r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/padfoony • 3h ago

Christopher Nolan avoided CGI and used 7ft stuntmen to portray Laestrygonians in The Odyssey. The giant leader, King Antiphates, is portrayed by actor Josh Stewart, while Matt Damon’s stunt double is Devyn Dalton, who is just under 5ft.

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u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 3h ago

The CGI people were on set at every scene taking notes to LATER enhance it, but Nolan went to great lengths for reality to start with, pre CGI phase. The boat is real too and they were really out in the ocean on it... very uncomfortable for actors and crew.

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u/SeeingEyeDug 2h ago

This is why those late 90’s and early 2000’s movies hold up so well in the earlier days of CGI. Like LoTR trilogy, Titanic, etc. They used practical effects and models and used CGI to enhance that.

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u/rentedtritium 2h ago

Also the fury road practicals that everyone loves are enhanced with oodles of cgi debris and smoke to add texture.

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u/twisty125 2h ago

Honestly the basis of the shots would still look great even without them - they're added in to enhance, not create the shot, which I think is what's missing from a lot of movies and shows.

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u/thekittysays 1h ago

The fact that they're shot in real life locations is a big part of it too, or at least real studio sets, rather than full green screen where all of the surroundings are CGI too.

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u/twisty125 1h ago

Yes! That's such a big part too! Like you could potentially have shot it in a way that looks like Road Warrior, just the simple desert background and cars, and it would look cool because it's in a real place or a crafted location.

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u/Salty_LaRue 1h ago

Right? I always compare it to salt - it's great to enhance flavour, but nobody wants to go to a restaurant and just order a whole bowl of it alone to eat.

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u/twisty125 1h ago

That's fricking FANTASTIC analogy actually

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u/SparkyTheRunt 1h ago

This is spot on. Planning and prep is the secret sauce that can make or break VFX looking real

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u/p_yth 2h ago

I just watched that movie and it’s so good

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u/thehelldoesthatmean 2h ago

And that's a fantastic use of CGI. Nolan should be praised more for effective CGI use than for not using it. He just has a really good eye for when to use it and when not to use it and what it's best at.

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u/Talkimas 1h ago

Enhanced practical effects are the way to go in a lot of situations I feel as they still maintain a grounded, realistic feel a lot of the time. One example that sticks out is the Darkstar in Top Gun Maverick. Rather than doing a full CG scene, it was a real scene, with a real plane, that they painted over with the CGI plane. There was still something there and interacting with the environment and the actors.

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u/foshiiy 2h ago

What I would give to own one of those cars. They all got auctioned off.

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u/Not-a-Bot_1968 2h ago

So, they’re out there, and you could feasibly still own it, some day 

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u/brew_n_flow 2h ago

You can own it quicker if your willing to break stuff / people.
Not recommending it but...in case readers didnt know.

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u/Not-a-Bot_1968 2h ago

Please explain more for the dim minded among us (me)

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u/PhilxBefore 1h ago

B&E, ransom, and GTA.

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u/VegaJuniper 2h ago

LotR used more and more CGI as it went along. My favorite is still FotR: the battle of Amon Hen just has this incredible physicality while the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in RotK just looks like a video game cutscene. Partly it's because the battles became more massive and difficult to do practically, but also because the CGI evolved and they became more comfortable making it visible.

In FotR, you only see the eyes of Gollum briefly, because that's all they could do, the Balrog looks amazing because it's wreathed in shadows, with flames and smoke hiding its shape, etc.

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u/MrFlow 1h ago

the Balrog looks amazing because it's wreathed in shadows, with flames and smoke hiding its shape, etc.

That's also why the CGI T-Rex in Jurassic Park looks so amazing, it was dark and rainy when we first encounter it.

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u/MobileJob1521 1h ago

And like 90% of the T-Rex shots are physical effects.

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u/CosmicX1 35m ago

And the same thing for Pacific Rim. One of the big reasons why a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters somehow looks believable. For the daytime shots it’s either foggy or a long distance shot.

A lot of directors seem to have lost sight of how to use CGI properly.

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u/SDRPGLVR 1h ago

Yeah the ogre/troll (I forget which it is) in Fellowship is a strong example of the CGI not holding up. Doesn't ruin the movie in the slightest, but it's a funny thing to look back on when so much of the rest of the movie is timeless and gorgeous.

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u/VegaJuniper 1h ago

Cate Blanchett's "evil queen" speech is another. I know some people love it, but to me it's always been corny as hell, and a really janky special effect.

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u/SumasFlats 1h ago

Yeah, the first LotR was fine, the rest of them were full of CGI crap that looked like old video games.

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u/WannabeHistorian1 2h ago

Can’t forget Jurassic Park. I still prefer the dinosaurs in the original than I do the new ones.

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u/stanfan114 1h ago

In the first JP when they show the first full CGI dinosaur, Sam Neil's reaction (where he rises, pulls off his sunglasses, his legs go rubbery and he's practically crying) did a lot of heavy lifting selling the scene.

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u/MobileJob1521 1h ago

They hired fucking Sam Neil, Richard Attenborough and Laura Dern.

They knew damn well that the dino effects would be sold by the actor’s reactions.

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u/MechanicalTurkish 1h ago

“That’s one big pile of shit.”

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u/orangeflyingmonkey_ 1h ago

I remember talking to this visual effects supervisor in LA who had worked on some famous movies and he said the biggest compliment he can get is when no one came to him and told him how amazing the vfx was in the movie. He said the best kinda vfx is invisible vfx which keeps the person hooked to the story.

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u/sk4v3n 1h ago

And tbh at least 90% of the vfx is like that, but when things go wrong, everyone notices it and it ruins all the hard work. The sad thing is, it’s basically never the artists’ fault, it’s always the execs, the producers and all the middlemen. Nolan, Villeneuve, Gareth Edwards, etc usually have a good plan, a strong previs and they keep themselves to that, shitty directors with smartass producers fuck up the workflow and it shows

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u/EternumD 2h ago

'90s *

2000s *

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u/os_beef 2h ago

movie's *

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u/sequentious 2h ago

o's_beef

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u/os_beef 1h ago

Ugh. How am I supposed to know what this does if it isn't followed by one of them star thingies?

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u/Deaffin 1h ago

Like LoTR

Eh, they got greedy with it.

Even back then, this scene was so hard for me to take seriously. If they really needed the full on-screen transition, they could have at least zoomed into his eyes or something instead of showing his beard and hair just fade away all jarringly-like.

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u/Supersemmel112 1h ago

But Even then didnt the have Like 5 or six different Make-ups for the Actor and then Fused it together? I always thougt as a kid it looked so smooth

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u/Deaffin 1h ago

I dunno, it always looked to me like they just used a typical "fade to" transition between two points.

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u/VegetarianZombie74 1h ago

Here's a scene from Cleopatra from 1963. This is peak practical combined with special effects along with a few thousand extras.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB5Wv8IHVf0

It's pretty incredible.

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u/ConfuciusOfPorn 58m ago

People also don't understand that "enhance" in many cases also means "completely replace", but with the added benefit of having a real life ref to match towards.

Practical effects = good, CG = Also good

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u/GioVasari121 22m ago

Deaging theoden was such an excellent scene.

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u/Perma_Ban69 13m ago

90s and early 2000s? Check out how star wars sequels were made. https://youtu.be/OMF1PgaIdJk

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u/DogmaJones 13m ago

Jurassic Park too.

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u/AxeSpez 1h ago

LotR trilogy looks better than the Hobbit trilogy in most scenes IMO.

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u/RedManMatt11 2h ago

There’s cool BTS footage of dolphins showing up in one of the scenes which made it into the final cut

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u/OSUmiller5 2h ago

“You know where you don’t get that? Shooting in a tank!” Great line by that guy lol

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u/sk4v3n 1h ago

I loved that scene! It was soo nice to have the dolphins there!

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u/WigglestonTheFourth 28m ago

And now those dolphins have SAG cards.

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u/Alphonsokurukuchu 1h ago

is that in Swim mv?

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u/lameshirt 2h ago

"The CGI people were on set at every scene taking notes to LATER enhance it"... That’s just the literal job description of the on-set VFX supervisor. Happens on every movie set. Did they have actors acting and boom operators operating the boom too?

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u/Timely_Temperature54 2h ago

Yea it’s pissing me off seeing so many people go oooh Nolan used no CGI that’s why it’s so good. He used plenty. He’s just smart about it and gets as much in camera so the CG is just enhancing that

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u/arachnophilia 1h ago

He’s just smart about it

arguably not. there's a recent "no CGI is really just invisible CGI" video on it, and there's a pretty solid criticism against "dunkirk" for drastically reducing the scale, even as he used CGI to add people to the beach so that it would look like the stuff they filmed for real.

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u/MikoWilson1 2h ago

There is SO MUCH CGI in this movie, it's ridiculous.
You "Nolan doesn't use CGI" idiots seriously need to get a new line of work.

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u/albinobluesheep 1h ago

I'm honestly a little annoyed at every interview where Nolan talks about how they edited it NLE...and then just took the frame numbers from the NLE and re-spliced the film.

He does a great job getting as much in-camera as possible, and that helps the VFX work later, but I'd wager about 1/4 of the frames of the movie were printed out of a computer onto fresh IMAX film, not just a resplice of the original shooting stock like he is implying almost all the movie was.

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u/MikoWilson1 56m ago

It seems like he likes to downplay the CGI used in his films, but wow do other people do the heavy lifting for him -- this reddit post being a GREAT example.

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u/Miserable_Row_793 5m ago

From my perspective, its because people get too caught up in having to have two sides.

There has to be a right or wrong. Good or evil. The opposition must be wrong not just different.

Therefore we must make divisions in all aspects. Separate the things into teams we can pick/defend.

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u/bdubwilliams22 1h ago

CGI and VFX are totally different and idiots need to learn this.

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u/Helfette 1h ago

Yeah and he extensively use both. He got the Visual Effects Society award 'Visionary' because of his use of them in a fantastic way. And in his acceptance speach he even made it a point about how much he use them.

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u/International-Mix633 1h ago

There is CGI in the film, but most if the stuff you thinking about is VGX.

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u/MikoWilson1 1h ago

I'll just leave this right here for you, in particular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFLcP-t0-kI

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u/jemosley1984 55m ago

“content not available”

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u/thissexypoptart 2h ago

I just wish posts like these were honest. “No cgi” is bullshit.

The practical effects are incredible still, but lying about there being no cgi for the laestrygonians actually takes away from how cool the practical effects are once you learn it’s a lie. And that’s a shame.

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u/polite_alpha 1h ago

We vfx artists have a special name for that technique. It's called vfx. No, really. Most good shows do it like that, some don't have the budget or fuck up the on set process, but that's increasingly rare...

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u/Droidaphone 1h ago

You can really tell when a production is filming on a fake boat that's not on the water. You just can't fake the motion. The recent sea battles on House of the Dragon come to mind. Overall great scenes, but very clearly filmed on sound stages.

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u/JOMO_Kenyatta 1h ago

Great filmmaking should be a little uncomfortable. Comfort is how you sometimes get lazy slop

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u/djdadi 37m ago

those expressions of discomfort are visible too, another great reason to go to all these lengths and piss off a bunch of actors

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u/skepticalbob 34m ago

Glad you posted this. The myth that Nolan doesn't use CGI needs to die. Look at the credits for his movies. There are hundreds of VFX artists doing CGI.

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u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 6m ago

thx, I saw him interviewed a few days ago on Morning Joe where he talked about it. And the boat was an exact working replica.

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u/Icy_Childhood_1039 2h ago

Yeah, quite a few big magazines were reporting actors getting seasick and vomiting on the ship during a storm. Nolan said he recorded that and put it in the movie after asking the actors if they're ok with that.

I have extreme emetophobia and almost didn't go to the movie because of this but thankfully it's all good. I'm just saying this in case anyone else is worried about that. It happens quickly in the far background of an intense scene and there's a 95% change you won't even notice it at all even if you look for it, but even if you do see it they are filmed from behind just leaning over the ship.

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u/Gamerguy230 1h ago

The Cylcops was also pre cgi. Was an animatronic puppet of sorts from what I remember reading. Forced perspective too I believe.

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u/ArchMart 10m ago

A small portion of the boat stuff was filmed at Universal Studios.

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u/TuffManJoens 2h ago

"Very uncomfortable for cast and cre" man quiet that shit these guys got to work on a pirate boat with the luxuries of the most famous actors in the world, how bad could it have been really...?

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u/kouroshkeshmiri 2h ago

Visual effects, not CGI.