When it comes to special effects, the less you realize you're seeing them,
the better. Sometimes, movies bring in some VFX support for scenes that are so
realistic and seamless that you might have never guessed they weren't traditional film shots.
Here's a look at some movie scenes you never knew used special effects.
You don't have to be blindfolded to overlook one of the movie magic moments in Bird Box.
The 2018 dystopian thriller took the internet by storm with its disturbing vision of a world
that's been decimated by mysterious monsters who infect the minds of everyone who looks at them.
Audiences probably noticed some of the striking visual effects in the first act of the film.
What you might've missed, though, is how special effects helped to make the
film's instantly iconic boat scene come together.
Sandra Bullock stars in the film as Malorie, a woman who survives for several years by using a
blindfold and raising two children to rely on their hearing rather than their sight.
But after the threat of infected wanderers grows, Malorie decides to set out for the
promise of safety with a nearby community. She knows the journey will be treacherous,
as she'll have to navigate an unfamiliar river completely blind.
"You have to do every single thing I say or we will not make it. Understand?"
The climactic scene of her rowing with her vulnerable kids is intense,
thanks in no small part to the work of the visual effects team. Though the boat scene was partially
filmed in a real-life waterway, visual effects supervisor Marcus Taormina told Digital Media
World that the team utilized drones and 3-D water simulations to make the water ride and rapids look
as realistic as possible. The challenge, he explained, was that "the sequence needed to
express the violence of the river and the danger the family was in but still look realistic."
Additionally, Taormina and his team had to make sure their effects didn't overshadow
the actors themselves. Judging by the final product, it was a job well done.
You might not think a comedic caper about two fish out of water in Europe would need much visual
overlay, but the effects team on 2019's Murder Mystery was instrumental in making the world
so believable. The film features Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston as Nick and Audrey Spitz,
a middle-class couple on a European vacation who find themselves suddenly swept up in
the company of billionaires, including one whose murder gets pinned on them.
"Should we pull it out?"
"No, it's a foot-long knife. It's just like pulling a…"
Much of the action of the film takes place in Monaco,
but production on the picture actually took place half a world away in Montreal,
which means even the most innocuous landscapes had to be added into the background.
One surprisingly VFX-heavy scene takes place during the Grand Prix.
The drivers were filmed in front of a green screen so that the backdrop could
be added in by the special effects artists at Cinesite. Supervisor Holger Voss said that the
team's job was to use "as light a touch as possible" with their effects implementation
so as not to "detract from the comedy performances" of the cast. Mission accomplished.
"This is amazing."
"Yeah I thought it was gonna be bigger. What? I did."
"Bigger than this?"
"I really did."
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood's high-octane epic centers on a group of semi-immortal
warriors led by Charlize Theron's Andy who serve as undercover super-mercenaries. With
all of the spectacular fight sequences, massive landscapes, and supernatural elements featured
throughout The Old Guard, it's probably no surprise that the film features a great
deal of visual effects work. In fact, as many effects as possible were achieved on-camera.
"At the end of the day, what we're capturing in the cameras has to be great. It has to look
real. It has to be believable. The actors, we have to believe, are really fighting."
But there was also plenty of post-production work done in the film,
including in some quieter scenes. We learn that Andy and her first ally Quynh were captured in the
medieval era and accused of witchcraft. The two were ultimately separated, and Quynh was trapped
in an Iron Maiden and dropped to the bottom of the sea, where she has remained for 500 years.
"No!!"
Though the exterior scene of Quynh's punishment appears very natural,
the waterfront was actually added in afterwards, with the actors filming with some props in front
of a blue screen. Visual effects supervisor Sara Bennett told Art of VFX that some of
the other "invisible" effects shots include the backdrops in the Moroccan marketplace
and the spread of supplies and soldiers in the Afghanistan war zone locations.
Breaking Bad fans might be surprised to learn that both of the major flashback sequences in
the sequel film El Camino required some visual effects overhauls. One of them is the film's
return to the compound where Jesse Pinkman has been imprisoned for so many months. Even though
parts of the exterior were rebuilt to match the original look of the grounds for the film,
a lot of the compound scenes were filmed before a green screen, with the landscape added in later.
"The compound lab that we had to recreate… we couldn't go back to the original place
because it was completely leveled. So we had to just basically use the drawings,
screengrabs, and whatever information we could cobble together to recreate it."
Meanwhile, the diner sequence that features his long-awaited reunion with Walter White
also required some VFX support, as the windows were originally peering out to
nothing but blue screens. Plus, even though Bryan Cranston did undergo a major makeover,
getting fit with a bald-cap to become Walt one last time, writer-director Vince Gilligan
revealed that the shape was off, so visual effects were later used to firm up Walt's iconic head.
"Badass, dad,"
You'd be forgiven if you thought that the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King's horror
novella 1922 was simply filmed on a cornfield, given how frequently this farmland is featured
in the movie. But the VFX team at Siamese was actually responsible for much of the scenery.
The movie features Thomas Jane as Wilfred James,
a Nebraskan farmer who will do absolutely anything to keep his farm from being sold,
even if it means murdering someone he's supposed to love and protect. Much of the action takes
place on his homestead, and, surprisingly enough, this exterior is largely digital.
Even the moments when Wilfred walks alongside his crops feature a massive amount of digital add-ons,
which is a testament to both the imagination of the actors and the seamlessness of the artwork.
Audiences may also be surprised to learn that the exterior shots of the town of Hemingford
Home are also greatly enhanced by visual effects. Everything from the buildings to the cars were
added into the backdrop in post-production, proving that even the simplest vintage
settings might be sprinkled with cinematic upgrades that you would never even notice.
When it comes to Michael Bay's movies, it's practically a given that a very
busy special effects team will be a big part of the process. That is
certainly the case in 6 Underground, which features plenty of car chases,
explosions, and tense fight scenes that benefit from the beauty of computer-generated imagery.
"I can definitively tell you that 6 Underground is the most Michael Bay movie
in the history of Michael Bay."
The film features Ryan Reynolds as a former billionaire who starts his own
elite non-governmental task force of so-called "ghosts" to take down some of the world's most
despicable villains. Each member of his team has their own unique talents, including Four,
who uses parkour to help him make some elaborate escapes.
Bay's team employed real-life parkour jumpers and pyrotechnics to give these scenes a sense
of reality, but they also made these moments even more heart-stopping with
the digital addition of severe heights and an imposing cityscape below the biggest jumps.
Unlike many other films, green and blue screens were not used to prepare for the effects in 6
Underground because, as VFX supervisor Richard R. Hoover explained to American Cinematographer
Magazine, he and Bay decided to "make [the] effects feel as photographic as possible" by
dedicating all of their lighting to the subjects of the shot rather than the screens behind them.
"Woah!"
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