3. The Transformation - An American Werewolf in London (1981).
Makeup artists are the real magicians in Hollywood, but for years they went virtually unnoticed. It wasn't until
An American Werewolf in London came around that things began to change. Following its release, the Academy Awards was quick to introduce a new category, Best Makeup, an award the movie handily won. To any who wonder why, I present the transformation sequence the movie is most famous for:
the transformation scene. That scene alone is 6 days work. Just to apply the makeup daily took about 10 hours, whereas removing it took 3, so that means over half a day was spent solely on the makeup. By contrast, only 5 hours a day was spent on the actual filming. And all that time and effort can really be seen in the final product, as worthy a winner of an Oscar as there ever was. To this day, the transformation remains among the best examples of the wonders that makeup can do. It could stand alongside the nominees of recent years and not look the least bit out of place. The same can rarely be said for CGI, which starts to show its age at a rather rapid rate following its release. There's a reason why it's movies like
2001: A Space Odyssey whose effects stand the test of time. Models, make-up, etc. just hold up better because it's hard to beat the real thing or, to be more specific, a facsimile of it.