10 Movies That Put INSANE Effort Into Tiny Details

10. Making A Giant Journal For One Shot - Bram Stoker's Dracula

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a mesmerising marvel of practical effects wizardry, as executed by director Francis Ford Coppola's son Roman, where even seconds-long shots had a backbreaking amount of work put into them.

Case in point, the memorable shot where Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is writing in his journal while taking the train to Transylvania wasn't achieved through clever cutting-edge compositing, but an ingenious fusion of practical effects techniques.

During the shot, the smoke from the train casts a shadow across the journal, a surreal and expressionistic touch that couldn't be achieved by simply placing a journal in front of the camera lens with the miniature train set in the background, because the shadow wouldn't travel that distance.

For the shadow to appear on the journal, the production had to create an oversized 20-foot journal prop which was placed in front of the train set as it was blasted with light, causing the smoke to cast genuine shadows on the journal's pages.

It's a shot which would almost certainly be accomplished with VFX today, but back in 1992, Coppola's desire to see those shadows required his prop team to pull out all the stops. All this for a shot which, while gorgeous, lasts a grand total of seven seconds.