10 Bizarre Ways Directors Tricked Audiences

10. Under The Shape Of Water - The Shape Of Water

Director Guillermo del Toro is known for favouring practical effects and elaborate set designs over the use of CGI. His approach to filming the 2017 romantic fantasy, The Shape of Water, was no exception.

The film opens with a wonderfully hypnotic camera move that glides through a subterranean apartment, submerged beneath the ocean. Sea animals swim throughout a collection of furniture, floating in the tranquil aquatic environment. The effect is dreamlike, and highly convincing. Immediately one would think this could only be achieved through the use of highly sophisticated CGI.

In reality it was a physical set. All the household objects were suspended by a system of pulleys, which could be manipulated to give the appearance the objects were floating. The illusion of rippling water was achieved by casting light at different intensities through varies thicknesses of smoke. The pulley lines were then removed in post-production, and after a nifty bit of colour correction the illusion was complete.