MOVIE WIZARDS LURK BEHIND SCENES.

Byline: P.J. Huffstutter Daily News Staff Writer

Hollywood rewards actors for their performances, writers for their stories and directors for their visions. But visual effects artists, the industry's real masters of illusion, have long played a hidden role in the filmmaking process.

In the 1920s, huge production facilities dotted the California coastline. Everyone from the stars to the set designers worked on the lot, including teams devoted to building visual and aural ``tricks.'' These workers lurked in the shadow of Hollywood's glitterati as studio executives concealed the industrial sleight of hand.

Today, this philosophical uncertainty still exists. Bound by contractual agreements with the studios, visual effects teams often can't discuss their work until after a film's release - if they can talk about it at all.

Staff at Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM, George Lucas' San Rafael, Calif.-based workshop, remained mum about how they made Tom Cruise leap from an exploding helicopter onto a racing train in ``Mission: Impossible.'' The reason? The film's producers didn't want the ``how-did-they-do-that?'' factor to detract the audience's attention from Cruise's performance, according to an effects crew member.

Likewise, the Academy spent decades debating about how to recognize this field. In 1963, the Academy board of directors finally established an official ``visual effects'' category.

Yet the category often fluctuated from a ``regular'' - and therefore annual - award to an occasional recognition for ``special achievement.'' Between the award for ``Star Wars'' in 1977 and ``Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' in 1991, the Academy flip-flopped between these designations seven times.

``I think the Academy wanted to make sure this wasn't a fad that was going to die away,'' said Scott Anderson, a visual effects supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks who won a 1995 Oscar for ``Babe.''

``We were watching a constant and steady growth of visual effects, and watching as supervisors were taking on a more crucial role in the creative process. It just took the Academy a bit longer to figure it out.''

Insiders noticed Hollywood's interest in effects swelled after the 1989 release of ``The Abyss,'' with its scene in which a column of water morphs into a liquid face. This creature was more than a mere prop. It marked one of Hollywood's first digitally created beings, an unearthly entity that could help realize a writer's work and a director's vision on the screen.

Soon after, screenwriters began penning scripts calling for bigger and better effects, said Rose Duignan, marketing director for the Culver City-based effects house Rhythm & Hues.

This year's candidates for the visual effects Oscar nomination reflects this fascination - and often, the box-office success - with effects films: ``Independence Day,'' ``Twister,'' ``Mission: Impossible,'' ``The Nutty Professor,'' ``Dragonheart,'' ``Mars Attacks!'' and ``Star Trek: First Contact''

``This year, to select the three films to represent the breadth of our industry will be a challenge,'' Richard Edlund, chairman of the Academy's visual effects branch executive committee, told the audience at last week's visual effects nomination screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Many effects insiders wonder if that is even possible, as they question what the Oscar actually recognizes. The subtle work that seamlessly blends into the story or the in-your-face explosion sequences? The line often blurs, particularly for digital artists who combine art and technology each day.

Compare the opening scenes of ``Terminator 2'' with that in ``Forrest Gump'': An apocalyptic scene filled with robots, lasers and explosions, vs. a white feather gently lilting through an idyllic Southern town.

Audiences realize that the robotic Terminators, though blended perfectly into the setting, are fake. The feather and its airy path look real, as if directors could capture this footage if they had enough time and patience to drop the feather just right. Filmmakers know this simple, but captivating sequence is impossible to create without digital assistance.

``In my mind, artistic achievement usually loses out to technological derring-do,'' said Michael Fink, senior visual effects supervisor for ``Mars Attacks!''

Fink, who works at Warner Digital Studios, points to the historical dominance of action-adventure films - the ``Star Wars'' trilogy, ``Alien,'' ``Terminator 2,'' ``Jurassic Park,'' ``Total Recall'' - over fuzzy feel-good titles like ``Babe'' and ``Forrest Gump.''

`` `Indian in the Cupboard' had the most flawless, seamless work in it and the film wasn't even nominated last year,'' Fink said. ``Yes `Jurassic Park' was a technological marvel and artistically extraordinary. If the filmmakers had used the technology in a less showy way, would they have won? I don't know.''