10 CGI Movie Shots You Never Noticed
3. The Shopping Bags - Shazam!
Subtle CGI is indeed a wonderful art in of itself, especially when it's used in creative and clever ways to solve problems which the filmmakers didn't notice while shooting.
Case in point, Shazam! director David F. Sandberg posted a video to his brilliantly informative YouTube channel revealing how he ingeniously dealt with an issue during the scene where Shazam (Zachary Levi) flies through a mall.
While nobody's under any illusion that Shazam's flight was achieved with anything other than CGI, if you move your eyes over to the right-hand side of the frame, there's some VFX trickery you almost certainly missed.
The "extras" on the right were actually part of the film crew who didn't realise they were being filmed, and with post-production time running out, Sandberg had to consider a quick and dirty way to make their presence seem more natural.
He ultimately fixed the issue by simply having his VFX team give the crew members shopping bags and a mop, making it seem like they were supposed to be there all along. Brilliant.