10 Movies That Use Practical Special Effects in Lieu of CGI

Mar 09, 2024

Christopher Nolan is known for using practical effects in his movies: a rotating stage for "Inception," flipping a truck in "The Dark Knight," and setting off real explosives in his latest movie, "Oppenheimer."

In a time before computers could achieve award-winning effects like that of "Avatar: The Way of Water," Hollywood had to achieve the on-screen trickery of movie magic with fewer tools.

Today, technological advances have made special effects a go-to in filmmaking. Tools like "the Volume," a new technology that projects an image using LED lights that provides a more realistic and immersive background than a green screen, allows filmmakers to make anything a reality. But sometimes, a practical effect can achieve a similar result to CGI with the same suspension of disbelief.

In what appears to be a death-defying stunt, Harold Lloyd scales a department store in downtown Los Angeles. On his way up, Lloyd grabs onto the hands of a clock that quickly becomes undone and leaves him dangling stories above a bustling city street.

However, Lloyd was never in much danger. The clock was built as part of a set on a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles and had a safety net one floor below the action. The set was made so that the building and clock blended seamlessly into the background when the camera was correctly positioned.

The visual illusion had its intended effect. Audiences watching would cover their eyes and even fainted while watching this scene.

Chaplin was one of the preeminent stars of early 20th-century movies and was known primarily for his physical comedy. "Modern Times," the last appearance of Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character, features the actor being placed in outrageous and hilarious physical predicaments.

In one scene, Chaplin and his co-star, Paulette Goddard, put on a pair of roller skates on the fourth floor of a toy store. Chaplin confidently rolls around on skates, teetering precariously close to the edge of a four-story drop-off before declaring he can do it blindfolded.

The rest of the scene plays out with Chaplin performing a risky stunt, coming right up to the edge of the drop-off as he spins around the toy store blindfolded.

However, this was more of an optical illusion than an act of bravery.

The effect was done on a floor with a ridge where the "edge" of the floor should be. A few feet in front of the camera was a glass screen with a matte painting of the abyss. The painting was designed to fit perfectly into the space where the falloff should be, resulting in the impression of the death-defying stunt.

"Citizen Kane" — written, directed, and starring Orson Welles — was not as successful when it was released as it has become today. It did win an Oscar for screenwriting and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made.

In a scene where Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, is addressing a massive crowd, there is no real crowd in the movie.

The crowd is a miniature painting that had holes pricked into it by needles. The effects team had a moving screen of light on the other side of the painting with strategically placed holes to simulate the action of movement.

"Royal Wedding" features one of the most iconic dance scenes performed by the famed multihyphenate, Fred Astaire.

As Astaire dances in his hotel room, the room starts rotating, and Astaire defies gravity as he dances around the walls and ceiling. The effect also made an appearance in Christopher Nolan's 2010 film "Inception," which was achieved in a similar way.

The living room set was built inside a steel cage with the furniture secured to the ground. The camera was then put in a fixed point and secured there while the set rotated.

Because the camera is put in a fixed point, as it rotates, it looks like Astaire is in zero gravity while the room remains stationary.

"The Ten Commandments" centers around Moses, played by Charlton Heston, leading enslaved Hebrews to Mount Sinai, where God gives him the Ten Commandments.

A significant point in Moses' journey to Mount Sinai is when he parted the Red Sea. The movie makers had to figure out how to create the effect of splitting an entire ocean in a time before computers.

The effect combines real-world practical shots with a little bit of movie magic. The effects artists used 24 dump tanks at Paramount Pictures' studio lot to film roughly 360 gallons of water rushing together.

The water from the tanks was released in succession and cascaded down two sloped embankments. When the footage was reversed, it looked like the Red Sea parted down the middle.

The rest of the effect — the water staying in place — was done with rotoscoping, mattes, and other film work.

"The Ten Commandments" was nominated for seven Oscars, but only went home with one for special effects.

"Jason and the Argonauts," a movie adaptation of the famous Greek epic, showcased top-tier movie effects from Ray Harryhausen, an animator and special effects creator.

Harryhausen is credited for inventing dynamation, a form of stop-motion model animation. In lieu of building elaborate sets, he would use rear projection for his models to make them seem bigger than they are.

Harryhausen put a glass plane in front of the camera, recorded the stop motion, and used black paint to block out certain scenes he didn't want to be exposed to while recording. He would then rewind the film, put a new glass plane in front of the camera with black paint covering the parts of the rear projection he used, and let the film record.

The effect resulted in his creatures being a part of the movie as though they were actually there.

Harryhausen had many projects using this same technique. The skeleton fight, which took four-and-a-half months to animate, stands out for its hand-to-hand combat between humans and puppets.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" took Harryhausen's work to a different level. In a movie about humans interacting with cartoons, a surprising amount of the effects were done practically.

The set was built 8 feet above the ground so puppeteers could control various animatronics moving through the set.

Robotic arms were explicitly built to smash plates on a surface, smoke cigars, and move plates around the set like servers. The animators would then animate the cartoon characters over the machines on set.

The result was a proper blending of the human world and cartoon world that makes Roger Rabbit unique.

An enduring classic, Jurassic Park utilized practical effects to bring its extinct antagonists to life.

Many of the dinosaurs that came on screen were animatronic puppets. The most impressive was the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which was 36 feet long, 18 feet tall, and weighed around 12,000 pounds.

Some of the dinosaurs were animatronic puppets, people in dinosaur suits, or even just actors wearing dinosaur hands and feet.

"The Lord of the Rings" series had its fair share of visual effects and computer-generated imagery. But some of its most basic effects were achieved using practical effects.

To give the hobbits their signature height, Peter Jackson, the trilogy's director, used forced perspective.

Forced perspective is the method of putting one person close to the camera and another far away. While the camera stays stationary, our brain believes the two people are different sizes. In Lord of the Rings, there are multiple shots where the camera is moving.

Jackson and his team created sets that would move with the camera to maintain the forced perspective. As the cameras moved, the different sizes of the characters or props in the scene would stay the same.

The movie, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, has a blend of CGI and practical shots. But one of the most eye-catching is a shot where Carrey and Winslet seem to grow and shrink while moving around a set.

The effect was done in a "distortion chamber," an effect designed during the 14th-century Renaissance and improved upon by a scientist named Albert Ames in the 1940s, that utilized forced perspective to achieve its effect.

The room is built to appear normal on camera, but in reality, one side of the room is built at an angle further away from the camera. The other side of the room is made closer to the camera, whereas the floor is built slanting upwards and the ceiling is built sloping downwards.

The set of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" adopts a similar technique to achieve an effect of growing and shrinking.

Christopher Nolan is known for prioritizing practical effects over CGI, as evidenced in his decision to crash a 747 plane for his movie, "Tenet" (2020).

Nolan's latest venture, "Oppenheimer," is no exception.

Nolan noted that "there were huge practical challenges" in achieving the effect of the atomic bomb explosion.

The team used an actual bomb fueled by petroleum, not nuclear energy, and miniatures to utilize forced perspective and make the explosion seem accurate. After setting the bomb off, the crew layered the frames they took on top of each other to achieve the proper effect, according to Movie Web.