One of the most important aspects of the filmmaking is keeping the audience immersed in the world
it’s being shown.
Whether the characters are in a fantasy world or jumping out of a moving car, the audiences’
willingness to go along with the story is, in large part, due to the viewer’s willingness
to suspend disbelief.
The goal of a filmmaker is to keep the audience so entranced that it’s only afterward that
they begin to question or wonder how some of the amazing feats were accomplished.
And because of the advancements in CGI, many audience members simply write off the incredible
as ordinary.
Many believe that the stunts are simply CGI when, in fact, some of the most powerful scenes
in recent memory have been real, practical, extremely dangerous stunts.
10.
The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan is something of a realist.
One of the best directors of his generation, he has resisted the switch to digital and
has continued to shoot on film; it’s not surprising, then, that he’d do everything
in his power to make CGI as limited as possible in his blockbuster works.
A daring filmmaker who continues to tell stories in a unique narrative style and voice, Nolan
was at the helm of the revitalization of the Batman franchise.
In one of the most iconic scenes from The Dark Knight, Batman attempts to save Harvey
Dent from the Joker, who is determined to blow up a police escort.
In the well-known tunnel sequence, the Batmobile rams into a garbage truck.
The scene left many scratching their heads, marveling about the realism of CGI.
The truth is that it was real.
Every bit.
Nolan and his team constructed a one-third scale model of the Batmobile, as well as the
truck and that particularly part of Chicago’s lower Wacker Drive.
Nolan’s stunt team placed both models on a guide and smashed them into each other to
create the scene.
The same strategy was used for the semi-trailer truck that flips on its head.
All in all, the plan was executed brilliantly and viewer is left marveling at the world
they created.
9.
The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan was at it again in the final installment of his Batman trilogy.
According to Nolan, one of his proudest moments was executing the opening scene, where Bane
escapes from the CIA plane, mid-flight.
It’s an exhilarating sequence, that – again – did not use CGI.
The scene was filmed in Scotland, over the Cairngorm Mountains of the Scottish Highlands.
It’s the highest mountain range in the UK and is described as incredibly cold, with
incessant winds and an unforgiving climate.
The CIA plane used in the film was a Lockheed C-130 Hercules, commissioned by the US military.
It was a perfect fit for the stunt with a stall speed as low as 111 miles per hour.
Nolan and his camera crew were able to follow the plane in a helicopter, recording the exterior
action.
The particulars are so difficult to describe in detail that when Nolan was asked about
the stunt, he said “It was sort of an incredible coming together of lots and lots of planning
by a lot of members of the team who worked for months rehearsing all these parachute
jumps.”
The action inside the plane was much more straightforward.
It was accomplished by building a simulator, where Nolan could rotate, shake and twist
the fuselage, making the actors almost weightless inside the device.
Put together, Nolan was able to add another jaw-dropping scene to his filmography.
8.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
One of the most highly anticipated films in recent memory, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
made sure to capitalize off the hype, introducing several real props, creatures, and locations.
Probably the most notable prop was the droid BB-8.
JJ Abrams and crew made sure they had a BB-8 for whatever sequence they were filming.
They constructed a BB-8 that could show emotion when held be actors, a BB-8 that could be
thrown around and stay upright, a BB-8 controlled by rod puppeteers, and even a fully functioning
droid that could roll around like a possessed bowling ball.
Abrams and crew didn’t phone it in with CGI when they really probably could have,
either.
Don’t get us wrong; there’s obviously a ton of CGI in a movie featuring literal
spaceship battles.
But even small effects like Rey’s food materializing was real.
A sequence that was on screen for seconds took more than 3 months to develop and execute.
And while it may not seem worth it, the smallest things can take a viewer out of a world, and
The Force Awakens did a great job of refusing to allow the audience to easily fall astray.
7.
Apollo 13
One of the best films depicting NASA astronauts is Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.
Starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton, the film depicts the aborted 1970
lunar mission, which became a mission of survival.
Instead of using CGI, Howard wanted to create an atmosphere or experience that allowed viewers
to truly appreciate the fear and unease that the astronauts experienced.
Howard utilized NASA’s “Vomit Comet” KC-135 airplane, designed for one purpose:
creating a zero-G environment on Earth.
In order to accomplish such a feat, the KC-135 does a series of parabolic arcs at very fast
speeds; this results in a window of weightlessness for the passengers.
According to reports, it took more than 600 arcs for Howard to get the take he liked.
It’s now clear that he knew what he was doing: the movie was nominated for 9 Academy
Awards and grossed more than $355 million worldwide.
6.
Skyfall
Good filmmakers certainly know how to catch an audience’s attention.
The opening scene from Skyfall is no different.
Every kick and punch thrown in the scene is actually performed by Daniel Craig and his
counterpart on top of a speeding train.
The only thing keeping them from falling is a wire that’s as thin as one’s finger.
Bond films are notorious for real stunts that push the boundaries.
In Spectre, the follow-up installment in the Bond franchise, filmmakers set a Guinness
record for stunts in a single production.
So next time you’re watching a Bond film, make sure you take a second to appreciate
the risks that some of these men and women are taking for our entertainment.
5.
Mad Max: Fury Road
This is one of the most unique examples on our list because of its utilization of both
CGI and real stunts to make compelling scenes.
In that iconic scene where Tom Hardy is dangling perilously close to the ground, that’s completely
real.
All that was keeping Hardy from being roadkill was a thin cable.
The sequence in question was also filmed while Hardy’s son was on set, too.
Director George Miller, when asked what would happen if the cable snapped, remarked, “He’d
probably go under the wheels.”
Good one, George.
Miller is known for pushing the limits of ordinary film practices.
He hired “Cirque du Soleil performers to rock around on Chinese acrobat poles while
a camera rig weaved through them at up to 100 mph.”
If that wasn’t enough, the film’s production also saw the invention of a new way to flip
a car: a “nitrogen-powered metallic blade” was designed to pop down on the car, forcing
it to make those ridiculous flips in the movie.
Not bad for the director of Happy Feet and Babe: Pig in the City.
That’ll do, George.
That’ll do.
4.
Mission: Impossible (Pretty Much the Whole Film Franchise)
Tom Cruise is notorious for doing most of his own stunts in his films.
Shooting the upcoming installment in the Mission: Impossible series, Cruise even broke his ankle
trying to jump to an adjacent rooftop.
This wasn’t the first time Cruise has put himself into harm’s way.
In the original, he dangled from a ceiling; in the sequel he hung off the side of a cliff.
In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, he scaled the side of Burj Khalifa.
And in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, he clung to a side of a flying plane.
Each of these stunts was performed by Cruise, without the use of stuntmen.
Talk about courage (or lunacy… or maybe a little bit of both).
In Rogue Nation, Cruise only had wires attached to his body as he gripped the side of a flying
plane.
We suppose that’s why they pay him the big bucks.
3.
The Amazing Spider-Man
One of the unique bits of the Spider-Man reboot was director Marc Webb’s decision to make
the web-slinging aspects of the film real.
In past Spider-Man movies, the web-slinging was mostly all CGI and it became apparent
in scenes that took many viewers out of the movie.
Instead, The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel relied mostly on stuntmen and Andrew Garfield
himself, who was willing to participate in the action.
Stunt coordinator Andy Armstrong described in an interview the difficult process of executing
such a stunt.
Through his research, he found that the difficulty in the execution was based, in part, on the
past versions of Spider-Man depicting his downward swing as the same as his upward motion.
Armstrong and his team constructed “a track being pulled by a high-speed winch to help
emulate Spidey’s web-swinging ways.”
He’d go on to describe it as cracking a whip.
A stuntman would “drop into the bottom of the pendulum, and as he reached the bottom
of his arc, someone driving the winch would pull a dolly along to the next spot.”
With a little digital effects to boot, The Amazing Spider-Man films created a whole new
way of looking at one of our favorite superheroes.
2.
The Matrix Reloaded
Don’t jump down our throats.
We know The Matrix Reloaded relied on a heavy amount of CGI.
However, it’d surprise most readers to know how many of the action sequences actually
relied upon real stunts.
One of the most memorable sequences in the entire trilogy, the Agents chasing Morpheus
and Trinity on the highway, was no exception.
Although the Agent seen jumping from the hood of a vehicle was added later in post production,
the chain reaction of car crashes and the actual implosion of the car was real.
The Wachowskis managed to oversee the use of special rigs, cannons, and ramps to create
the massively destructive sequence.
The filmmakers choice to use real stunts and props is one of the major reasons The Matrix
series has, for the most part, continued to stand the test of time.
1.
Inception
Hey, we couldn’t end our list without another Christopher Nolan movie.
The uncompromising auteur has managed to consistently create stunning visual sequences without relying
on CGI.
Probably the most memorable scene in Inception was Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page’s characters
conversation at a coffee shop in Paris.
Suddenly, an explosion sends debris, and broken glass into the air.
All the while, DiCaprio and Page remain in the center of the storm.
The sequence was executed by production designer Chris Corbould, shooting a series of air cannons
while director of photography Wally Pfister shot at 1,500 frames per second.
It made for one of the most memorable parts of the movie, introducing the audience to
the idea of Inception.
Not to be outdone, later in the film there’s a fight scene featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt
in a hotel room and hallway, in which the room continues to rotate, allowing the combatants
to run up the walls and on the ceiling.
As you’ve no doubt guessed by now, particularly if you watched the video up above, that was
all done entirely with practical sets and stunts.