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20 Practical Effects That Look Like CGI, and 20 Digital Effects That Look Like Real Life

‘The Fly’ didn’t need CGI, but a movie about playing tag did. Go figure

20 Practical Effects That Look Like CGI, and 20 Digital Effects That Look Like Real Life

April 23, 2024

Gone are the days of Steamboat Willie, where if you wanted to make an animal beat up another animal, you could just force your underpaid, non-union animators to draw it. These days, you have to force an underpaid, overseas army of CGI artists to render it.

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI Aliens The dropship crashing down and rolling towards the characters was achieved by the old technique of projecting the footage on the background. The scene looks smooth, dangerous, and insanely dynamic. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Alien The rest of the cast was taken aside while John Hurt's head and arms was fitted with a fake chest, while his body was hidden under the table. Then they returned to shoot the scene, and boom! Free trauma. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI 2001: A Space Odyssey Was that zero-G pen, like, hanging from an invisible wire? Nope, that would look wobbly. Instead, it was stuck with two-sided tape to a slowly-moving glass panel, and the flight just grabbed it from there. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Society Spoilers for this 1989 classic by Brian Yuzna: The rich are cannibalistic aliens! Not only that, but they melt into each other in a shapeless, Akira-like blob. The bonkers effects were done by cult Japanese artist Screaming Mad George. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI An American Werewolf in London The iconic, game-changing werewolf transformation used prosthetics, animatronics, reverse photography, and a fake floor. FX wizard Rick Baker worked for months on these two minutes - and got an Oscar for it. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The Ten Commandments

CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI The Ten Commandments The parting of the Red Sea was made by reversing footage of two water sources flowing together. This was then composited with the walls of water (which were sideways shots of, well, rushing water), and the actors. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Little Shop of Horrors The carnivorous plant Audrey II is animatronic, which makes her fluid, smooth lip motions amazing. To achieve that, the animatronic was shot at 12 to 16 frames per second, then sped up to the regular 24. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Foreign Correspondent While Alfred Hitchcock was not an FX genius, this 1940 scene kicks butt. As the plane is about to crash, the image of the ocean moving rapidly closer is projected in front of the cockpit - and then that screen itself is busted wide open by actually flooding water. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Independence Day Ronald Emmerich's movie is right at the hinge between old-school techniques and modern CGI, and the destruction of New York is a wonder ofthe former. The wall of fire slowly enveloping the city is real fire, climbing up a vertical model of the city. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Hook The island is a painting - and yet, the perspective subtly changes as Robin Williams blue-screen flies over it. This was done by slightly tilting the painting, and then returning it to an upright position. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI Who Framed Roger Rabbit Roger Rabbit did the opposite of the Chip 'n Dale movie -hand-drawn animation was made to look 3D. The animation was passed through several layers of highlighting and shading to give it its lifelike feel. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Modern Times Charlie Chaplin was never dangerously close to any edge - the drop-off was painted on a pane of glass placed in front of the camera. The effect is flawless, even if our CGI-trained eye can spot some minor issues. D CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Scanners The FX team built a plaster skull with a gelatin exterior and insides made of everything, from latex scraps to burger leftovers - and then the supervisor just laid down behind it and blew it with a shotgun. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM Fake DeLorean Amazing effects made without CGI Back to the Future II That lamp post isn't random - it's there to hide the change from the flying fake DeLorean to a real car. The transition is seamless, with shadows and details perfectly matched. God damn, we love this trilogy. Real DeLorean — Source

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI Close Encounters of the Third Kind Besides the insane model work, the alien ship was shot on 70 mm film, which has a greater resolution than the 35 mm film used for the rest of the movie. This allowed it to keep a good deal of sharpness and detail in the final composition. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Metropolis How do you have a real throng walking through a huge futuristic city in 1927? Easy -you film the people through a narrow slit, with the rest of the shot taken up by a mirror reflecting a painting of the city. BAVISSAN Mirror Real people CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI The Fly The FX artists worked backwards - they began with the last two creatures (both puppets), then moved onto the four stages of make-up transformation that would turn Jeff Goldblum into Brundlefly. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Hellraiser Frank's slimy rebirth (a result of reshoots) was pulled off through puppets, reverse photography, a fake floor - and lots of lube and condoms. Lube, condoms, and Hellraiser? Sounds like a dream date to us. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

Amazing effects made without CGI The Thing John Carpenter rejected the idea of a guy in a suit, so his FX team created several incarnations of the Thing, mimicking different creatures and organs. The result feels and moves like it is truly alive - perhaps because there's very little stop motion as well. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Jason and the Argonauts The actors were filmed fighting alone, and then the skeleton warriors were animated following the footage frame by frame. Stop-motion genius Ray Harryhausen took over four months for this five minute scene. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1 Kristen Stewart did not lose 30 pounds, but was instead under heavy makeup, and even prosthetics were used. Still, the final touches were done with a good use of CGI (unlike that damn creepy CGI baby). CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Brokeback Mountain Yup, the first thing in our minds when we think of this movie is heavy CGI (and only that, because we don't feel like crying, OK?). Seriously, trees, clouds, mountains, flocks of sheep, entire sceneries were digitally constructed and composited. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Dark Shadows Johnny Depp's Barnabas Collins never blinks, as his eye movements were digitally altered. We'd say it's the exact opposite situation to Wesley Snipes in Blade: Trinity (where he refused to open his eyes for a scene, forcing horrible CGI trickery), but Depp deserves to be the butt of more jokes than Snipes. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI John Wick This scene is a synonym for absolutely unnecessary CGI. It's dog poop. That's it. When the puppy leaves John's house to poop in the lawn, the doggy waste can be seen as the little girl sprints back. They couldn't give her laxatives, so they added CGI poop, which probably cost a few hundred- -wait, $5,000? CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Inconspicuous CGI Tag Who could forget Tag, the beloved comedy about, erm, sentient price tags, we guess? Jeremy Renner broke both arms doing a tricky stunt, and since the shoot could not be postponed, he had to wear casts and the arms were then digitally added. (Also, we now know something about the movie Tag!) CRACKED.COM — Source

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Spider-Man 2

Inconspicuous CGI Spider-Man 2 Doc Ock sacrifices himself and sinks in an Oscar- worthy close-up full of powerful dramatic gravitas -that's pure CGI. Alfred Molina wasn't even on set. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Black Swan Darren Aronofsky used tons of CGI trickery to take us down this terrifying descent into madness, but one of the uncanniest must be Natalie Portman's weirdly elongated hands. That's not a hand double, but a CGI alteration of Portman's own hands. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Shazam! The production had trouble securing the right to shoot at the Philadelphia steps-and when they finally did, the skyline was obscured by fog, so they had to digitally recreate it. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Les Misérables The singing was not added in post-production, but recorded right there with the actors singing their hearts out while they shot their scenes. Clever use of CGI was made to hide the earpieces and microphones the cast was wearing. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI A Beautiful Mind As Russell Crowe's John Nash is losing his mind, he leaves his baby in the bathtub. Obviously, they were not going to risk drowning a baby, so they filmed the kid in an empty bathtub and composited the shot with a CGI-altered, real bathtub with water. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Machete Jessica Alba was not actually naked during the shower scene. Alba has a strict rule against doing nude scenes, so she and Robert Rodriguez agreed that digitally erasing her underwear would work. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Gone Girl

Inconspicuous CGI Gone Girl Mirroring the much better-known CGI ping-pong balls in Forrest Gump, we give you: CGI gummy bears. Tyler Perry is not a master marksman, so to get the gummy bears to hit Ben Affleck in the exact places David Fincher wanted, CGI was used. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Fight Club The sex scene between Helena Bonham Carter and Brad Pitt is entirely CGI. Digital models were created and twisted around in positions we've heard are fun. Plus, the scene even featured Matrix-like bullet-time the same year the Wachowski's film came out, but without even caring to make a big deal about it. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

CGI

Inconspicuous CGI Blood Diamond For the scene of Leo DiCaprio' saying goodbye to Jennifer Connelly, they added one single CGI tear to her performance. It's seamless, it does give the scene the sort of oomph that the average movie desperately needs-but on the other hand, do they dare question Jennifer Connelly's acting? CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Inconspicuous CGI Spider-Man: Homecoming For the scene where Tony chastises Peter on top of a building, the time of day was changed late in production, so CGI was used to adjust both characters' hair. This included lighting, the wind messing up the hair, and probably overworked FX artists. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Iron Man 3 Robert Downey Jr. Injured his ankle during the final days of the shoot, but instead of halting production for six weeks, the film's very last scene was done with a digital double. Tony Stark's smirk, his smug eye brow lift, his intense look? All CGI, baby. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Children of Men Remember American Sniper's plastic doll scene? This is the exact opposite of that. The newborn is all CGI, completely blending with the scene's lighting and even documentary feel. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Jurassic Park Ariana Richards' stunt double fell through the roof wonderfully, but glanced at the camera. So they digitally composited the actress' face on her- decades before digital doubles were common. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Inconspicuous CGI Crawl Of course, the alligators in this intense survival flick are all CGI - and so is the storm. The film was shot in a soundstage, and the intense waves of hurricane rain sweeping Florida were digitally added in post. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Inconspicuous CGI I HATE Die Hard With a Vengeance Bruce Willis did not really stand in the middle of Harlem with that N-word sandwich board. The board was blank, and the FX team adde the hate word (and a surprisingly bland I hate everybody for the TV version). CRACKED.COM — Source

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