Special effects, which were made without the use of computer graphics Bashny.Net

Do not want to offend Hollywood special effects experts in part, but we have the impression that with the development of digital technologies ingenuity they have significantly diminished. Each blockbuster there exists at least one scene that seems borrowed from computer games. So maybe you should stop and pay tribute to the creators of those mind-blowing tricks that were done the old fashioned way - with a stuntman, models and imagination bordering on insanity.

1. "The Dark Knight" - chase scene
This is the same pursuit, which ended their days Batmobile, Joker trailer, dump truck, police cars without an account, and a bunch of cars, which has managed to be "in the wrong place." And the episode, I must say, was a success.

Batman on a motorcycle should get an Oscar every year.






Two points in this pursuit deserve special attention. It seems that they just could not be done without the aid of computer graphics, unless, of course, is not meant to be a spectacular suicide stunt.

The first episode - when the Batmobile only appears to be gaining speed ...


... And gets hit a garbage truck that had boxers called "uppercut».




Which is not very difficult to arrange with modern digital technology. However, the film's director Christopher Nolan prefers not to get involved with computer graphics, if there is any possibility to do without it.

Here and in this scene he cost the Batmobile model and this garbage truck.

Both machines are supplied with radio-controlled devices and literally "slapped" each other on a street in the outskirts of Chicago. The result you see on the screen.


Batmobile and turns 180 degrees, by the way, is also made with the help of radio-controlled models.


The second point more spectacular - 18-wheel semi Joker makes a magnificent "somersault through the head." If that was the model, it is very plausible.


For this trick has developed a unique technology. To raise such a machine into the air, a team of experts in special effects invented a mechanism that produces a powerful jet of steam.


That surely would appeal to many fans of clever car.

Once this problem was solved, there is the following: how to do this dizzying stunts right in the heart of the banking district of New York? And how do you think they unscrew? Built around a fake trailer city? To finish it with the help of computer graphics? Nothing of the sort! They went to downtown Chicago, blocked the street and turned his trailer. Truly.

Because Batman would have acted that way.


Computer graphics - for the lazy.

2. "Independence Day" - Fire Wall


Can as much as necessary to make fun of this movie plot inconsistencies, but its box office success still had one undeniable reason: an episode in which a fireball slowly envelops New York. This spectacle justify every cent spent on the ticket. At this stage was built and advertising company. All commercials - fire, making its way between the skyscrapers of New York. Much of this was enough to spend the night before the premiere in line at the theater.


After this scene could go home.

Even today, this scene seems amazingly realistic, especially when compared with digital openly in "2012" by Roland Emmerich, who are more like an expensive graphics, very high quality computer toys.


The difference, as you may have guessed, is that scene from "Independence Day" is made without a computer. It was a real fire.

The main difficulty was to get the fire to move in the right direction, "wrap around" on the sides of the building. Fire in normal conditions are not particularly fond of spreading horizontally, which, in most cases, is not bad, but then a very different situation. Here we are dealing with an alien weapon and fire on him, therefore, should not behave as our earthly. As conceived by the writers, it must first "leak" of the city, and then slowly "creep" on it, absorbing the houses, streets, neighborhoods ...

The solution was found relatively simple.

What does this remind you of? Okay, do not break down. This model of the city, was rotated on its side. Perhaps in this way it will be easier to learn


They called their trick "deadly chimney." Here's how: Put the model "on end", adaptable bottom pyrotechnics, strengthening the top chamber. Then arrange explosion and shoot, set the frame rate is several times higher than the standard. Voila! Viewing the results at normal speed, we get the very, terrifying, unstoppable wall of fire.

3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - little hobbit, Gandalf large


Tricks with different growth actors made the trilogy so masterly that after 27 hours of viewing, you are ready to believe that Elijah Wood and the other actors playing hobbits, really no more than one meter in height.


This spectacle go astray confused anyone.

But we live in an age of computer graphics. So what could be the problem? Clicked the mouse on the actor, told the computer to reduce it by 50% and the works ...


Hobbits? Nonsense! Give me a chimpanzee, and what some 20 minutes I bungled you King Kong!

But the real art is not done. And then, one thing when "different-sized" characters stand next to anywhere in the field. But at different moments of the film, we saw how tiny Frodo Gandalf hugs, traveling with him in a wagon and sits at the same table. To arrange all this, the director and producer Peter Jackson had to invent a lot of tricks - from simple to extremely complex.

Sometimes it was enough to put on a wig child Frodo and remove from the back ...


... Or put together two separate scene, or using a computer (which really does not) to connect with the body of a person Frodo small understudy. Still, the most impressive scenes were done without a computer. With the help of technology, which is called "forced perspective».


Or hobbitizatsiya.

The trick is to place the actors at different distances from the camera, and then remove them from an angle to make it seem that they are close by - one large (the one that was closest to the camera), and another small (the one below). Only task seems simple - because the actors need still somehow interact with each other, at the same time, and so that no one would know that they are from each other at a distance.

Take a very simple example - the cart Gandalf. In the movie, they sit side by side ...


... And in fact the wagon seat consists of two parts. The one on which sits Frodo is almost half a meter away from the camera than the one on which the Gandalf. A joint we do not see because it obscures the body of Ian McKellen (who plays Gandalf).


The problem is that this technology involves shooting in a strictly defined angle, and hence the absolute stillness of the camera. How, then, to be with those shots where the camera moves? So, after all computer graphics? Nothing like that. In such scenes as this table ...


... Actors, in fact, sitting at different tables: one man-sized, the other - hobbit ...


... And when the camera moves, everything that is in the frame, also move around so that all the time to maintain the illusion of a "common table". So McKellen had without leaving the image of Gandalf to ride in his chair across the room.


That is not easy in this advanced age

4. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker - the whole movie


It was in 1992, when the digital effects are only just come into fashion, and "Jurassic Park" and "Terminator 2" opened a new era in film. Francis Ford Coppola took the film adaptation of "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, and Keanu Reeves - for that ruin every scene, which was busy.


Yes, do thou anything! Although eyebrow commandments!

The film studio has spared no money on something to get the output stylish and surreal picture. And since the world of cinema at the time was addicted to computer graphics, the best specialists, which is only found in this area have been made available to Coppola.

The latter, without hesitation, fired all computer geeks and hired instead of his 29-year-old son, Roman. The result - no graphics. You see exactly what was taken. For example, the scene where Reeves rides on the train. On the screen, it looked like:


Gary Oldman opinion, soaring in the clouds for the closed window of the car. To get this shot, they shot a moving landscape, then projected at him, then scrolled all this outside Reeves sitting in the car. What you see - the projection of the projection on the projection. But there is something pohlesche:


Usually, these things are made easy: By train is removed, separately - a book, and then it all connects the computer.

Not in this case! They made a small model trains and giant - books. And took them at the same time. So that everything is present.

5. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" - bizarre transformation inflamed imagination


The plot of this film, in a nutshell, is this: two lovers after a quarrel in turn apply to a company that provides services to erase memories. Along the way, the hero (Jim Carrey) changes his mind erased from memory his girlfriend (Kate Winslet).

But too late. In the end, young people learn and start anew with a clean slate.

Much of the action takes place in the fevered brain of the hero Carrie, and at the same time as the above-mentioned techniques negligent firms erase his memories. Memories jump as record on the scratched CD, creating a disjointed, surreal world where people are and what surrounds them, then suddenly disappear, then appear out of nowhere and for no apparent reason.

Take, for example, the scene where the hero Carrie, Joel, quarrels with his girlfriend, who is furious removed to the bathroom, disappears, materializes in the kitchen, and then, before leaving, appears at the front door ... And all this in one shot!

Or another scene where Joel is included ... in yourself and there talking with the doctor, who later will undertake to erase his memory.


A second camera turns away from Joel, and turns to the doctor ...


... And again returned to Joel, but it is quite another Joel, from his own memories.


And so a few times

Of course, this puzzle could be solved by making the computer for Carrie twin. And, perhaps, this option would suit any normal director. If only he did not have such a theatrical experience and a passion for naturalness in the frame, as Michel Gondry.

Gondry went with the actors as it is accepted in any theater. He made them run and change at an incredible rate.


Michel Gondry and Jim Carrey exchanged stinging remarks.

True, true! For the scene where Kate-Clementine inexplicably appears alternately in one or the other room, they made an additional door leading from the bathroom to the kitchen. And Kate had to run to the next point before it will reach up to the camera.

Take a picture with a split Carrie were much more painful. When the camera is turned away from the actor for a few seconds, he had time to change the suit, to cross to the other side of the room and transform into another Joel. They had to shoot as many takes, that, in the end, dead-tired Gondry and Carrie quarreled. The actor claimed that the director puts his task is physically impossible. Of course, we have seen the result on the screen, but I still believe that this dispute was right Carrie.

6. "Apollo 13" - weightlessness


How to make a movie actor to fly in any child knows.

Step 1. Put the actor on the ropes.

Step 2: Remove the rope from the footage that our computer time easier.

So the decision tasks with weightlessness in the movie "Apollo 13" seemed ridiculously easy thing. Or focus with rope, or, at worst, make for this scene actors computer ...


But fate intervened NASA: we say, after all, a man on the moon sent. Have you heard? We know what to do! Neutralize the force of gravity and be done with it!

To "neutralize gravity" the filmmakers was isolated modified aircraft with affectionate nickname "Blevontina." This machine KC-135, owned by NASA, was made at the time just to overcome gravity, especially not from Earth.

This happens as follows: aircraft climbs sharply, then lowers the engine power to a minimum ...


As a result, passengers find themselves in a few minutes of weightlessness, exactly the same experience what astronauts on board the spacecraft.

Typically, the aircraft used to train astronauts, but for the team, "Apollo 13," he turned into the set.

Bill Paxton was happy like a child

7. "Escape from New York" - A computer model of New York on the monitor aircraft


The film was shot in 1981, but his story is set in the "future" 1997, in a post-apocalyptic New York, where Manhattan has turned into an isolated area for dangerous criminals. In the 80's with computer graphics was tight. A plane Kurt Russell blood from his nose had to provide a monitor with a graphical representation of the panorama of the city.


Well zalepushno, yeah ... But it looked like computer graphics 80s.

So masters of special effects was to depict without computer graphics computer graphics.


Then, taking a sequel, they will cost and no story.

Unscrew these guys with a rare grace: they needed the old, repeatedly used the model of New York, a roll of green tape and Black light (which practically does not allow visible light, but absolutely indispensable, such as in forensics, which is used to detect traces of blood, urine, sperm or saliva, if the authentication of banknotes etc.). Then they painted the model in black, ribbon attached to miniature buildings, including the lamp and lifted up his work on the movie camera.


So five bucks and wit have made a breakthrough in the movie 80.

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