Hollywood is said to have become lazy thanks to the rise of CGI. No longer do large sets have to be physically created to shoot a scene. But, the tech isn't there yet. There are still some things that need to be fixed to make CGI look lifelike. There are many scenes in movies that people point out are CGI but did you know that there are multiple scenes that look CGI in movies but have practical effects used in them?
Even to this day, this movie has been regarded as one of the finest portrayals of the legendary vampire. In one of the scenes, there is a green mist shown on screen. Back then there was no proper CGI to make it. What you're seeing on screen is real mist. The film reel was then placed in a fridge and then the green effect was colored over it.
The movie was applauded for its realistic portrayal of the war but, did you know that most of the scenes that you were watching were actually filmed without CGI. Yes, today it is easy to film a plane fight scene but Nolan wanted it to be real. The plane fight scene was filmed using real WWII planes or models of them.
This movie belongs to the franchise that began without any CGI. In Jurassic World, the T-Rex used had a real head. Yes, the body was CG but for the actors to act and for close-up shots they used a real 3D printed large T-Rex head. The prop could also roar and have eye movement.
Love it or hate it the original Suicide Squad movie had some charm to it. The biggest one was the introduction of Killer Croc. This character looks really good and people did not know that no CGI was used in the creation of the character. It was prosthetics that the actor had to sit and wear for five hours every day.
The show that gave Star Wars fans hope for good Star Wars content is filled with old-school practical effects. In the original Star Wars trilogy, there were multiple practical effects used especially for the spaceships and now they're used once again. Mando's ship is actually a prop used for proper lighting effects.
Image Source: nocookie.net
This movie still stands the test of time of one of those movies from the 90s that has aged very well. While most scenes did have CGI the one where the T-1000 gets its face cut in half was a practical effect. They made a mold of Robert Patrick's head and cut it from the center and placed it over his body to give the splitting head effect.
Spiderman is a movie franchise that has a ton of CGI but one particular scene that most people thought was CGI was the ferry scene. This wasn't CGI. They had two locations. One was on a real ferry while another set was built that showed the damaged ferry that Peter saves.
This movie made the raptors the center point so they did not want to use CGI. They wanted to use practical effects. For this, they used stuntmen in very elaborate suits instead of CGI. The CGI raptors looked bad in the scenes so they went with the humans in suits. A puppeteer used to control the facial expressions.
Image Source: nocookie.net
Nolan has appeared on this list twice. There's a reason for that. You may know that tenet is a visual marvel that has been applauded by fans as one of the movies with great visual effects. But, the trust of the matter is that they are all practical effects and the number of visual effects used is very few.
For a scene in this movie, Wonder woman is seen running faster than Usain Bolt. That scene was achieved by closing down Pennsylvania Avenue. Yes, an entire street was closed down for that one scene. There were wires used but no CGI to pull off the epic scene.
De-aging is a new trend in Hollywood where old actors are made to look young using CGI but that isn't always the case. In many instances like 2021's Halloween Kills, prosthetics were used to make the actor look younger. This gives the character a more natural-looking face rather than a smooth CGI mess.
Keeping up with the Star Wars tradition, this movie too has multiple practical effects being used. There were real robotic creatures used on the set instead of CGI. CGI is much cheaper but if not done well can pull you out of the scene. So the effects team used real parts and crafted elaborate robots from scratch for the movie.