Special effects have become the holy grail of Hollywood movies; credit has to be given to the advancements made in technology such as CGI and green screens. Have you ever wondered what it looks like in reality when these films are being made? Trust us, seeing this will change the way you watch movies. So, take a look at these bizarre behind-the-scenes photos of Hollywood at its best.
1. Titanic
In this scene of Titanic, it seems like there would be have been more work to create this scene, but this was all the greenscreen effects that went into it.
First, Rose was not impressed with the space on the door, and yet, this comes up.
2. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
This picture may or may not ruin your Harry Potter magical experience, but sadly, books to not magically float into the air without a few helping hands.
Those magical creatures with the green screen hands must be mythical creatures that live in the library.
3. Game Of Thrones
To be honest, It would have been cooler is they had used something a little bit scarier and intimidating. CGI was deployed using a green stick but come on, the dragon should have been given more respect, they are huge and terrifying creatures.
Grabbing some fabric and wrapping it around a stick and calling it quit makes it feel like no serious attempts were made by the production team to make her job easier. Check further to view the ways your favorite animated '90s film was brought to life.
4. Beauty And The Beast
Isn’t this sweet, if you have ever felt Emma Watson is not a great actor, this photo will most certainly prove you wrong. You can see Dan Stevens walking in a big padded suit, and yet, Watson's facial expression didn’t change, she danced with him in this suit.
The ability she showcased in this movie by keeping a straight face with Stevens deserves an Oscar nomination.
5. Game Of Thrones
Our sincere appreciation goes to HBO’S big budget that gave us the opportunity to watch the wildlings and Jon climb the wall in season three. There are two things in this series that definitely require a green screen, the wall and the dragons.
It seems a vertical wall was actually made use of, but on a closer look, the ground seems to be around 30 and not 300 feet below.
6. The Avengers
Mark Ruffalo is the man behind the CGI Hulk; he has also been amazing playing the role of Bruce Banner in The Avengers franchise.
Keep in mind that whenever Banner transforms, Ruffalo also gets to transform. How? A quick outfit change into the now-famous but hidden CGI-suit.
7. Life Of Pi
Although everyone knows that the tiger in Life of Pi was not real, it is still hard to see the behind the scenes photo in front of your face.
It’s still awesome to see Suraj Sharma floating and acting on water undeterred by the CGI and special effects.
8. I Am Legend
In I Am Legend, Robert is being attacked by a mutant dog. His dog comes to defend him, but unfortunately, the dog gets infected in the process. This has to be the most intense and emotional scene in the movie, and we all ended up shedding tears.
Right now, looking at this bizarre man wearing a green morph suit and playing the role of the infected dog actually makes us feel a whole lot better.
9. Space Jam
Michael Jordan was acting with cartoon characters in this movie, but realistically, that is impossible. So, how did they bring this movie to life? With a little help from CGI and greenscreens.
This proves by the way that MJ is an underrated actor. The next movie is a sequel to an “80s original”, the effects of both films are different.
10. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Daniel Radcliffe must have enjoyed pretending to glide and swipe through the air. Although, it would have been pretty amazing if he was actually able to fly.
The experience must have been close to riding some of the coin-operated rides that you will find outside a convenience store.
11. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Busted! Kudos to Bill Nighy that he played the role of the ghost captain “Davy Jones” perfectly, we couldn’t be more pleased even though we never expected his character to have such a “snake-like” kind of mustache.
Didn't you think maybe some prosthetics or even a wig were used? This picture proves without a doubt that CGI made this character possible.
12. The Matrix
News flash, this is added proof that shows The Matrix movie as a whole was all done using a green screen designed soundstage. As you can see, the mystery behind how the scene where they dodge bullets by leaning back in slow motion has been solved.
The magic of Hollywood is at full force here.
13. Mad Max: Fury Road
You don’t want to drive on the same road with these guys. This film was lauded to be in its own class and this is largely due to the role that special effects played. Yes, the cars might be real, looking rugged and authentic but do you remember the explosions, flips and dystopian desert? Yeah, all those in your head right now, they were all fake.
To set the record straight, greenscreen or not, the original Mad Max action scenes in comparison to the New Mad Max can be likened to a little child playing in a big man’s game; the new Mad Max is on steroids compared to the old movie.
14. The Avengers
Here, we can see Mark Ruffalo at his best again. For Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, they had it easy wearing those boring super costumes.
But as for Mark, he had to consistently switch roles from playing the shy, awkward scientist to the 1400 pound, 8- foot tall monster.
15. Guardians Of The Galaxy
It is slightly disappointing not to see Bradley Cooper, who was credited for playing the role of Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy, in that green morph suit.
Replacing him in the suit is the effect actor Gunn Sean who had to keep a low stance for a prolonged period of time in order to pull off the role.
16. The Dark Knight
While Harvey Dent was having issues with his identity crisis, Aaron Eckhart was kicking ass with his perfect acting. Even though credit needs to be given to CGI for doing all the heavy lifting for Eckhart, his attempt at making the part of his face look more frightening than the other was quite good.
Throw in some prosthetics in the mix and he won’t even need special effect, well-done Eckhart.
17. Boardwalk Empire
A few strips of green screen can be seen deployed here in the series Boardwalk Empire, and it goes to show how this can remodel an entire scene, amazing effects right?
A few decades ago, making a film like this would require a large body of water, and the dated ocean liners would have to be omitted. This goes to show how far we have come in the movie industry.
18. Gravity
Are you a big fan of movies made in outer space? Such movies are bound to have some CGI action and green screen in them, and it goes to show how much effort was put into the movie Gravity.
Sandra Bullock didn’t even have anything close to the actual equipment deployed in the studio, and yet, everything turned out fine, kudos to the muscle power of CGI.
19. The Avengers
There is no way Marvel is taking any chances here, green screen to the rescue. These movies by Marvel are filled with action scenes with various explosions flying around here and there.
Decades ago, this probably wouldn't have even been possible. Ok, maybe it might have been achievable but it would have involved using real explosions, which would have been unsafe.
20. The Matrix
Back to showcasing The Matrix movie again, the above scene was set up in a storehouse and a green screen was still deployed in the entire background. Taking into account that half of this movie plot revolves around the character “Neo” doing his thing while inside The Matrix, a great deal of CGI needed to be used.
I get the feeling that Keanu Reeves basically played his role in this entire movie using his own wits and imagination, I must say this is quite amazing and remarkable.
21. X-Men
Is Wolverine really smiling here? He is basically the mutant that can regenerate after any type of damage is done to his body. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blade slicing right into him or a gunshot aimed right at him with the bullet going right into his body, he always manages to come back and not only that, he comes back angrier than ever.
In this scene, crew members are setting him up for success, even though the metal rods look like they are going right through him, they are only attached to the exterior part of his body.
22. Infinity War
No one is smiling with you “Thanos.” Introducing the most ruthless villain in the Marvel Universe. He never disappointed after making his full-length movie appearance around early 2018 playing the character in Avengers: Infinity War. How was this actor remodeled?
Well, it looks to me like facial scans were taken and matched with CGI. This means that any facial expression that Josh Brolin makes on the computer will be also be projected on the big screen for us to see.
23. Godzilla
Come on, giant lizards waiting to attack after laying dormant in unknown and secluded places. If the case were this, the world as we know it would be doomed. A nuke might stop it, but this is also dangerous to the civilian population.
It looks like a giant screen was deployed in front of breathing and living actors, and Godzilla was slipped through using impressive CGI effects.
24. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Lots of us wish to believe that Ceasar was real and a revolution could be led by a group of monkeys, but this is not the case in reality but it will be fun to find out how this bold and powerful lead character was brought to life.
Turns out that the filmmakers used a similar approach to that of “Thanos” from Avengers. They grabbed put something on his head and left the rest of the work to CGI. Smooth right?
25. Kill Bill
In regards to the stunts Uma Thurman pulled off in this movie, there are probably very few people that would be capable of it; of course, a little bit of Hollywood magic came to her rescue.
For balance, a couple of wires were attached to keep her safe in case she fell off this man. Are you excited for part three of this movie series?
26. Infinity War
People often wonder how realistic buildings often get destroyed while making these action movies. Maybe they visit the city’s mayor and request for old buildings to use in their films, but we all know that’s not the case.
There was a lot of destruction in Infinity War. In the above scene, the damage done so far is minor,and instead of using our now-classic green screen, the buildings were covered in blue and edited afterward.
27. Life Of Pi
After seeing the wrapped stick Emily used for CGI in Games of Thrones, we now have to deal with this. Life would be a blast if tigers could safely sleep on our laps instead of seeing us as a potential meal.
It looks like he was just holding a stuffed animal with an eye drawn on it. Definitely not scary at all, and the tiger actually looks cute.
28. 300
These scenes took place during a time period and in places that do not exist anymore, and a solution had to surface.
Making this movie in the open would have been classic, but this was not the case. They had to use green screens and CGI to create these important battle scenes.
29. Tron
This movie contains tons of special effects. If the world displayed in this movie actually existed, we will all be queuing for tickets to go there right now.
Cool lights and amazing themes can be seen here and this all suggests that a heavy quantity of various color screens must have been deployed to pull this movie off.
30. Robocop
So it was only a sweet regular guy playing this terrifying cop role with some cool head gear on him.
Giant robocops roaming the streets would be a little frightening. Although things look like they will turn out this way in our future, there is no way it would have been possible when this movie came out.
31. Superman
We have all imagined having superpowers, and having the ability to fly would probably top the list. Imagine flying over airports, it will make all the airport security obsolete. Fortunately, in the case of Clark Kent, he isn’t of this world.
It’s not really difficult to make him look like he is flying, all you need to do is suspend him in the air, grab some screen and throw this right behind him.
32. Hunger Games
Is that high-tech table just a long green table wrapped in green screen material? That didn’t just happen. Put some monitor screens on the table, at least.
Actors playing these roles don’t get paid enough to pretend they are doing something which they are not doing. It’s a kind of art from my point of view.
33. Narnia
What were you expecting? A real beautiful mansion off the coast of some beautiful island? Well, good luck with that. While Narnia is a beautiful book that sparks the imagination, it does not exist, unfortunately.
In spite of this, the people that made the movie did a great job of replicating what Narnia should look like on the big screen. It certainly looks like somewhere a lot of people will love to visit.
34. A Good Day To Die Hard
Yes, Bruce Willis might be hardcore but it is impossible for him to be really out there staring at death in the face without the computers helping out.
In this scene, he is seen escaping from a chopper that will have slapped him hard with death if it was real. There is news of him doing some of his stunts.
35. 300
A large statue and a bed fit for a king, this fascinating scene from this movie captures the core of what it feels like to be king at this point in time.
Large animal statues can probably still be found but placing them at your “palace” (that’s if you have one) is going to be quite difficult.
36. Iron Man
Robert Downey Jr. must really enjoy playing the role of iron man, he has been playing this role in over ten (10) years. We are hoping that one day, the technology that will enable someone to have a real Iron Man suit will be developed but until this becomes a reality, we can keep enjoying his movies.
Who knows, Robert Downey Jr. might be searching for ways to develop a real suit when no one least expects it.
37. Iron Man
Marvel studio has consistently found ways to improve the manner in which Iron man will be projected on screen, by the time War machine came into the picture; they had kind of figure out ways of perfecting this.
But there is still room for improvement that is guaranteed to make the future of super hero films look and feel much better.
38. Walking Dead
You can’t find Zombies in the actual world, no complaints on this one. It’s amazing to note that one of TV’s most popular shows has some green screen used in it. Desolate cities for filming are not so readily available.
This is the reason why this scene had to be done this way; the scene probably took place in the film studio.
39. Wolf Of Wall Street
When your movie budget is quite stiff, grab some green screen and throw at it. These actors seem to be heading out for the time of their lives right inside a mock-up studio.
No one will have thought that this kind of simple scene will require a green screen especially since you could fly them out to places that look like this, perhaps, this was a simpler solution.
40. THE Wolverine
Hugh Jackman character as wolverine grew on us and many thought he could really take lots of smashing and come out of it blazing for more. Fans are quite sad that he is out of their lives and won’t be taking this role again, he was what I will call a perfect Wolverine.
But even a scar as big as that had to be edited using CGI.