10 Recent CGI Movie Moments You Didn't Notice
1. The Concert Audiences - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Shooting concert scenes are tough under even the best of circumstances, but in the middle of a pandemic where access to extras is extremely limited? That's a whole other challenge.
And while it's simply a logistical reality that musical biopics use VFX to create their giant concert crowds, the recent Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody took this to a quite unprecedented level.
While the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody was able to corral 2,000 extras for its concert scenes, the nature of this movie's pandemic shoot meant that director Kasi Lemmons had to juggle between 150 and 300 actors at most.
As a result, these extras were each shot in 10 different sets of clothes and giving 10 different performances, which were then interspersed throughout the crowd to make up the expected volume.
Furthermore, 100% CGI crowd members were also used to further fill the stadiums out, and wilder still, the arenas themselves were completely digital for the most part, recreated using their actual building blueprints, rather than filming in any actual stadiums.
While it's clear that some CGI was used to enhance the audience sizes during the concert scenes, way more work went into this than you'd ever know from looking at it.