10 Recent CGI Movie Moments You Didn't Notice
4. A TON Of Landscape Shots - The Pale Blue Eye
Often the most impressive visual effects are those invisible ones you'd never be able to spot in a million years, and perhaps the single most underappreciated benefit of VFX is the ability to replace or extend sets.
Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and David Fincher regularly use CGI to add depth and detail to their shot footage, in turn making it look considerably more epic, and Scott Cooper did a similarly great job with this on his recent Netflix thriller The Pale Blue Eye.
The majority of the film takes place at and around West Point's snow-topped United States Military Academy, and while you probably assumed that the production simply filmed the movie at a similar-looking American university, that's not entirely true.
While the film was partially shot at Westminster College, the exteriors of the United States Military Academy were actually digitally created, with partial elements - like soldiers and a horse-drawn carriage - being filmed and transplanted into a VFX rendition of the Academy.
The entire movie is filled with gorgeous landscape shots, the majority of which were at least partially CGI, but many were entirely digital.
And yet, the result is absolutely seamless, perhaps in part because we're simply not expecting to see extensive effects in a movie like this.