All articles tagged with #practical effects
Audiences at the 2026 box office are rewarding films that emphasize on-location shoots and practical effects, with nonfranchise hits like The Odyssey, Project Hail Mary, Backrooms, and Obsession leading the way, signaling a shift away from CGI-heavy franchises toward hard-edged, sweat-equity storytelling.
Matt Damon says The Odyssey’s Laestrygonian attack was filmed largely with practical effects to achieve a visceral, Lord of the Rings–style realism, crediting Christopher Nolan’s hands‑on directing approach as key to getting the scene right.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was shot almost entirely with in-camera tricks and real-world effort: Damon was literally inside the Trojan Horse for the Fall of Troy sequence; Hathaway was helicoptered to set daily; a female stunt double performed with Damon in forced-perspective shots; a mirrored system on a blimp kept eye lines intact despite loud IMAX gear; jet-skis helped create Scylla and Charybdis effects; sirens were performed by stuntwomen; the cast endured a 45-minute uphill hike, stunt performers were buried in sand for the underworld scenes, and many creatures like the pigs were achieved with animatronics and camera work rather than CGI.
Matt Damon explains that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey used mainly practical effects for the Laestrygonian attack—giants created via forced perspective with tall and short stunt performers and a real-operative approach—while most filming took place on location across six countries over 91 days in 2025, including Greece and Morocco, highlighting Nolan’s commitment to real-world scale over CGI.
Jon Stewart raved about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on The Daily Show, calling it a “staggering” and transformative epic and praising Nolan’s use of real locations and practical effects like boats and water. He lauds the film’s ambitious storytelling and craft, drawing a loose thematic link to Oppenheimer. The Odyssey follows Odysseus (Matt Damon) on his perilous homeward journey, with Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and other stars, and opens this week.
In a Variety interview, director Sébastien Vaniček details his brutal, practical approach to Evil Dead Burn, using real fire and effects instead of CGI and crafting tense sequences from a lake-set opener to a car-headrest impalement and a disorienting bathtub shot. The film includes two post-credits scenes that could reshape the franchise, with a potential Bruce Campbell cameo teased, while Vaniček envisions a fresh, fearless direction for the Evil Dead universe.
Christopher Nolan says Gen Z filmmakers are rejecting AI, calling it “hitting at exactly the wrong time” for Hollywood, and he praises a shift toward tactile storytelling and practical effects, highlighting young talents like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons as examples of cinema moving forward without relying on AI.
In Evil Dead Burn, the sixth entry, the gonzo humor gives way to a stand-alone, tense family-horror drama propelled by practical effects. Directed by Sébastien Vaniček, it centers on a toxic family dynamic invaded by demonic forces, with standout performances—especially Souheila Yacoub as Alice—delivering a brutal, gruesome atmosphere that fuses gore with emotional conflict. While lighter, prankish notes are absent, the film achieves effective gross-out guignol and leaves questions about how to kill the Deadites, offering a darker, more serious addition to the franchise.
Visual effects supervisor Edward J. Douglas explains that Backrooms blended large-scale practical sets with CGI, guided by Kane Parsons’ Blender-driven previs, to realize its disorienting liminal spaces—from the Vertigo Room to wall clipping—pairing tangible on-set builds with digital work to achieve a tactile, believable horror aesthetic.
In the eighth episode, 'The Creeping Fear,' Maul’s memory sequence blends new footage with Clone Wars clips and uses a behind-the-scenes practical trick: animated memories are projected over a smoke machine to create flickering, dreamlike visuals that feel more real than pure animation.
Verge’s interview with VFX supervisor Ashley Bernes explains how Peacock’s The Miniature Wife creates a 12:1 scaled world (Lindy about 5.5–6 inches) using a real dollhouse set, life-size tiny props, and a blend of practical in-camera work with CG across multiple VFX vendors. The show aims to feel grounded in real physics and avoids overreliance on AI, while balancing dark humor with the wife’s interior perspective as she navigates a world made terrifying by ordinary objects. The series premieres on Peacock on April 9.
On the London set of Project Hail Mary, Ryan Gosling works opposite Rocky, a fully realized alien puppet operated by James Ortiz; the production favored practical effects—on-set puppetry and animatronics—with CGI for more complex shots, to give the creature personality despite its faceless design.
Director Christopher Miller says Project Hail Mary was shot without any greenscreen or bluescreen, with the ship interior built as a real set and exterior sequences created digitally by ILM; Rocky the alien was puppetry/animation, and thousands of VFX shots accompany the practical lighting and effects. The 156-minute sci‑fi has a budget around $248 million and opens in theaters March 20, drawing strong early buzz.
Gearbox's Borderlands 4 returns to its roots with a live-action trailer 'Quit Earth' that heavily features practical effects, miniatures, and puppetry, directed by Marvel veterans Benson and Moorhead, emphasizing a nostalgic and chaotic vibe for the franchise's comeback.
The article discusses the most shocking scene in the horror film 'Bring Her Back,' where a young actor performs intense gore effects using practical props and sound design, with the directors emphasizing the use of real effects and the child's enjoyment of the process.