10 Epic Movie Moments You Won't Believe Used No CGI
7. Independence Day - New York Fireball
The CGI used in 1996s Independence Day was second to none at the time of its release, with some great effects used that actually dont seem all that dated today considering the film is nearly 20 years old. What may surprise you is that one of the films most iconic scenes was created using no computer imagery at all, instead a combination of scaled models and camera trickery was opted for and the results speak for themselves.
In a scene that featured heavily in the trailers, one of the many alien crafts hovering over the United States sent a fireball flying through the streets of New York, rolling along the sides of buildings and engulfing everything in its path. This part of the film still seems so real upon a rewatch, and thats because it was.
The effects team went to the lengths of building a model city that they could turn on its side and, with some bad !*$% pyrotechnics at one end and a camera at the other, they blasted it with flames and then slowed the footage down to achieve that crawling fireball look. A simple idea that took months of effort and was totally worth it.