Improvements since the late 1800s include the mechanization of cameras, allowing them to record at a consistent speed, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing direntors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synch sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding video. Since the advent of many other media technologies, film may include a broad range of media - both linear and non-linear, dramatic and informational, motion and still (though progressive). (Wikipedia, The Free Online Encyclopedia, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/motion_picture).
Along with the improvement of film making, visual effect movies began to come out. Surprisingly enough, the first Hollywood visual effect movie I can find research goes to up to 1939, which is The Rains Came. However, the Hollywood big hit milestone movies were Might Joe Young in 1949 and The Ten Commandments in 1956. Since then - actually even before, many directors used visual effects in their movies. Ben-Hur in 1959 was a big hit as well following The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock in 1963, 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick in 1968, King Kong in 1976, and Star Wars by George Lucas in 1977.
After that time period, we might be able to say there is no movie without visual effects. Then, what kinds of technique, technology and theory they use to make a visual effect movie?.
First of all, the most significant factor used in visual effect is based on human biological phenomenon, which is persistence of vision. Persistence of vision is "If you look at a bright light for a few seconds and then abruptly close your eyes, the image of the light seems to stay in your eyes a little longer even though your eyes are closed. This phenomenon is termed as persistence of vision because the vision seems to persist for a brief moment of time." (The Art and Sceince of Movie Sfx, http://www.
