Filmmakers nowadays can use a green screen to create amazing effects but if the director and crew are committed to realism, they do their best to give the audience a better experience by selecting the appropriate environment and using practical effects along with real-life objects.
It is all more impressive when you think about the challenges that filmmakers faced while filming some of the most iconic, thrilling scenes of all time. Here we have listed 14 iconic movie/TV show scenes that were super tricky to pull off.
1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens
A full-sized wrecked TIE fighter was built in the desert and set on fire. The scene, with the help of CGI, was successfully pulled off.
Also Read: Every Star Wars Movie Coming After The Bad Batch
2) Deep Impact
In 1998, it was very early days of water CGI and, even for a single shot, it was a huge challenge for the creators to create the scene where NYC is flooding. Director Mimi Leder said it was the “hardest ever VFX shot”.
3) The Handmaid’s Tale
The Lincoln Memorial happened in five-minute intervals because the Memorial and National Mall were open to the public on that day (the only day they could shoot on). Production designer Williams said that most shots actually had regular people in the background who were later edited out.
4) Better Call Saul
Apparently, making a realistic boulder is not easy and “took a lot of finesse”. It was extremely hard to pull off on a hectic TV schedule.
5) Mad Men
Show creator Matthew Weiner said the phone call in the finale was surprisingly complex to create as having Peggy’s voice come through the other side electronically was a complicated thing to pull off.
6) Birdman
Matching lights while filming continuous scenes was a super difficult thing to do. Eight people were moving lights every time the camera moved.
7) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was completely made in 3D, which means, they could have just drawn the 2D comic-book elements but they didn’t and created them as elements of a 3D world. They weren’t drawn by hands, but were created by a light source, and filled an actual volume in space.
8) Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones’ final Season 4 shot (the scene where Arya is seen sailing away in a big ship) was so expensive that the studio hated spending so much. The scene was almost removed but the studio came around when they realized how important the shot was.
9) John Wick 3
Director Chad Stahelski wanted to film in the rain but since it was summer, there was not a lot of rain in NYC.
10) Arrival
The film relies very less on visual effects, but heavily on evocative lighting and camera work. The camera lens had to be switched all the time even in the same scene. “Different lens manufacturers have their own particular personality” said the cinematographer.
11) The Hateful Eight
The outdoor sets were one of the biggest challenges during the filming of The Hateful Eight. They went $10 million over budget just to make them look relatively undamaged, as they would have been in the 19th century.
12) Ozark
Tom Pelphrey’s minutes-long monologue in Season 3, Episode 9 of Ozark would have been impossible to pull off in live traffic, so they used LED walls instead of filming in a car.
13) Midsommar
As the movie took place in the daylight, the cinematographer had to spend days in the field alone figuring out how the light changed depending on the time of day and the area they would shoot in.
14) The Suicide Squad
Apparently, creating King Shark’s skin using CGI in The Suicide Squad was harder to pull off than either Rocket Raccoon’s fur or Groot’s wooden body. James Gunn said, “to be able to do the sharkskin was really tough”.
Also Read: 7 Historically Accurate Movies (& 7 That Gives Historians Heart Attacks)
