10 Recent CGI Movie Moments You Didn't Notice
6. The Cave - Thirteen Lives
Thirteen Lives is a damn solid dramatisation of the Tham Luang cave rescue courtesy of Ron Howard, and while you might've assumed that the film was shot entirely practically on a sound stage with the cast members swimming inside water tanks, VFX actually played a huge role in the end result.
For starters, due to pandemic-related restrictions forcing Howard to film in Australia rather than on-location in Thailand, many exterior shots of the cave had to be finagled digitally - yet the result is basically impossible to spot.
As for the cave interiors, the practical sets were hugely extended with CGI, with many shots of the cave being created digitally from scratch.
But most impressively of all, though the actors did indeed swim in tanks for the rescue sequence, lots of shots were completely CGI creations, combining digital geometry of the caves with VFX doubles of the actors.
It all looks so photoreal, however, that you'd have a tough time spotting them without the VFX breakdown below.
While Thirteen Lives failed to secure a Best Visual Effects Oscar nomination as many expected, it did nevertheless win the Visual Effects Society's award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature.