10 More Movie Special Effects Nobody Believed
Everyone was totally wrong about these awesome effects.
Special effects are a big part of movie magic - whether achieved through practical, in-camera means or the result of cutting-edge CGI, special effects are instrumental in transporting the audience on an escapist thrill ride.
These effects can come in many forms, and while they most often draw total attention to themselves, sometimes the precise "how" of their execution isn't quite so clear.
Sometimes a special effect might be so mind-boggling in its execution that audiences become absolutely convinced it had to be pulled off a certain way, only for behind-the-scenes footage and interviews to categorically prove otherwise.
And so, as a sequel to our previous article on the very subject, here are 10 more movie special effects that absolutely nobody believed.
These astonishing effects-driven sequences all had audiences assuming they were executed one way, yet the truth was really quite different, often relying on a complex assemblage of creative techniques most regular folk would never even think about.
It's nothing if not a testament to the never-ending ingenuity of the artisans who help bring the most spellbinding works of cinema to life...
10. Zero-Gravity - Apollo 13
Ron Howard's Apollo 13 is a fantastic dramatisation of the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 space mission, and ever since it released in 1995, audiences have wracked their brains trying to figure out how Howard so persuasively depicted his cast in zero-gravity conditions.
This was a major pre-production challenge for the director, and while the most obvious assumption would be that Howard deferred to complex wire work, possibly with some VFX assistance, that wasn't the case at all.
In actual fact, all wide shots depicting weightlessness in space were filmed inside an aircraft used by NASA to train their astronauts - a Boeing KC-135, better known as the "Vomit Comet."
By flying into the air and then sharply descending, the plane's occupants would experience around 25 seconds of weightlessness per attempt.
Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, and Gary Sinise repeated this 80 times per shooting day to capture the required footage - a gruelling process which reportedly resulted in a cameraman vomiting on Bacon.
These shots were then spliced together with close-ups filmed back on the ground with a sea-saw like device which gave the impression of the actors floating. It's a seamless effect overall, and played a huge part in the movie's massive success.