10 Most Amazing Practical Movie Effects Of The 2010s

6. Air Force One Freefall (Iron Man 3)

Iron Man 3 air force one freefall scene
Marvel Studios

The Marvel Cinematic Universe isn't the first place you'd go if you wanted examples of amazing practical effects, but Iron Man 3's Air Force One freefall sequence is so memorable because you can tell that everything is happening in-camera.

And that's very much true. Initially, the producers assumed that this scene would be accomplished by using a green screen, but the movie's second-unit director had other ideas. He contacted the Red Bull skydiving team, organised a test shoot, and from there, the stunt was given the go-ahead.

The Red Bull team - wearing custom-made, Air Force One-appropriate costumes that were outfitted with parachutes - doubled as the crew of the plane, while another team member doubled as Iron Man and another held the camera.

The team jumped from about 12,000 feet in the air, and made around seven to eight jumps per day for six days in total. Even more impressive was that they did all of this without wearing goggles, reducing the amount of digital tweaking this scene would need in post-production.

Inevitably, there were some CGI adjustments to be made - the jump plane was changed to a digital Air Force One, and some of the more noticeable parachute packs had to be smoothed out. But those people falling through the sky and landing in that specific formation? That's all real.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!