10 Practical Film Effects You Probably Thought Were CGI
Not all filmmakers shy away from real effects...
These days, you could be forgiven for thinking everything that looks cool was probably CGI. Heck, even Michael Douglas face was CGI-ed in a memorable scene from Ant-Man last year. If thats how far filmmakers are allowing technology to invade their work, what hope is there left for practical effects?
Hold your horses for a second, friend, because heres some good news there are still some filmmakers out there who dont fall prey to easy solutions of CGI. A handful of innovators are still fighting the good fight for old-fashioned practical effects, and their movies are all the more enjoyable as a result.
From droids to diminutive characters, via wonky sets and wormholes, here are ten of the best practical effects that you understandable may have assumed were CGI
10. Multiple Versions Of BB-8
If you arent the type to go reading every article about the making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, you may have missed the surprising news that its soon-to-be-iconic ball droid BB-8 is actually for the most part a practical creation.
From a basic design scribbled out by director and co-writer J.J. Abrams, BB-8 was brought to life by legendary movie designer Neal Scanlan who had previously worked on the likes of Babe and Prometheus, along with a team of other experts at Lucasfilm.
The technology was slightly too far off to create a fully functional BB-8 at this stage, but various versions of BB-8 were built for different purposes. For example, a puppet version nicknamed the wriggler was made for close-up scenes. It couldn't move around, but it could twist and turn on the spot.
A puppeteer-controlled version - pulled about on a series of rods - also features heavily in the finished film, particularly when BB-8 needs to move a bit more. The rods and puppeteers were later erased digitally from the movie, of course, but BB-8 himself was almost-entirely practical. Its unknown at this stage if his famous thumbs-up was a CGI addition.
After the filming had finished, Scanlan returned to BB-8 and finally completed a fully remote-controlled BB-8 that didn't need puppeteers, rods or rigs to bring it to life. Presumably, this fully practical BB-8 will crop up in future Star Wars instalments.