Is it real magic or movie magic? From sculpting the rugged terrain of Mars to digitally generating each individual dragon scale, there isn't much that these animators can’t do. The world of SFX and CGI is certainly a wild one...
Avengers: Endgame
It comes as no surprise that the highest-grossing film of all time had an unbelievable CGI budget. The film had to generate everything from Smart Hulk to Captain Marvel's hair to Captain America's helmet. However, part of the reason Avengers: Endgame relied on CGI more heavily than usual had to do with deadlines and incomplete costumes. Since several heroes' signature outfits were not finished on time, they had to be completed digitally.
Brie Larson famously shot her scenes for Avengers: Endgame prior to production on Captain Marvel, which means that her costume was far from done.
"Her suit, every time you see it in the movie, when she's in her full costume, is digital. Again, the designs for those suits were not ready in time for us to photograph Brie," said Visual Effects Producer Jen Underdahl. "When you saw her at the beginning, as she's rescuing Tony Stark, when you see her come back, when she's talking to Nat in the Avengers compound, with Rocket and Nebula, and then in the final battle when she comes back and kind of saves the day, that's all the digital suit.
The Irishman
Martin Scorcese's three-and-a-half-hour epic The Irishman wasn't the first movie to de-age actors using CGI, but it certainly is the best. The $140-million Netflix production pioneered a new type of set-up to achieve the monumental feat—a combination of groundbreaking AI software, motion-capture technology, and an experimental three-camera rigging system. These technological breakthroughs have paved the way for a new type of filmmaking.
Before production on the film began, the VFX team spent two years cataloging a digital library of images and sequences from the filmographies of Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro. The design of each character was tailored for the movie: "Meaning that he didn’t want to rewind 30 years and find Jimmy Conway from GoodFellas," said VFX master Pablo Helman. "If he's going to show Frank Sheeran in World War II, he doesn’t want to see Taxi Driver. Same thing with Pesci. Pesci at 53 years old was never that thin as an actor. He had a little more weight on him, but in the movie, he's really thin. That was by design."
Star Wars
When George Lucas's Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was in production, CGI didn't exist yet. Instead, the Industrial Light & Magic VFX team—the same company who worked on The Irishman decades later—pioneered animation techniques using detailed miniature models filmed close-up. However, the film served to pave the way for the future of CGI.
Star Wars visual effects supervisor John Dykstra invented a computer-manipulated motion camera system, dubbed the "Dykstraflex". This allowed a spaceship model to be filmed against a blue screen while the camera circled around it, effectively creating the illusion of movement.
Cats
It's no secret that Tom Hooper's Cats was a total mess. After the horrified response from both audiences and critics to the "digital fur technology" in the Cats trailer, the visual effects team was forced to alter the CGI. Hooper was working on the film right up until the day before its world premiere.
On the same day that it opened in theaters, Universal notified cinemas that they would be receiving an updated version of the film with "some improved visual effects."
"This isn't a joke: Cats was rushed into theaters before being finished so a new version is being sent to theaters with updated effects," wrote Variety features editor Jenelle Riley. "How do you know if you have the old version? Look for Judi Dench's human hand, wedding ring and all."
Jurassic Park
Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park didn't use as much CGI as might would expect from such a complex artistic endeavor. Spielberg, ILM, and Stan Winston managed to create one of history's most iconic films by combining computer imagery with real-life animatronics. Surprisingly, only 14 to 15 minutes of the dinosaur scenes were entirely computer-generated. The rest used Winston's physical dinosaur models.
Even in the early stages of production, Spielberg planned to keep CGI to a minimum—especially when compared to the 2,000 VFX shots used in 2015's Jurassic World. While the advancements of CGI were certainly limited back in 1993, Jurassic Park revolutionized the use of tasteful computer graphics. The film earned a well-deserved Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 1994 Academy Awards.
Avatar
James Cameron's Avatar had been in the works since the 1990s, but the director had to wait for technology to catch up with his grandiose vision of what the film was meant to be. Actors wore skull caps and motion-capture suits, acting out their scenes on a performance capture stage six times larger than anything Hollywood had ever seen. The lead VFX company, Weta Digital, employed 900 people to work on the film.
Due to the huge amount of data that had to be stored for Avatar, Microsoft devised an entirely new system specifically for the film. Each minute of final footage for the nearly three-hour-long film occupied 17.28 gigabytes of storage; it took several hours to render each individual frame of the film.
Interstellar
You might be surprised to learn that Interstellar was filmed without the use of green screens. Nolan shot the entire film on a single handheld IMAX camera. Although the film does indeed take place in space (and beyond), Interstellar largely avoided CGI in favor of detailed physical sets and 60-foot projections of space on the set backgrounds. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the film won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
The visual effects team wrote a rendering of software based on the equations of an actual astrophysicist in order to create Interstellar's black hole. Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render. "Chris really wanted us to sell the idea that the black hole is spherical," said Paul Franklin, the film's visual effects supervisor.
Gone Girl
David Fincher's Gone Girl is an excellent example of a film with invisible special effects. Although Gone Girl may not seem like a film that utilizes a significant amount of VFX, it's only because Fincher's use of CGI is imperceptible to the untrained eye.
The McMansion rented by Nick and Amy Dunne is lit so perfectly that it hardly looks as though it's shot on a sound stage. However, an effects breakdown reel shows that everything beyond the house's walls was a green screen. Building the house on a sound stage allowed Fincher the flexibility to shoot without concerns of natural lighting or framing.
Blade Runner 2049
Jack Nelson served as the Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor for Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to 1982's original Blade Runner. Nelson was responsible for the CGI that brought Rachael to life. The process was one of trial and error, done entirely in secret, and it lasted over a year.
Rachael was given the code name "Rita" during filming and shot with a small crew to ensure privacy. First, Nelson and his team created a digital replica of Young's skull. Next, Loren Peta was brought in as Rachael's body double. It took plenty of attempts, but finally, both Nelson and director Denis Villeneuve were pleased with the final result.
Inception
Visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin first teamed up with Christopher Nolan on the mind-bending, cerebral thriller Inception.
"Some of the more spectacular imagery of the film—the street folding over in Paris, characters creating architecture out of thin air—are VFX shots that we created from a combination of live action and copious amounts of digital animation," Franklin said.
Although much of Franklin's work on the film was CGI-based, the VFX team built a miniature version of the mountain fortress set. "The great thing about miniatures is they give you this chaotic reality that digital hasn't quite gotten to yet," he said. Franklin also used CGI to "subtly bend elements like physics, space, and time."
The Avengers
When Mark Ruffalo was first approached about playing the Hulk in The Avengers, he was hesitant to accept the role, believing he was the wrong fit. However, Ruffalo caved, and soon became the man in the motion-capture suit seen above. Ruffalo has called the process of evolving into his character "humiliating" due to his "man-cancelling suit," saying that the tight leotard "makes you look big where you want to look small and small where you want to look big."
Sin City
The Sin City franchise is famous for its use of CGI, which brought the comic book movie to life like none other.
"People have accused me of realism in the past. Not guilty as charged. My stuff is very stylized," said Frank Miller, author of the Sin City comics. "Robert [Rodriguez] was able to show me how real actors could perform within the universe that I drew and then to amplify that further. Technology has improved [that] dramatically over the last 10 years."
The Lord of the Rings
Visual effects supervisor Eric Saindon was tasked with the challenge of creating Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. "When we did Gollum, no one had really done a CG creature mixed with live action that you were supposed to believe was just a creature in the scene," he said. Saindon's VFX team invented the technology that brought Gollum to life—and they won an Oscar for it.
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War transformed an 8,000-acre farm in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia into the fields of Wakanda. Trees that were indigenous to Africa were added to the terrain, as well as a makeshift river. Although it appeared as though thousands were fighting on the battlefield, there were only about 70 actors and stunt performers—CGI added 500 digital people and about 10,000 beasts.
Deadpool
Deadpool is as funny as it is impressive, with crazy special FX being touted throughout the film. For this shot, Ryan Reynolds was put in a prop car in front of a green screen and the camera was tilted.
Jurassic World
2015's Jurassic Park sequel, Jurassic World, was practically the opposite of its predecessor in that it relied almost entirely upon CGI. This was due to budgetary constraints. Director Colin Trevorrow later admitted he would have preferred animatronics over CGI, especially considering their vital role in the success of Jurassic Park, but $150 million simply could not stretch that far.
Avengers: Infinity War
As it turns out, roughly 96% of Avengers: Infinity War is CGI. Of the film's 3,000 shots, about 2,900 contained some sort of CGI, especially since Thanos is entirely CGI. Digital enhancements were also added to several of the characters' costumes, including Bucky Barnes, whose robot arm was actually just a green arm sleeve.
Life of Pi
You may not believe it, but almost 86 percent of the scenes in Life of Pi featuring Richard Parker, the tiger who serves as Piscine Molitor's only companion, were created with CGI. Real tigers were reserved for single shots. "By doing that, it set our bar high for CGI. We couldn’t cheat at all," said visual effects supervisor Bill Westernofer. "It pushed the artists to go and deliver something that’s never been done before, something as photo-real as anyone has ever done with an animal."
Cloverfield
Found-footage thriller Cloverfield wouldn't have been such a viral marketing success without its teaser trailer, which featured the head of the Statue of Liberty careening down a New York City street. However, in the final film, that crucial moment received much more detail. "We reworked the shot, rebuilt the head, changed a lot of things about it, made it much more dynamic, and we also knew that [director] Matt [Reeves] wanted to focus on the head for quite a long time," said Michael Ellis, one of the film's visual effects supervisors.
Kill Bill
Uma Thurman was basically a puppet attached to a series of strings while filming Kill Bill. However, it recently came to light that director Quentin Tarantino coerced Thurman into driving a rickety blue Karman Ghia for a pivotal scene without CGI or a green screen. Although production knew the car was unsafe and needed to be operated by a stunt professional, Thurman relented to Tarantino's demands, crashed the car, and injured herself profusely.
Iron Man
If you compare Iron Man's first suit to the nanotech getup he dons in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, it becomes obvious that animation technology has advanced tremendously over the past 12 years. In the original Iron Man film, the production relied heavily on CGI because the 90-pound Mark 1 suit was too bulky for both Robert Downey Jr. and his stunt double in many scenes.
The Great Gatsby
Almost every scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby involves some sort of CGI—and the film wasn't exactly subtle about it. Even the famous Gatsby mansion was entirely CGI. Critics applauded the film's visual splendor but were ultimately unimpressed by its lack of heart.
Man of Steel
Director Zack Snyder was determined to make Man of Steel look as natural as possible. John Desjardin, the film's visual supervisor, stated that Snyder "wanted people to suspend their disbelief, and we the visual effects team had to make it as easy as possible for them to do so." However, seeing as humans do not possess the ability to fly, it was fairly obvious that Man of Steel employed a green screen for that particular effect.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Although Mad Max: Fury Road implemented CGI in much of the film, an impressive portion of it—including the crazy car stunts—was done without any CGI at all. 90% of the film's special effects were practical rather than computer-generated. "This is a film that didn't defy the laws of physics," said director George Miller.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Taylor Lautner was forced to wear a "non-reflective grey outfit" while acting in scenes with co-star Kristen Stewart. According to the visual effects team, this was done in order to "get the right kind of eye lines and motivation."
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest set the bar higher for CGI. Each shot of Bill Nighy as Dave Jones involved months of noodling each movement and expression. Hal Hickel, a CGI veteran who worked on the original Toy Story, led the film's animation team on the laborious journey to perfection.
Captain Marvel
Fans of Captain Marvel were stunned to learn that Brie Larson's blonde locks were actually CGI. The final version of the film includes 385 VFX shots. One VFX studio that worked on the movie was tasked with the specific responsibility of de-aging Samuel Jackson by 25 years.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Harry Potter film franchise revolutionized special effects. The Quidditch scenes in the sixth installment of the series were so seamless that it was hard to tell what had been done using CGI—well, except for the flying, of course.
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones was one of the most ambitious television series in history, and that includes the scale of their visual effects. As each season progressed, the CGI gradually became more sophisticated, especially when it came to Daenerys' dragon. Subreddits devoted to the show joked that every time a direwolf was killed off, it was sacrificed to the "Gods of the CGI budget," implying that the SFX was too costly to maintain.
Paranoia
Although the film doesn't boast many large-scale special effects, Paranoia wanted to pay homage to Geno's Steaks, a popular Philadelphia tourist trap. Rather than shooting on location, the visual effects team stepped in and built a virtual set instead.
The Matrix
The creators of The Matrix combined traditional effects with what was then considered state-of-the-art digital technology. In the 1990s, CGI was an emerging technology, and The Matrix broke ground by utilizing it in a way that audiences had never seen before.
The Hunger Games
Although the hologram and desktops manipulated by the Control Room operators in The Hunger Games looked shockingly real, it was all a CGI illusion. "There was tremendous pressure on us that we were constantly looking for creative ways to make up for the lack of time and money," said Sheena Duggal, the film's VFX supervisor. Achieved in only 23 weeks, the movie contains 1,200 VFX shots.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Aslan, the magical talking lion in The Chronicles of Narnia franchise, was brought to life with the help of cutting-edge CGI. Initially, the actors worked with a bust of Aslan's head while filming scenes with the jungle cat. The CGI was so impressive that many fans believe it holds up to this day, despite the film having been released over 15 years ago.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
An enormous factor in Rise of the Planet of the Apes' success was its stunning digital effects. Caesar, the hyper-intelligent chimp who leads a revolt against the shelter's abusive staff, was played by Andy Serkis in a motion-capture suit. When modeling the apes, the VFX team considered that at times "Andy overcame the character." The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Beauty And The Beast
Dan Stevens acted as the Beast opposite Emma Watson in Beauty and the Beast, but the entire time, he was wearing an enormous motion-capture suit, along with spring lifts on his feet for extra height. "It's an ordeal for my calf muscles alone," the actor said. Fortunately, Stevens was able to forego a camera rig in order for the scenes with Watson to feel more natural.
The Walking Dead
The tiger in The Walking Dead is much funnier once you realize that it's actually just a guy in a blue unitard. Scott Hunter stood in for Shiva during the epic seventh season finale. The 6'3", 240-pound stuntman leaped off a mini trampoline in order to take down one of Negan's Saviors.
I Am Legend
Will Smith recently shared this hilarious behind-the-scenes look at 2007's I Am Legend. The actor wasn't really fighting off zombie dogs in the dystopian film—instead, a man in a green suit attacked him with a dog puppet. "I was like, 'My dude, I can feel your little hush puppies on my thigh. You're going to need to settle down with your core thrusting," Smith said of the scene.
300
Over 1,500 visual effects were laid over bluescreens in the epic period action movie 300. Lena Headey noted of her experience with bluescreens, "It's very odd, and emotionally, there's nothing to connect to apart from another actor." Only one scene in the whole film was shot outdoors, in which horses travel across the countryside.
Wolf of Wall Street
The visual effects in Martin Scorcese's Oscar-winning hit The Wolf of Wall Street were so seamless that you might not have known they existed at all. Although it seems like the cast was walking along a quay toward their boat, the final shot is almost entirely a digital composite.
Gravity
It took four years for Gravity to come to life, and many of the obstacles faced by production involved technological limitations. Bullock's costume was attached to wires, meaning that the actress had to be manipulated like a marionette. Every single scene required some amount of VFX.
Avengers: Infinity War
VFX innovation in Avengers: Infinity War allowed Josh Brolin's acting to translate on-screen despite Thanos having been completely CGI. A process called Masquerade scanned Brolin's face and was able to teach itself the details of his expressions. Kelly Port, the VFX supervisor, said that she was most proud of capturing the "subtleties of [Brolin's] performance."
Logan
James Mangold's Logan featured far more CGI than audiences may have realized. The film used digital doubles, with Canadian VFX studio helping to build CG renderings of Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen. The seamless CG replicas were layered on top of trained stuntmen.
Boardwalk Empire
The best CGI is so realistic that audiences can't recognize it as having been digitally rendered. Some of the best television—such as this scene in Boardwalk Empire—has been cobbled together from a green screen and an incredible VFX team.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The movie magic of the Harry Potter film series required plenty of green screens. In this scene from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books "summoned" by Hermione in the Hogwarts library were actually being handed to her by some green-gloved crew members. The hands were blended into the background during post-production.
The Dark Knight
District Attorney Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face broke VFX ground in 2008's The Dark Knight. "This character was one of our major VFX challenges," said Nick Davis, the film's Visual Effects Supervisor. "Chris [Nolan] was not interested in going the traditional make-up route. He felt that it would be an additive effect, rather than the subtractive effect that he felt the character required. So, instead of adding a layer of material to the actor's skin, we actually removed the skin digitally."
Iron Man
As time went by, technological advances allowed Robert Downey Jr. to ditch the full Iron Man suit while filming. The reason, it turns out, is because the suit is "really, really uncomfortable and pinchy," according to animation director Marc Chu. In the later Iron Man movies, the man in the suit isn't RDJ—it's a CGI rendering or a stuntman.
The Martian
The Martian wouldn't have been possible without the help of some impressive visual effects. All of the shots showcasing Mars' desert-like terrain were CGI. The Jordan desert of Wadi Rum replaced the green screens as the backdrop of Mars.
Robocop
Although the RoboCop suit itself was not CGI, many of the 208 foot soldier robots were computer-generated for the sake of practicality. "CGI is advancing every year in terms of getting realism for an affordable price," said Martin Whist, Robocop's production designer. "That’s always been the goal, more realism. And money is always the limiter."
A Good Day to Die Hard
A Good Day to Die Hard was regarded as one of the worst of the Die Hard franchise. Despite the film's pitiful reviews, its special effects were highly praised. Director John Moore opted to execute most of the film's effects in real life, reserving VFX for backgrounds and minor enhancements.
Godzilla
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the lead in 2014's Godzilla, claimed that the film was shot mostly on-location with very little use of green screens. In order to build a computer-generated Godzilla, the visual effects team studied animals like bears, lizards, lions, wolves, and Komodo dragons. Most of the army vehicles, including tanks, were CGI as well.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Bradley Cooper provided the voice for Rocket Raccoon in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, but he wasn't about to don a green unitard for the role. Instead, director James Gunn's brother, Sean Gunn, is the motion reference actor. "Sean is able to physically do something most actors aren't able to do, which is waddle around on all fours," said James. "He's always been an incredibly limber guy that can do a lot of strange physical things. And the fact that he's able to waddle around on his legs all day long at the exact height of Rocket is quite a feat and quite, quite difficult."
Space Jam
1996's Space Jam was one of the first films in history to use digital technology. The live-action/animation hybrid movie was shot in a virtual studio. Michael Jordan filmed in a 360-degree green screen room with motion trackers; he acted opposite green-suited NBA players and improv actors against a chroma keyed CGI background.
The Hobbit
Unlike The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit relied heavily on CGI, but Sir Ian McKellen was not a fan. "I was miserable," he said. "If Gandalf was on top of a mountain, I'd be there on the mountain. The technology was being invented while we were making the film. [In 'The Lord of the Rings'] I wasn't involved in any of that, I was away acting on a mountain. I tend not to remember the bad times, but I don't think there were any. I think I enjoyed every single moment of making those films."
Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland has been praised for its complex visual style and special effects, earning a number of Academy Award nominations for the aesthetics of the film. Visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston called the film exhausting, stating that it was "the biggest show I've ever done, [and] the most creatively involved I've ever been."
Tron: Legacy
The original 1982 version of Tron was the first major motion picture to utilize CGI, and its sequel certainly didn't skimp on the visual effects. It took two years and ten VFX studios to create the 1,565 visual effects shots in Tron: Legacy. Although the film was mediocrely received, the visual effects were noted as its central highlight.
District 9
The script of District 9 was changing constantly, making the endeavor quite complex for Vancouver VFX studio Image Engine. One of the most difficult shots from the field was dubbed "the 1,000,000-alien shot," in which a brief shot depicted the interior of the alien mothership filled with hundreds of aliens.
The Maze Runner
For many of the shots in The Maze Runner, the VFX team found that using "golden hour" lighting helped to enhance the scale. "These teams of VFX data wranglers are real unsung heroes," said visual effects supervisor Susan Rowe. "They work 12 hours on set, then go home and process all the data! On-set, silver and grey ball data are used to determine the position and intensity of lighting, plus we use high dynamic range photographs to extract scene information. LIDAR and total stations were also used here to obtain wire meshes of the real sets, which then helped with our CG builds in post-production."
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword may have flopped at the box office, but it certainly boasted some breathtaking VFX. The opening sequence alone took 18 months to complete. Another challenge was perfecting Excalibur, Pendragon's mighty sword. "The sword was part of the evolving look," said Christian Kaestner, the visual effects supervisor. "It was something that was quite magical to begin with, then it became real and less interaction and less effects."
Oz the Great and Powerful
The special effects budget for this film was a whopping $200 million, and it shows. Although the film received poor reviews overall, its dazzling visual elements almost manage to salvage the plot. Regardless of its reception, Oz the Great and Powerful indulged heavily in CGI, for better or for worse.
Into the Woods
Rob Marshall's Into the Woods brought the fairytale elements of the famous Stephen Sondheim musical to life. The film obviously required a fair amount of CGI, but Matt Johnson, the visual effects supervisor, wanted to keep things as "old-school" as possible, only adding digital enhancements and backdrops where necessary.