became landmarks in special-effects accomplishments: Forbidden Planet used matte paintings, animation, and miniature work to create spectacular alien environments. In The Ten Commandments, Paramount's John P. Fulton, A.S.C., multiplied the crowds of extras in the Exodus scenes with careful compositing, depicted the massive constructions of Rameses with models, and split the Red Sea in a still-impressive combination of travelling mattes and water tanks. Ray Harryhausen extended the art of stop-motion animation with his special techniques of compositing to create spectacular fantasy adventures such as Jason and the Argonauts (whose climax, a sword battle with seven animated skeletons, is considered a landmark in special effects).

The science fiction boom
During the 1950s and 1960s numerous new special effects were developed which would dramatically increase the level of realism achievable in science fiction films. Sci-fi special effects milestones in the 1950s included the Godzilla films, The Day the Earth Stood Still (featuring Klaatu), and 3-D films. The tokusatsu genre of Japanese science fiction film and television, which includes the kaiju sub-genre of monster films, rose to prominence in the 1950s. The special-effects director Eiji Tsuburaya and the director Ishirō Honda became the driving forces behind the original Godzilla (1954). Taking inspiration from King Kong (1933), Tsuburaya formulated many of the techniques that would become staples of the tokusatsu genre, such as so-called suitmation—the use of a human actor in a costume to play a giant monster—combined with the use of miniatures and scaled-down city sets. Godzilla changed the landscape of Japanese cinema, science fiction and fantasy, and kickstarted the kaiju genre in Japan called the "Monster Boom", which remained extremely popular for several decades, with characters such as the aforementioned Godzilla, Gamera and King Ghidorah leading the market. Tokusatsu films, notably Warning from Space (1956), sparked Stanley Kubrick's interest in science fiction films; according to his biographer John Baxter, despite their "clumsy model sequences, the films were often well-photographed in colour ... and their dismal dialogue was delivered in well-designed and well-lit sets." In 1968, Stanley Kubrick assembled his own effects team (Douglas Trumbull, Tom Howard, Con Pederson and Wally Veevers) rather than use an in-house effects unit for 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this film, the spaceship miniatures were highly detailed and carefully photographed for a realistic depth of field. The shots of spaceships were combined through hand-drawn rotoscoping and careful motion-control work, ensuring that the elements were precisely combined in the camera—a surprising throwback to the silent era, but with spectacular results. Backgrounds of the African vistas in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were combined with soundstage photography via the then-new front projection technique. Scenes set in zero-gravity environments were staged with hidden wires, mirror shots, and large-scale rotating sets. The finale, a voyage through hallucinogenic scenery, was created by Douglas Trumbull using a new technique termed slit-scan.

The 1970s provided two profound changes in the special effects trade. The first was economic: during the industry's recession in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many studios closed down their in-house effects houses. Technicians became freelancers or founded their own effects companies, sometimes specializing on particular techniques (opticals, animation, etc.).

The second was precipitated by the blockbuster success of two science-fiction and fantasy films in 1977. George Lucas's Star Wars ushered in an era of science-fiction films with expensive and impressive special effects. Effects supervisor John Dykstra, A.S.C. and crew developed many improvements in existing effects technology. They created a computer-controlled camera rig called the "Dykstraflex" that allowed precise repetition of camera motion, greatly facilitating travelling-matte compositing. Degradation of film images during compositing was minimized by other innovations: the Dykstraflex used VistaVision cameras that photographed widescreen images horizontally along stock, using far more of the film per frame, and thinner-emulsion filmstocks were used in the compositing process. The effects crew assembled by Lucas was dubbed Industrial Light & Magic, and since 1977 has spearheaded many effects innovations.

That same year, Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind boasted a finale with impressive special effects by 2001 veteran Douglas Trumbull. In addition to developing his own motion-control system, Trumbull also developed techniques for creating intentional "lens flare" (the shapes created by light reflecting in camera lenses) to provide the film's undefinable shapes of flying saucers.

The success of these films, and others since, has prompted massive studio investment in effects-heavy science-fiction films. This has fueled the establishment of many independent effects houses, a tremendous degree of refinement of existing techniques, and the development of new techniques such as computer-generated imagery (CGI). It has also encouraged within the industry a greater distinction between special effects and visual effects; the latter is used to characterize post-production and optical work, while "special effects" refers more often to on-set and mechanical effects.

Introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI)
The use of computer animation in film dates back to the early 1980s, with the films Tron (1982) and Golgo 13: The Professional (1983). Since the 1990s, a profound innovation in special effects has been the development of computer-generated imagery (CGI), which has changed nearly every aspect of motion picture special effects. Digital compositing allows far more control and creative freedom than optical compositing, and does not degrade the image as with analog (optical) processes. Digital imagery has enabled technicians to create detailed models, matte "paintings," and even fully realized characters with the malleability of computer software.

Arguably the biggest and most "spectacular" use of CGI is in the creation of photo-realistic images of science-fiction/fantasy characters, settings and objects. Images can be created in a computer using the techniques of animated cartoons and model animation. The Last Starfighter (1984) used computer generated spaceships instead of physical scale models. In 1993, stop-motion animators working on the realistic dinosaurs of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park were retrained in the use of computer input devices. By 1995, films such as Toy Story underscored the fact that the distinction between live-action films and animated films was no longer clear. Other landmark examples include a character made up of broken pieces of a stained-glass window in Young Sherlock Holmes, a shape-shifting character in Willow, a tentacle formed from water in The Abyss, the T-1000 Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, hordes and armies of robots and fantastic creatures in the Star Wars (prequel) and The Lord of the Rings trilogies, and the planet, Pandora, in Avatar.

Planning and use
Although most visual effects work is completed during post-production, it must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production. A visual effects supervisor is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with the Director and all related personnel to achieve the desired effects.

Practical effects also require significant pre-planning and co-ordination with performers and production teams. The live nature of the effects can result in situations where resetting due to an error, mistake, or safety concern incurs significant expense, or is impossible due to the destructive nature of the effect.

Live special effects
Live special effects are effects that are used in front of a live audience, such as in theatre, sporting generation genre, concerts and corporate shows. Types of effects that are commonly used include: flying effects, laser lighting, theatrical smoke and fog, CO2 effects, and pyrotechnics. Other atmospheric effects can include flame, confetti, bubbles, and snow.

One notable example of live special effects in theatre production is in the Bregenz Festival with its use of a large, intricate stage that moves to supplement what's being acted on stage.

Mechanical effects

Mechanical effects encompass the use of mechanical engineering to a greater degree. Cars being flipped and hauled over buildings are usually an effect built on specialized rigs and gimbals. Usually a team of engineers or freelance film companies provide these effects to producers. Camera workers, stunt artists or doubles, directors and engineers collaborate to produce the proper effect as the action is recorded against a green screen. It is then edited and reviewed before final release to the public.

Visual special effects techniques

 * Bullet hit squibs
 * Bullet time
 * Computer-generated imagery (often using Shaders)
 * Digital compositing
 * Dolly zoom
 * In-camera effects
 * Match moving
 * Matte (filmmaking) and Matte painting
 * Video matting
 * Miniature effects
 * Morphing
 * Motion control photography
 * Optical effects
 * Optical printing
 * Practical effects
 * Prosthetic makeup effects
 * Rotoscoping
 * Reverse motion
 * Stop motion
 * Go motion
 * Schüfftan process
 * Splash of color
 * Traveling matte
 * Virtual cinematography
 * Wire removal

Noted special effects companies

 * Adobe Systems Incorporated (San Jose, USA)
 * Animal Logic (Sydney, Australia; Venice, USA)
 * Bird Studios (London, UK)
 * BUF Compagnie (Paris, France)
 * CA Scanline (Munich, Germany)
 * Cinema Research Corporation, defunct (Hollywood, USA)
 * Cinesite (London, UK; Hollywood, USA)
 * Creature Effects, Inc. (Los Angeles, USA)
 * Digital Domain (Playa Vista, USA)
 * Double Negative (VFX) (London, UK)
 * DreamWorks (Los Angeles, USA)
 * Flash Film Works (Los Angeles, USA)
 * Fireark Special Effects (Brisbane, Australia)
 * Framestore (London, UK)
 * Hydraulx (Santa Monica, USA)
 * Image Engine (Vancouver, Canada)
 * Industrial Light & Magic (San Francisco, USA), founded by George Lucas
 * Intelligent Creatures (Toronto, Canada)
 * Jim Henson's Creature Shop, (Los Angeles; Hollywood; Camden Town, London)
 * Legacy Effects, (Los Angeles, USA)
 * Look Effects, (Culver City, USA)
 * M5 Industries (San Francisco, USA) home of MythBusters
 * Mac Guff (Los Angeles, USA; Paris, France)
 * Machine Shop (London, UK)
 * Makuta VFX (Universal City, USA; Hyderabad, India)
 * Matte World Digital (Novato, USA)
 * Method Studios (Los Angeles, USA; New York, USA; Vancouver, Canada)
 * The Mill (London, UK; New York, USA; Los Angeles, USA)
 * Modus FX (Montreal, Canada)
 * Moving Picture Company (Soho, London, UK)
 * Pixomondo (Frankfurt; Munich; Stuttgart; Los Angeles; Beijing; Toronto; Baton Rouge, LA)
 * Rainmaker Digital Effects (Vancouver, Canada)
 * Rhythm and Hues Studios (Los Angeles, USA)
 * Rise FX (Berlin, Germany)
 * Rising Sun Pictures (Adelaide, Australia)
 * Rodeo FX (Montreal; Munich; Los Angeles)
 * Snowmasters (Lexington, AL, USA)
 * Sony Pictures Imageworks (Culver City, USA)
 * Strictly FX, live special effects company
 * Surreal World (Melbourne, Australia)
 * Super FX, Special Effects Company (Italy)
 * Tippett Studio (Berkeley, USA)
 * Tsuburaya Productions (Hachimanyama, Setagaya, Tokyo)
 * Vision Crew Unlimited, defunct (Los Angeles, USA)
 * Wētā FX, (Wellington, New Zealand)
 * Zoic Studios (Culver City, USA)
 * ZFX Inc a flying effects company (Louisville, USA; Utrecht, the Netherlands)

Noted special effects directors

 * Eiji Tsuburaya, the "Father of Tokusatsu"
 * Tom Howard
 * John P. Fulton
 * Douglas Trumbull
 * Ken Pepiot
 * Stan Winston
 * John Dykstra
 * Koichi Kawakita
 * Teruyoshi Nakano
 * Yonesaburo Tsukiji
 * Yoshiyuki Kuroda
 * Yoshihiro Nishimura
 * Akira Watanabe

title: Special effect


text:
Talk:Sturgeon's law

Science fiction story?
There is a science fiction story called 90% of Everything by ???. --Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mav (moved from article) (talk • contribs) 23:11, 22 May 2002

Supposed corollary
I heard once of a supposed corollary: 99% [sic] of everything on the internet is crud... —Preceding unsigned comment added by MartinHarper (talk • contribs) 10:03, 6 December 2002

 * That should be 99.999999679998654% of everything on the internet....87.194.30.174 (talk) 00:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Original word was "crap"
If memory serves me correctly, Harlan Ellison wrote in Again, Dangerous Visions that Sturgeon's original quote contained the word "crap:" a reporter asked him, "Mr. Sturgeon, isn't it true that 90 per cent of science fiction is crap?" "Sure, 90 per cent of science fiction is crap. But then, 90 per cent of everything is crap." (Perhaps someone who owns the book could confirm this?) -- HarmonicSphere 00:43, 22 September 2003 (UTC)

 * When Theodore Sturgeon and his wife Jayne stayed at my house in 1978, he was adamant about the point that the word is "crud," not "crap." Gregory R. Bennett (talk) 19:43, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Copyvio
The contents of the entry seem to be a word for word copy of the definition in the Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/Sturgeons-Law.html) Is this ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anirvan (talk • contribs) 04:37, 1 July 2004

Applications of the law
Not only is 90% of everything crap, 90% of the applications of Sturgeon's Law are crap. "Know Sturgeon's Law. Apply it recursively." DS 17:29, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * DS is on to something I myself have noticed. Sturgeon's Law/Revelation, if true, leads to paradox. It only applies in 10 percent of cases!Smiloid 09:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

 * That's stretching the law too far. By that standard 100% of everything would be crap. Even if I had, say, a car that was one of the 10% of cars that was good, 90% of journeys in it would be crap, so the car would also be crap. "90% of everything is crap" can only apply to individual entities, not actions or applications.
 * There is therefore no paradox. Sturgeon's Law is one of the 10% of theories / laws that is not crap. The fact that Sturgeon's Law is in the 10% has been extensively verified by empirical testing.
 * (Yes, I know this discussion is 12 years dead, I still thought it was an interesting point that needed countering.) --83.218.138.8 (talk) 10:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Rename page?
This article begins by stating "[Sturgeon's law] is sometimes confused with Sturgeon's Revelation: 'Ninety percent of everything is crud.'" then goes on to mainly discuss the revelation, and confuse it with the law. Maybe the page should be re-named? (I'm not sure how to go about doing that myself.) -- AliasXIII 21:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Most modern uses of the term "Sturgeon's Law" are definitely referring to the statement that "90% of everything is (crud|crap)". The OED lists that definition now, too: "A humorous aphorism which maintains that most of any body of published material, knowledge, etc., or (more generally) of everything is worthless: based on a statement by Sturgeon (see quot. 1958), usually later cited as ‘90 per cent of everything is crap’." (OED as of 2005-12-14, notated as "draft entry June 2004").
 * I've quickly noted this at the top of the article, but some further restructuring is probably in order. Perhaps a section talking about the origins of the term in the Revelation but the bulk of the article using it unambiguously?
 * --Dyfrgi 22:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Law / Revelation controversy
There's clearly some controversy as to whether the name Sturgeon's Law should be used for the "90% ..." observation. Equally clearly, this article as it stood was taking the side that it shouldn't.

I've rephrased it to be less outspoken. While the distinction between Sturgeon's Law and Revelation is an important one, and it is important to have a separate name for each, the fact that what most people who have heard the term understand as Sturgeon's Law is actually the Revelation is an important one that we shouldn't just dismiss out of hand. To do so violates NPOV.

I've changed it to say that it is 'more correct' to call this observation the Revelation. The article then continues discussing it using that name. I think this statement is justified, as this is clearly the name Sturgeon himself used to refer to it. But to imply that it is wrong to call it Sturgeon's Law flies in the face of the common usage, which in questions of language and naming is generally the wrong thing to do. JulesH 15:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * So the author's description is no more valid than any random moron's? Descriptivism over reason again. The problem is that the title of the article and the redirect are reversed. --Ampwright (talk) 05:36, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization
This article is named "Sturgeon's law" (lower-case l), but the article text consistently uses "Sturgeon's Law" (upper-case l) as well as "Sturgeon's Revelation" (upper-case r). Which is it? Should the article be renamed or the text changed? By the way, Sturgeon's Law already redirects to Sturgeon's law. Ehn 11:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

 * It should Sturgeon's Law.

 * Knowing that common nouns should not be capitalised in article titles, some Wikipedians will hypercorrect by failing to capitalise those nouns in article titles that generally are common nouns but in this instance are proper nouns. It looks to me like that's what's happened here.  Binabik80 17:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

 * On the other hand, the list of scientific laws named after people consistently uses lower-case l. Why should this be different? Ehn 14:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Sturgeon's Law with respect to WP:FAC
Some have suggested that Sturgeon's Law applies well to the featured article process on Wikipedia, as 90% of articles don't make it. Is this notable for inclusion in the article? — Scm83x talk 03:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * That would probably be a violation of Avoid self-references, specifically "While we're often inclined to mention the Wikipedia community that we are all part of, as well as the website features we use in creating the articles, these confuse readers of derivative works. In particular, do not refer to the fact that the page can be edited, do not refer to any Wikipedia project page or process, do not use specialized Wikipedia jargon (e.g. "POV" in place of "biased"), and do not refer to any link in the sidebar or along the top of the screen, such as the talk page, What links here, or history. Remember, articles are part of an encyclopedia, not part of the Wikipedia project being used to create them." The 'Featured Article' process wouldn't mean much to a non-Wikipedian. Ziggurat 03:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. A "no" and link would have sufficed. We're not all newbies ;-) at least not anymore... — Scm83x talk [[Image:Hookem_hand.gif|18px]] 04:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Heh, sorry. I do tend to overexplain things. It all dates back to that time twelve years ago when... ;) Ziggurat 19:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say this is an over-explanation. While not everyone is a newbie, there are plenty of newbies, or near-newbies like myself, who read these pages.  I'm glad to learn there has been a decision to discourage self-referential commentary.  The great majority of readers would not be interested, I would suppose.Star-lists (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Bell curve?
"If there is any difference in "desirability", the bell curve of a normal distribution predicts that most experiences will involve average desirability, with roughly equal occurrences of excellence and gross inadequacy." I disagree: I think it would tend to follow a Pareto distribution with 20% of the books in a genre accounting for 80% of the worthiness of the genre as a whole. I think this is probably closer to what Sturgeon had in mind. Neon   Merlin   15:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Alternative phrasing
Some years ago I heard Mr. Sturgeon speak at the local library. A fan in the audience asked him what the “official” percentage should be. He confessed that over the years he had used 90%, 95%, and 99%. He said that he no longer remembered the percentage he used when he first coined the phrase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.48.252 (talk • contribs) 10:46, 25 July 2006

Explanation of the Law
Even if there is no redirect, an explanation of the Law as opposed to the Revelation should be present. Notably, does "nothing" mean "there does not exist such an entity" or "the entity of nothingness"?
 * I went and checked the story in which the Law first appeared, which was republished in the 2003 book "And Now the News...", the relevant pages of which (97-99) are in turn archived on Google Books. Reading through the source, it seems very clear to me that the intended meaning of the phrase is that, "There does not exist an entity which is always absolutely so." I'm not sure exactly how to move this into the article, or even whether it belongs in the article in the first place (though the section on this original quote does seem remarkably sparse). But hopefully it answered your question, in any case.--Philomory (talk) 03:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Application
Is it worth writing nine crap novels to force some-one to write a good one?

Changed Revelation -> Law
I went ahead and rewrote parts of the article from the point of view that it is almost always the "90%" meaning that is intended nowadays when people use "Sturgeon's Law". I left in the information about Sturgeon saying that originally the phrase meant "Nothing is always absolutely so", but that hasn't gained any traction as an adage and I think that it is now of historical interest only. Mike Christie (talk) 10:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Justification section
I deleted the following text from the article, as it lacked references, states speculation as fact and reeks of original research. If anyone disagrees please tell me why. Pyreforge 09:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Justifying Sturgeon's Law
If there is any difference in "desirability", the bell curve of a normal distribution predicts that most experiences will involve average desirability, with roughly equal occurrences of excellence and gross inadequacy. Sturgeon's Law is an observation that once humans are exposed to excellence, mere average desirability is disappointing. The more proper formulation might be something like "80% of everything is crud, and 10% of everything is crap." If one either defines crud to include crap, or else defines excellence and crap to each be about 5% of all experiences, then "90% of everything is crud" would be true.

However, most human affair involving individual participation do not follow a normal curve, but rather a Pareto distribution, where 20% of the individuals are responsible for 80% of the activity--however defined.

Alternative phrasing

 * Sturgeon's Law is often cited using crap or shit instead of crud but "shit" is more commonly used.

 * "crap" - 18,700 hits
 * "crud" - 10,600 hits
 * "shit" - 5 hits

Conclusion: Approximately 41.8 percent of the above sentence is crap. —phh (t/c) 17:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Sturgeon himself used the word "crud" and no other. He brought this up several times when he was speaking as the Guest of Honor at Norwescon 1 and Toastmaster at Norwescon 3. Gregory R. Bennett (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Corollaries
The second corollary ("Except crap. One hundred percent of crap is crap.") is an exception, not a corollary. I'm not sure if the first one needs to be there either, but the second one is just incorrect. --206.248.165.237 (talk) 03:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

 * On second thought, since the first "corollary" is described in the interpretation section, I've removed the section altogether. Here is the edit if this needs to be un-done: . --206.248.165.237 (talk) 04:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Another Name
I was introduced to this rule of thumb under the name "DeCamp's Law", after L. Sprague De Camp, the author. Might I suggest there be a cross-reference to that name? Jimwelch4 (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC) --Jimwelch4 (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If we have a reliable source for that name, sure, we can add it. Where did you see it under that name? Mike Christie (talk) 23:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Another corollary
I just cut this: " For the more cynically inclined, there's also Smith's corollary to Sturgeon's Law -- Sturgeon was an optimist" as unsourced; it can be readded if we find a source. Mike Christie (talk) 11:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Third law?
I've seen this referenced once or twice elsewhere:

STURGEON'S THIRD LAW: It is not possible to assemble a device containing small parts without dropping one of those parts in a deep pile carpet.

But I have no idea if there's any real validity to it or if it's something someone tacked on along the way. Can anyone source this quote any earlier than the collection "Science Fictionalisms" (1992) referenced here: http://unfutz.blogspot.com/2007/04/3089898-life-among-1s-and-0s.html ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.84.40 (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-Joke: Amendments to Sturgeon's Law
Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law)

Sturgeon’s Law Prime: “90% of all laws are crap.”

Surgeon’s Law Prime-prime: “90% of all laws about laws are crap.”

Surgeon’s Law Prime-prime-prime: “90% of all crappy laws about laws are crap.” —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeRozak (talk • contribs) 08:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

 * Should be "meta-law"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

"See also" section
Good, concise article. In this spirit I suggest removing the link to the "Long tail" article, which appears to describe a interesting concept, yet still finding its contemporary acceptance (per its end-Dec 2010 version). Nrlsouza (talk) 07:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I removed it, and also removed Pareto principle, which was already linked in the main article. Mike Christie (talk – library) 12:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 2011

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. 20:31, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sturgeon& → Sturgeon's law – Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC) WP styles avoid over-capitalization, and this title is an outlier among eponymous laws (see List of eponymous laws). We should fix it back to where it was before it got capitalized in 2006 (see section above about that). Dicklyon (talk) 19:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Having a look at Category:Adages, I see it is common practice not to capitalise "law" in these "X's law" articles. Jenks24 (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME, English language books use always the capitalized form, in a google books search every single book uses the capitalized form . As the section above says, this is a proper noun, and proper nouns are capitalized. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:09, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose, and I have no freakin' clue why all those other eponymous laws aren't capitalized the same way. These are proper nouns and thus should be capitalized like proper nouns, and Dicklyon has not actually made an argument against that except "it's an outlier".  Powers T 16:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 11 February 2014

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: rename. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Sturgeon& → Sturgeon's law – Consistency with other articles about eponymous laws. Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:23, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

 * Support – it's no more a proper name than any of the other laws named after people; should be l.c. Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Red Slash 04:06, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per above Duffit  talk 13:25, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Which Issue of Venture?
In the body of the article, the extended quotation from Sturgeon is attributed to the March 1958 issue of Venture. But the footnote cites the September 1957 issue. The link in the footnote isn't much help, as it just takes you to the Wikipedia article about the magazine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hand of Tyr (talk • contribs) 18:45, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

90% is crap does not mean 10% is not-crap
The article says:
 * The inverse is obviously also true: if ninety percent of everything is crap, then [...] there must be ten percent that may be worth something.

but only "may". The fact that 90% is crap does not preclude the possibility that the other 10% is crap too. Jordan Brown (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

 * I prefer Disraeli's forumulation. "Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense." Might be worth fitting in the article in the Discussion section. 2001:56A:FB4D:5200:B62E:99FF:FEA3:D19A (talk) 03:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Average vs. awful
I thought I remembered reading that crud refers to products of average, genuinely mediocre quality, not particularly low quality and not completely worthless, but apparently I'm mistaken and crud is synonymous with crap and feces.

Still, I feel that there's a relevant distinction to be made between products of merely average, "middle of the road" quality, which are typically at least technically competent and can still be at least mildly enjoyable (and some might even class them as decent), and those which are offensively bad. In TV Tropes speak, that would be the difference between "So Okay, It's Average" and "So Bad, It's Horrible" (not to be confused with "So Bad, It's Good", which can actually rise to a level of enjoyability that such works might not even be classed among the crud).

You would not exactly give a product of the first type a glowing recommendation, but you would probably also not warn anyone of it the way you'd warn someone of a product of the second type. In short, it's likely that you wouldn't go out of your way to advise anyone on a product of the first type at all.

That both classes tend to be popularly conflated into a single class is evident in the fact that expressions like mediocre and meh, which properly only apply to the first type, are widely understood to be scathing criticisms of a severeness that products like that arguably do not deserve. You might still feel that products like those are a waste of your precious time, but at least they will probably not feel like torture, just forgettable. Like they deserve a single consumption, but exactly no more than that, no repeated readings or viewings or listenings or anything like that – but also not necessarily regret of the type that you desperately want your time back, or wish you'd never even consumed the product in the first place (or stopped earlier). Like the product should definitely come with a warning label. It doesn't just bore you, but it actively makes you angry.

It makes sense that most products by far, perhaps 80% of the whole, are actually of the first, "middle of the road" type, while only the bottom 10% genuinely deserve being called feces (at least that's how I view it). Therefore, a 10 – 80 – 10 distribution: good – average – bad. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:14, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

 * While minding that the talk page is not a forum, I'll point out that human perception is largely that mediocre works are actually worse than bad ones, because the genuinely bad works are enjoyable by mockery, but the mediocre works are neither good enough to be enjoyable in their own right or bad enough to be worth mocking. The phenomenon where three-star movies are unpopular because audiences selectively watch only the best movies is commonly noted, but I'm unsure if any notable source describe this in a way Wikipedia could cite. 2001:56A:FB4D:5200:B62E:99FF:FEA3:D19A (talk) 04:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

An additional complication though: in an environment with little if any (at least basic) quality control, it's more probable that Sturgeon's law will be literally true – in that 90% of the content or products will be utterly worthless, enragingly bad, and not even competent or with any other redeeming qualities ... or simply too amateurish. (That said, I'm aware that Sturgeon's observation was probably meant in a deliberately exaggerated or cynical way, to point out that only a small minority of products of a certain type – if any at all – are actually good.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:21, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Citation for "Nothing is always absolutely so" does not verify claim
"Sturgeon deemed Sturgeon's law to mean "nothing is always absolutely so" in the story "The Claustrophile" in a 1956 issue of Galaxy."

The citation is simply the story in Galaxy magazine, but Sturgeon's deeming that "Sturgeon's Law" is not in that story (or anywhere else in the same issue of the magazine, that I can find). I also couldn't find a source for that elsewhere online, but haven't dug deeply yet.

From the short story (p. 128):

"'The nearest I can get to it,' he said when he was ready, 'is this: I've found out something that's at the root of everything anyone can think about, something that all thinking gets to sooner or later, and starts from, too. One simple sentence . . . Now wait.' He put his simple sentence in front of his mind and looked at it for a long studious time. Then he spoke it. 'Nothing is always absolutely so.'" – Spida-tarbell (talk) 22:56, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

 * SF Dictionary entry on Sturgeon's Law quotes Venture Science Fiction July 1957. Checked source, found it as part of his "On Hand: A Book" column, page 78, so I'll add that as a citation. Arcorann (talk) 12:53, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Sturgeon's law


text:
Supergroup (music)

A supergroup is a musical group formed with members who are already successful as solo artists or as members of other successful groups. The term became popular in the late 1960s when members of already successful rock groups recorded albums together, after which they normally disbanded. Charity supergroups, in which prominent musicians perform or record together in support of a particular cause, have been common since the 1980s. The term is most common in the context of rock and pop music, but it has occasionally been applied to other musical genres. For example, opera superstars the Three Tenors (José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti) and hip hop duos Kids See Ghosts (Kanye West and Kid Cudi) and Bad Meets Evil (Eminem and Royce da 5'9") all have been called supergroups.

A supergroup sometimes forms as a side project for a single recording project or other ad hoc purposes, with no intention that the group will remain together afterwards. In other instances, the group may become the primary focus of the members' career.

History
Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner credited British rock band Cream, which came together in 1966, as the first supergroup. Eric Clapton, formerly of rock band The Yardbirds and blues rock band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers; Jack Bruce, formerly of jazz/rhythm and blues band the Graham Bond Organisation (GBO) and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers; and Ginger Baker, formerly of the GBO, formed the band in 1966, recorded four albums, and disbanded in 1968. Guitarist Clapton and drummer Baker went on to form Blind Faith, another blues rock supergroup which recruited former Spencer Davis Group and Traffic singer, keyboardist, and guitarist Steve Winwood and Family bassist Ric Grech. The group recorded one studio album before disbanding less than a year after formation. Also in 1968 Jack Bruce joined the Tony Williams Lifetime, composed of bassist and vocalist Bruce, and three famous Miles Davis alumni: drummer Tony Williams, guitarist John McLaughlin, and keyboardist Khalid Yasin (né Larry Young).

The term may have come from the 1968 album Super Session with Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, and Stephen Stills. The coalition of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (formerly Crosby, Stills & Nash) in 1969 is another early example, given the success of their prior bands (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies respectively).

While the practice has declined by the 80s, in 1985 country superstars Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings formed the first country supergroup, Highwaymen, going on to achieve three chart singles. Perhaps the most decorated line-up, the supergroup Traveling Wilburys was formed in 1988, consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.

In the early 2000s, supergroups such as Audioslave and Velvet Revolver made their mark. Audioslave was created in 2001, composed of ex-members of Rage Against the Machine and Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. The members of Guns N’ Roses and Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots came together to form Velvet Revolver in 2002. This is a time when supergroups were experiencing a revival; established musicians looked for new platforms to express themselves, as they brought their different genres closer through collaborations that utilized their shared popularity so as to build something fresh and thrilling

A contemporary example of a supergroup is FFS, a collaboration between Scottish indie rock band Franz Ferdinand and American art rock band Sparks, Other prominent examples include Atoms for Peace and Boygenius.

Criticism of the expression
The very definition of a supergroup hinges on the members already having been "successful". This itself is a subjective term, though metrics such as career earnings, records sold, number of commercial hit songs written and musician longevity can all be used to establish the objective success of a musical band and its individual members.

Tyler Golsen in Far Out writes that "Today, the term “supergroup” has something of a negative connotation. It usually signifies a short-term vanity project that attempts to profit off members’ reputations with their past works".

In 1974, a Time magazine article titled "Return of a Supergroup" quipped that the supergroup was a "potent but short-lived rock phenomenon" which was an "amalgam formed by the talented malcontents of other bands". The article acknowledged that groups such as Cream and Blind Faith "played enormous arenas and made megabucks, and sometimes megamusic", with the performances "fueled by dueling egos". However, while this "musical infighting built up the excitement ... it also made breakups inevitable."

title: Supergroup (music)