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Not all CGI involves massive explosions. Sometimes, the most impressive visual effects are the ones hiding in plain sight. We're counting down the sneaky CGI movie moments that fixed problems, replaced actors, and perfected scenes without you ever noticing.
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00:00Often the best CGI is that which you never notice, because it's been used in a subtle
00:05and delicate manner to fix a small issue or add a little finishing touch to a scene.
00:12And that's absolutely true of these movie scenes, which were so subtle and sneaky,
00:17well, Danny Ocean couldn't have planned them better himself.
00:20I'm Ewan, and here are CGI Movie Moments Nobody Noticed.
00:26Max's Digitally Erased Earpiece Mad Max Fury Road
00:31Though director George Miller tried to achieve as much of Mad Max Fury Road in camera as possible,
00:38there's no denying the extensive amounts of VFX work employed to bring the filmmaker's madcap vision to
00:44life. Yet there's an effect which appears in many of the movie's shots that you've probably never
00:49noticed. The digital erasure of Tom Hardy's earpiece. And no, it's not what you're thinking.
00:56Hardy wasn't wearing an earpiece throughout shooting so he didn't have to learn his lines.
01:01Miller originally shot a scene where Hardy's Max finds an old earpiece and puts it in his ear,
01:06the implication being that it would help drown out the manic voices in his noggin.
01:11However, Miller decided during post-production to scrap this facet of Max's character,
01:16requiring the VFX team to paint out the earpiece in every single shot showing his right ear.
01:23And yeah, if you look very, very closely at Max's ears throughout the movie,
01:29you can occasionally see digital imperfections where the erasure didn't fully take. Yet to 99.999999%
01:38of people who have no idea about any of this, it's basically impossible to spark.
01:43Nat and Yelena in the bar in Black Widow. It's of course no secret that every single
01:49Marvel Cinematic Universe movie contains a ton of CGI in practically every scene. But you might be
01:55surprised at just how extensively VFX are used in even the most basic and practical of camera setups.
02:01When a VFX breakdown was released shortly after Black Widow hit screens, it revealed that even the
02:07scene where Natalia and Yelena hang out drinking in a bar required the use of blue screen technology.
02:13At a cursory glance, there's nothing about that scene which simply involves two people sitting
02:17down and talking, which necessitated CGI, most likely suggesting that this portion of the scene
02:22was a reshoot captured many months later. It's been stated before that the crew of every MCU movie
02:28captures clean background plates of all major camera setups. So if it's discovered that shots are
02:33missing or a scene isn't quite working in editing, pickups can be efficiently shot in front of a
02:38blue screen and composited in front of the plates. While it's easy to view this use of CGI as excessive,
02:44it's certainly a smart way to keep reshoot costs down by ensuring the crew doesn't need to revisit
02:49the original location, or worse still, rebuild a set that was destroyed after principal photography
02:55wrapped. And considering you almost certainly didn't notice it, do you really care all that much?
02:59The Snowballs – Elf In the classic holiday film Elf,
03:04Buddy, played by Will Ferrell, and his half-brother Michael, played by Daniel Tay,
03:09famously fend off a group of bullies in an epic snowball fight in Central Park. And while you
03:15might have assumed that this was achieved simply by hauling in a few machines to launch snowballs at
03:20the cast, that wasn't quite it. For any snowballs that aren't shown being thrown by or hitting a cast
03:27member, they were actually largely added in post-production. It might sound silly at first,
03:32but when you rewatch the scene and consider the many hundreds of snowballs which are thrown,
03:37it becomes a bit of a logistical nightmare and was probably a lot less hassle to just add most of
03:43them in after the fact. While the brief moment where Elf starts pelting anyone in the vicinity
03:48with snowballs at max speed was very obviously achieved with some CGI trickery, visual effects
03:55were used to pull basically the entire sequence off.
03:58Tig Notaro replaces Chris Dahlia in Army of the Dead
04:03Zack Snyder faced a major technical hurdle during post-production of his zombie epic Army of the Dead,
04:09where numerous sexual misconduct allegations were made against cast member Chris Dahlia.
04:13Snyder decided to digitally remove Dahlia from the film and replace him with comedian Tig Notaro,
04:19an extremely challenging feat given that Dahlia was part of the main ensemble cast and typically
04:24filmed in shots with other actors. Snyder shot with Notaro against green screens for two weeks,
04:30with Ana de la Reguera being the only cast member she physically met on set, filming a total of two
04:35scenes with her. Dahlia was then erased from each shot and Notaro painstakingly inserted in his place,
04:42an intensely difficult process and yet one which is near enough seamless in the final film.
04:47Sure, if you know what to look for, there are a few moments where the lighting doesn't quite match
04:51100%, but considering most general viewers didn't even know about the casting replacement,
04:56they'd likely have no idea they were looking at a hugely labour-intensive visual effect.
05:01The Glass Slipper Scene Cinderella There's no more iconic image in the
05:06Cinderella story, then Cinder's finally putting on the precious glass slipper and getting her happy
05:12ending. And in theory, it doesn't really seem like a moment that would need a ton of CGI.
05:19But for Kenneth Branagh's 2015 adaptation, the decision was made to go the digital route anyway.
05:24According to star Lily James, this was because the fancy prop Swarovski glass slipper wasn't actually
05:31designed to be worn by anyone, and so the money shot of her foot going into the slipper was achieved
05:37through CGI fakery instead. Oh, and the foot that actually goes into the slipper didn't belong to
05:44Lily James either, who herself believes that she has quote, big ugly feet, and so had a foot double
05:51swing by for any close up shots of her feet. And yet, none of this ended up undermining the climactic
05:58moment, so it can be said that everything worked out just fine.
06:02CGI Water in The Tragedy of Macbeth
06:05The Tragedy of Macbeth is an undeniably beautiful film powered by the combination of first-rate
06:10production design and cinematography. Yet you'll probably be pretty shocked to see just how much
06:16of the film's style and atmosphere was dictated by mind-boggling, seamless visual effects.
06:21The production used countless matte paintings and set extensions to make the film's small soundstage set
06:27look considerably larger, while also employing CGI fog to obscure the set's limitations and imply a
06:33greater sense of scale. But we all know that water is one of the trickiest elements to replicate
06:39digitally, behind only fire, and this is where the tragedy of Macbeth truly comes into its own.
06:45During the scene where Macbeth sits in the apparition room and has a vision of the floor
06:49transforming into a bubbling cauldron of black liquid, the liquid is 100% CGI. While it looks like Denzel
06:56Washington is simply sitting in a set filled to ankle height with water, the actor is actually
07:01sitting considerably more comfortably in a totally dry set, with the liquid instead a brain-breakingly
07:07photoreal simulation. This is the sort of subtle, not showy effects work that deserves much greater
07:13recognition. Duke Leto's Army on Caladan in Dune
07:18Dune quite rightly won the Best Visual Effects Oscar, and though the film's VFX are spectacular from
07:24start to finish, there are few moments where they don't draw absolute attention to themselves.
07:29One scene where you might actually assume the bulk of the setup was filmed practically, however,
07:34is when Duke Leto Atreides is first tasked with presiding over Arrakis while assembled with his army
07:39on his home planet of Caladan. The eye-watering wide shot shows Duke Atreides standing on a large
07:45platformed area with several hundred officers behind him. It's certainly lush and expansive,
07:50but tangible enough that it could conceivably be filmed practically in an exotic location,
07:55given the film's large budget. Yet, the scene is actually a mesmerising trick. Almost all of the
08:01offices are digital replications, and only a small portion of the set is actually real. Furthermore,
08:06the temples and mountains in the background are also 100% digital. That the end result is photoreal
08:12enough to make you question whether it was shot in a practical location is why Dune absolutely deserved
08:18the Oscar. This is truly next level work. The knife. Totally killer. Even accepting that slasher
08:26movies generally don't have a ton of CGI trickery, there are certainly ways where visual effects can
08:32make production a safer, smoother experience, especially during more intense action sequences.
08:38While historically horror movies have had their knife-wielding villains handle retractable fake
08:43knives which simply fold into the skin when sufficient force is applied, this can still carry a risk of
08:50injury and might also result in the actor wielding the knife to hold back, in turn making the stab look
08:56less realistic. And to that end, Amazon's recent time loop horror flick Totally Killer opted to ditch
09:03the retractable fake blades altogether, opting to shoot its stabbing scenes with nothing more than a knife's
09:09hilt while the entire blade was added in post production. With a padded hilt, it allows the
09:14actor playing the killer to interact more safely with the pretend victim while imbuing their performance
09:20with a greater physicality, making the end result more convincing. Totally Killer certainly isn't the
09:25first slasher movie to go this route. Scream 4 also famously opted for digital knives all the way back
09:31in 2011, and so clearly it's an effect that can easily pass muster with the masses.
09:37Eddie at the beach in Venom Let There Be Carnage
09:40The recent Venom sequel ends with Eddie Brock and Venom getting some well-earned R&R at the beach.
09:46While the sunset certainly looks suspiciously picturesque, you'd be forgiven for assuming
09:50that the scene was shot on a real beach and the sky was merely retouched during post-production.
09:55Incredibly though, the entire beach is fake, with Hardy actually sitting on a small patch of sand on a
10:01soundstage in front of a blue screen. In fact, because so much of the shot was replaced in post,
10:06the microphone used to capture Hardy's dialogue didn't even need to be concealed from the camera's
10:11view, as it was simply painted out by the film's VFX artists. Though 98% of the film's CGI moments
10:17draw absolute attention to themselves, this is actually pretty clever and shows the benefit of
10:22hiring a VFX-savvy filmmaker like Andy Serkis to get the job done. The Sherman Field's Candyman in
10:28Candyman. It's certainly no secret that the new Candyman sequel uses CGI to de-age original
10:35Candyman star Tony Todd in its delirious climax, but did you know there's actually a 100% digital
10:41character hidden in plain sight throughout the film? Early on we're told about the tragic tale of
10:47Sherman Fields, a hook-handed black man who was shot by racist police officers decades ago,
10:52and several times throughout the film we see him appear as a version of the vengeful Candyman. While it
10:57simply seems that actor Hargrove was kitted out in grotesque makeup effects to perform these scenes,
11:02that's not quite the case. Though Hargrove did indeed perform all of the scenes himself,
11:07during post-production director Nia DaCosta decided that the prosthetic facial scarring effects didn't
11:13quite look good enough, and so VFX house Luma Pictures was charged with replacing Hargrove with a
11:19total digital recreation from scratch, using crime scene photography to create a more visceral facial
11:25wound. Yet because this decision was made in post, no movement data for Hargrove had been captured
11:30during principal photography, making the process considerably more difficult. But the end result
11:36is extremely difficult to spot, in large part thanks to smart use of dim lighting to conceal the
11:41obvious tells of a digital human face. Brams' Mask, The Boy
11:472016's horror film The Boy was produced for just $10 million and didn't seem to include much CGI at all.
11:54Yet the production impressively pulled off one hell of a clever effect, without basically anyone knowing.
12:01The movie ends with the villain, Brams, played by James Russell, emerging from the wall of his house
12:06and attacking our heroes. All while wearing a creepy doll mask. But during filming, actor James Russell
12:13didn't wear a mask at all. And it was only in post-production that director William Brent Bell
12:19realized they had a problem. Test audiences didn't find Brams scary enough. Just a little guy. And so,
12:27the decision was made to digitally add a mask on top of Russell's face in order to make Brams more
12:32imposing. But because this wasn't planned during filming and the VFX team had no tracking markers on
12:39Russell's face to work with, it was considerably more complicated to pull this effect off. Which was used in
12:45roughly 350 shots. That being said, the final result is basically seamless. A testament to the ingenuity
12:54of the VFX team and likely aided by the climax of the film being a relatively low-lit affair, helping
13:01conceal any potential flawed elements. Everything but the boat in Death on the Nile. Anyone with even
13:08a rudimentary understanding of the effects will likely be aware that Death on the Nile wasn't
13:12actually filmed on the River Nile. It was in fact predominantly shot on sound stages in London,
13:18with the footage then composited into background plates which were shot in Egypt by the film's
13:23second unit crew. And while many noted how phony the film's Egyptian exteriors looked, you might be
13:29surprised to learn just how much CGI was actually employed to place the focal cruise ship the SS
13:34Karnak on the Nile. You probably assumed that the London soundstage contained a water tank and some
13:39Egyptian scenery, and yet the sound stages are shockingly bare for a 90 million dollar movie.
13:44Some sequences were quite literally filmed in what appears to be a large gravel backlot outside the
13:50studio, with every piece of the Egyptian locale either a background plate or a CGI element created from
13:56scratch. The film's effects are certainly far from perfect, but it's nevertheless shocking just
14:01how artificial it all is. Hickadilly Circus in Last Night in Soho. Edgar Wright is an extremely shrewd
14:09filmmaker where visual effects are concerned, yet when it came to recreating 1960s London for his most
14:14recent film Last Night in Soho, it was reasonable to assume that he would simply alter shots of modern
14:20day London to resemble their past. While that's largely true during the scene set in Soho itself,
14:26the sequence where Jack drives Sandy around Piccadilly Circus is actually a feat of low-key
14:31VFX genius. Though you probably assumed Edgar Wright simply shot the scene in Piccadilly Circus for real,
14:37and then had the shot edited to resemble its 60s self, the car ride was actually shot at another location
14:43altogether. From the VFX breakdown, it's clear that the car was filmed riding along a closed street slash
14:48track and then cleverly composited into a 100% CGI recreation of 60s Piccadilly Circus.
14:55Because the lighting between the raw footage of the car and the VFX shot match up pretty much
15:00perfectly, it looks supremely photorealistic. The Basketballs
15:05The Cable Guy Midway through Jim Carrey's oddball dark comedy The Cable Guy,
15:11his deranged protagonist Chip Douglas shows up to play basketball with his pal Stephen,
15:16played by Matthew Broderick, only for his aggressive, over-enthusiastic playstyle to
15:21firmly piss off all of Stephen's other buddies.
15:24And here's something you've probably never even realised. The two basketballs which Chip bounces
15:30around the court during the scene? Totally digital. It's fake. We've made it up.
15:34As it turns out, Carey got to set and made it clear to director Ben Stiller that he had zero
15:39aptitude for basketball and couldn't even dribble a ball in a straight line.
15:44And so, Stiller made the bold decision for a 1996 movie. He had Carey pretend to play basketball,
15:51with the balls being added during post-production. Now, while it's definitely easier to notice the
15:56slightly, um, canny quality of the basketballs in the movie's more recent 4K release, it's also
16:02something you'd be hard pressed to notice unless you knew about it beforehand. For a film that's
16:07almost 30 years old, it's frankly astonishing how well this effect still passes the sniff test.
16:12Paloma's high heels in No Time To Die. One of No Time To Die's most memorable sequences
16:18involves the introduction of arse-kicking CIA agent Paloma, who promptly takes down a fleet of goons
16:24while wearing a pair of precarious high heels. As a testament to the art of subtle CGI, Ana de
16:29Armas actually wore trainers while filming this scene, and the film's VFX artist then replaced
16:34them with high heels, presumably for the sake of both practicality and safety. Because the heels would
16:40fundamentally change the actress's posture, her legs also had to be digitally altered to ensure
16:45the effect was totally convincing. And considering not a single living soul picked up on this until
16:50the incredible VFX breakdown was released, it's most certainly a job well done. The dog-shaped
16:56shadow in The Power of the Dog. Jane Campion's Oscar-winning western The Power of the Dog uses way
17:02more CGI than you'd ever guess simply from looking at it. From the mostly digital animals to the extended
17:08sets and CGI buildings, it's a testament to how subtle effects can add so much presence and
17:13atmosphere to a film. One of its most memorable scenes involves Phil and Peter staring at what
17:19appears to be the shadow of a barking dog in the hills near his ranch. While you might assume that
17:24a
17:24lower-budget arthouse film simply location-scouted a hilltop that resembled the profile of a barking
17:29dog at a squint, it was ultimately less hassle to just rely on VFX to create the precise visual that
17:35director Jane Campion wanted. In post-production, the entire topography of the hills was changed with
17:41new lighting and shadows layered on top to both create the dog silhouette and make it blend believably
17:46into the originally shot material.
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