Pulling off the superhero stunts that The Avengers are known for would be nearly impossible without the help of CGI and green screen. The perks of Hollywood magic, like green screen, is that it allows for digitally rendered characterizations for more exaggerated costuming and character personas. Like this CGI suit on the Hulk.
Before green screen, this laughable suite looks like something your dentist makes you wear to correct a bad bite. This suite and helmet are lined with sensors that record facial nuances and small mannerisms of the body. After the scene, editors will than digitally render the Hulks green form using the recorded movements to provide lifelike features.
After hours and hours of work, the filmed scene using the CGI suite and green screen together became a fully life-like video! You would never know that the character was just a man in a goofy looking piece of headgear. While you obviously know that a giant green monster man isn’t real, you almost believe it because of the small details.
CGI suites like this completely changed the game in the film industry. While some studios choose to spend the time, money, and effort making elaborate in person costuming for these large-scale characters, CGI opened the door for a more functional way to accomplish a better result.
Alice in Wonderland used a similar approach as the avengers for some of their oddball characters. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb are two pear-shaped twins that in the story that featured larger than life characteristics. As you can see, production still chose to convey their round shape while filming the CGI seen.
Besides the CGI suite, you’ll also notice that this scene is completely filmed on green screen with minor set props. This is because most of the Alice and Wonderland set required such otherworldly elements that it was best accomplished through CGI. We could only imagine what it would be like trying to act without
After it’s all said and done, these green humanoid blobs turn into fully life-like beings! As you can see, the stubby characters were able to come to life in their full form because of the capabilities presented through CGI. Now Tweedle De and Tweedle Dumb can be their best selves on screen!
The green screen for the background definitely allowed for more play involving the scenery. Alice in Wonderland has always been something of a daydream. Green screen let this live action express itself to its full potential, showing all the bizarre, strange, and magical elements that live down the rabbit hole.
For some shows, some set work is necessary. In this instance the cast is acting out scenes using props and set elements like stairs and landings. At least they had a little bit to work with, unlike some scenes which are completely green screen. It would be difficult to sword fight without actually swinging something around.
Some characters are wearing green screen head pieces for the editors to later add in costume elements for the actual scene. Apparently, they can blend in the real elements of the scenes along with the CGI set elements. This lets them better express action scenes without using real life dust and grime.
When it all comes together, you would never know that the only real things in these scenes were the people and a few stairs. CGI takes these modest play-fight scenes and turns them into lifelike depictions of the hardcore blood, sweat, and tears the characters are expressing throughout the story.
The CGI effects added to the scenes push the believability over the top. Mixing the real life set pieces with green screen bases the scene in reality. Thank goodness for CGI, “Game of Thrones” just wouldn’t be the same without those dragons and fantasy effects. A show like this wouldn’t be the same without these high-tech graphics.
You know Ian McKellen is a pro when he can act out a whole scene including four other people all by himself. In this dinner table scene, most of the set elements are wrapped with green screen so that other characters and aspects of the shot can be edited in. Who knew they were all shot separately!
If you are a fan of The Hobbit, you may know that the shooting methods used to create the dimensional eye-play in the movie included some creative editing and camera angles; making Gandalf look huge, and the hobbits quite small. The inner workings behind the scenes of this movie are truly interesting.
When pierced together, these solo shots create a seamless dinnertime conversation. Even the plates, pitchers, and glasses were CGI pieces. At least the scraps of paper Gandalf was holding were actually real pieces in the shot. It would be incredibly difficult to try to act with literally no elements tying your portrayal to the physicality of the setting.
Apparently, Ian McKellen broke down crying due to the difficulty of shooting entirely on the green screen. Being in the industry as long as he has, we’re sure he would like to embody these characters to their full potential. The challenge of maintaining a character performance in a fake setting would be a trying task.
Some sets don’t require a full green screen shoot, in this case this control room of the Hunger Games field is using what’s called a hybrid set. Which means the set includes mixed elements of green screen surfaces and true to life set and prop pieces. This gives CGI more room to play and the actors a physical set to work with.
In this scene, the control tables that the characters are using display high-tech holographic computer screens. Obviously, technology this advanced aren’t quite available enough for a production company to use on such a scale, so green screen is the best way to accomplish the same effect without blowing the budget.
After the production team works their magic on the green screen surfaces in the shot, the dynamic details of the set come to life and help show the story going on. It would be challenging to match the keystrokes, points, swipes of the characters’ fingers, however with a little creativity it looks believable.
It’s understandable why the production team would choose to go the ultra-high-tech route on these displays. Considering that the plot of the movie revolves around this futuristic dystopia, using the same technology available to us now would dilute the themes they’re trying to convey in the film.
Obviously, they’re not going to corner poor Suraj Sharma in a small space with a real life tiger. So instead, they threw in a stuffed one as his sole costar. It makes you wonder how a movie like this in the past would have been shot in a believable way. Imagine acting with nothing but a boat in a sea of green.
It would be difficult to emote the true meaning of a script without having anything or anyone to connect with. However, maybe that played to his advantage? The whole point of the movie was the journey of being alone. But it would require a lot of imagination to conjure the fear and anxiety of being cornered on a boat with a giant tiger.
Once the CGI team built in the tiger, this whole movie makes much more sense. As we’ve seen in other sea stories, the anxiety and emotional duress of being lost at sea would drive many to madness. Take Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” for example, at least he had a volleyball to work with!
The entire plot of the movie revolves around the symbolism the tiger possesses. In a way, the tiger really isn’t there. It’s only there metaphorically. The tiger represents Pi’s necessary actions for survival in this harsh predicament. The tiger is the primal aggression one feels in dire situations. The tiger will do what it needs to do, even if it means killing another.
Obviously, humans can’t fly. Well, technically they could if you throw them out of a plane, but for that would be more like falling than flying. In “Man of Steel” production shot Superman’s flying scenes completely on green screen. The actor would lay in a planking position on a green box on a green screen background.
This let production CGI Superman’s surroundings in the actual movie scene. That is some pretty intense planking though. Hopefully, he was hitting the gym every day, otherwise those abs would be toast! It’s common for scenes to be re-shot hundreds of times, so needless to say these flying sequences were trying.
While the original shot is just a green void, the complete scene looks super realistic. The planking position really does look like Superman is flying through the sky. Even though he is a superhero all that flying must still take some work, so the strain you see on the actors face still adds to the authenticity.
It is pretty hilarious to think about what these scenes must actually look like without the true to life action editing. Without the blue skies and clouds, these grunting scowling actors must look more like “Larpers” than famous actors. So, don’t judge those live action role players too much, they may just have a place in Hollywood after all.
Obviously, things have changed a lot about the New York City skyline since the 1920’s. So, greenscreen and CGI was absolutely necessary to create the world these characters actually lived in. Besides creating a few small set pieces, most of the city scenes we see are computer generated.
While the costuming for the era was on point, the background crowd shots were completely fabricated. Streets, cars, buildings, and skylines were all made digitally. Luckily most of the characters were just regular people, so no need for clunky CGI suites or stuffed animals in place of the real deal.
After it’s all put together, the setting of “The Great Gatsby” feels like a glimpse back in time. We’re sure production paid lots of attention to historic placement of buildings and art deco aesthetics for the time. The use of CGI and green screen also allowed for the use of rain and smog, which is very true to industrial New York.
All in all, once you put the fabulous costuming together with top-notch CGI effects, you would never know that this film was mainly shot on green screen. At least the characters were able to have costuming and props to tie their characters to the setting. These props help actors and actresses along the way while telling the story.
