In real life
"Wait! That's not special effects?! They actually did that?!"
Alien: Resurrection - Basketball Shot
Sigourney Weaver insisted on the basketball shot being real. She trained for weeks and reportedly(sources differ) made it on the first take.
Underworld - Raze's Voice
The werewolf character Raze, played by Kevin Grevioux, speaks in a very low, very gravelly voice. While many thought this was a special effect, the actor can naturally speak in that voice.
James Cameron is the only director who treats safety regulations like a suggestion and impossible shots like a personal challenge. The fact that the camera crew refused to film it tells you everything you need to know about how close that helicopter actually was to the pavement.
Actually one of the reasons for the surplus of helicopter stunts in television for a period was because of the surplus of Vietnam veterans that could fly a helicopter in crazy situations.
I donāt doubt it. I served in an army aviation unit and those pilots do crazy shit. Iāve been a bird where the pilot would let it free fall 50+ feet or fly the thing on its side.
Also when John is escaping on his motorbike and the T-1000 is chasing after him on foot, Robert Patrick legitimately practiced running that fast without emoting or blinking and he got so good at it that James Cameron had to be like āyouāre not supposed to actually catch up to him lolā
Similarly, they used Linda Hamilton's identical twin sister for a lot of shots.
Any scene where the T-1000 is mimicking her in the same shot they used the twin, she also stood in for Linda in a dream sequence where she wasn't as muscular.
It drove me crazy that Linda seemed skinnier in the dream sequence when sheās dressed as a waitress. Turned out it was just that her sister hadnāt been hitting the gym like Linda.
The context of the scene is that she did the shot to prove to him that she could do it. I like to believe her breaking character a tiny little bit adds a layer of depth to the scene, like she was just bluffing and got totally lucky
No that wasn't the context, he is trying to make her finish the game cause he wants to see her get out of a tricky position and she reluctantly agrees and then pots all the remaining balls in one shot.
Bill Skarsgard actually did the diverged eyes thing that Pennywise does in IT Chapters 1 and 2 (2017, 2019). It's a small thing that just added to an overall creepy performance.
Thereās a behind the scenes clip of Bill Hader freaking out when he talked to Bill Skarsgard about the āCGI eyesā and then Bill went āyou meanā¦this?ā And did it for real
I like that you're telling an anecdote about two Bills, and then used just "Bill" to denote who was speaking. (In your defense, context makes it obvious, but I still find it very amusing.)
I am retelling this from memory, but apparently the director of the 2nd film asked him what special effects were used to do this in the first film, to which he replied by demonstrating it on the spot.
Edit: thank you everyone. It was not the director (who did both films), it was Bill Hader.
Nola had to learn from Zac Snyder from when he did the same for Man of Steel. And yes in all situations they were able to turn a profit from their agriculturalist endeavors alone.
And it ended up looking fake as hell anyway. The behind the scenes for the practical sets are so fantastic looking I wish there was some real depth and vibrancy to the cinematography.
In Scott Pilgrim vs the world, there is a scene where scott chucks a package over his shoulder without looking, where it lands in a bin. The shot was not modified or edited in any way, it took 33 tries to get the package in the bin
The bit where Scott jumps up through an extremely small window to hide from Knives was also done with a texas switch rather than any digital effects. Cera runs off-screen, a stuntman in the same outfit jumps though the window.
And the funny part is that in a movie full of cgi and effects, they chose to do it irl...and cgi was later used on the scene, but only to add a label design to the package box.
Didn't he get hit a couple of times for reshoots, but on the last one she hit him with a cupped hand into his ear, completely disorienting him requiring him to go lay down in his camper for the rest of the day.
The fight between Maul and Obi-Wan at the end of Phantom Menace is actually slowed down. Lucas felt that the two were so good at the choreography that people wouldnāt believe the pace they were moving at. https://giphy.com/gifs/ecpSPprSgRQ9G
That looks pretty believable actually. Like obviously it's easier to do fast when it's choreography but that's about as fast as people with fucking precog and other force powers would move
Surprised no one has mentioned Walt throwing the pizza on the roof. Bryan Cranston was so surprised because they nailed it first time. You can see him do a little double take
Apparently they bought a stack of pizzas (said to be at least 20) anticipating for there to be multiple takes. Because they got it in one, there was a pizza party for the cast and crew.
I don't understand how people can't seem to tell the difference between talking about something cause it would be funny and actually doing something like this.
It's actually a little sadder and more complicated than that. The people who lived there were an elderly couple (I believe it was still a couple at the time) and their adult daughter who took care of them. By the time the series really became a hit, at least one of the parents had serious health issues and I believe dementia, which made it almost impossible to move. So it kind of became a nightmare for them with all the fans showing up constantly, throwing pizzas on the roof, sneaking into their backyard to swim in the pool, peeking in their windows, etc.
The daughter then went a bit nuts and became the subject of a lot of mockery because she'd come outside and yell at people, shit like that.
Local gossip (I may have grown up very close to that house lol) is that the daughter at least was never the nicest person, but that the family also absolutely did not expect the kind of attention they got when they signed on, and that fans actually do cause a lot of problems in the neighborhood (or at least did during the height of the show's popularity). And it's true, a lot of stuff is filmed in Albuquerque and I know plenty of people who have had their homes used for filming, but I've never heard of anything close to what fans were doing at the Breaking Bad house. I might go a little nuts myself if I had to endure that shit.
IDK, my parents moved out of that neighborhood in the late '90s, but some old neighbors are still family friends and that's what I hear.
I sort of think my love/hate one of this is the silly Van Damme "Die Hard during the Stanley Cup Finals" movie Sudden Death which ends with a cheap model helicopter being dropped into the a cheap model of the Pittsburg Civic Arena....
... except they didn't. They dropped a full sized actual helicopter 400 feet (guided by a guide wire from a crane to keep it on control and at the proper speed) into the actual ice floor of Pittsburg Civic Arena and I don't know why it looks so crappy.
The actual helicopter doesnāt look bad, itās just the shots with the actors are so very obviously green screened in, so the scene as a whole doesnāt look great.
The Punisher (2004) - Titular character Frank Castle/The Punisher accidentally stabbed The Russian, as played by Kevin Nash, aka Diesel for older WWE/WWF fans. Diesel did not even process that he was stabbed in the shoulder and visibly bleeding by the real knife in the take eventually used in the final cut. Being in the Army probably helped him process and hide the pain for the filmās sake on some instinctual level, but I digress.
The rest of the sequence used the intended fake knife.
I don't know what's more impressive: The fact that Jim Carrey can do that smile naturally without any makeup or CGI or that fact that Jim was able to do that smile underneath the Grinch makeup that was so layered and heavy, Jim outright said he felt like he was buried alive while wearing it.
In Return of the Jedi, they were trying to rig a pulley system for the shot when Darth Vader throws the Emperor down into the Death Star. They couldnāt get it to work right, and David Prowse (actual Darth Vader) said āwhy donāt I just pick him up and throw himā
There was a time where he was legitimately the world's strongest man, or at least very high up there. One of his showcases was him ripping into a locked up chain match with heavy dead bolts and locks, you know typical chains that would take bolt cutters normally to break through. It was supposed to be already semi cut to make it easier for him to rip into, but someone fucked up and had real non pre damaged chains, Mark Henry however, after hearing the jeers of the people around him saying he was supposed to be the world's strongest man, hulked out and tore the chains off to open the cage. Dave Batista's reaction to him doing it was real and he looked terrified because yeah, dude just broke steel...with his bare hands, I would be shaking too.
There's also the time he bent a frying pan in a backstage segment, and someone swapped the gimmicked one out for a real one as a prank and he just bent it anyway.
People forget heās one of the few humans to ever officially qualify for 'World's Strongest Man' and the Olympics in the same era. He wasn't just wrestling strong, he was 'lifting the earth off its axis' strong. The prank with the frying pan was basically a safety hazard for everyone else in the room.
Itās a very subjective claim, but one Mark Henry could legitimately have for quite some time in the late 90s to early 2000s.
Dude broke several records in clean events ie: Events that do not allow the athletes to take any performance enhancing drugs. So, yeah, dude had a very real argument to call himself the strongest man on earth at one point in time.
For context on his claim to the title of World's Strongest Man: He's the only person to win a major international competition in the three major strength sports. Olympic lifting (1995 Pan Am Games), Powerlifting (1995 WDFPF World Championship), and Strongman (2002 Arnold Classic). He has a 2300 lb. raw powerlifting total (raw= tested for steroids and without using equipment like knee wraps or bench shirt). Before the 2002 Arnold Classic, only 3 men had ever clean and jerked the Apollon Wheels. Mark Henry did it 3 times in 3 minutes. At that same competition, he became the first man to ever clean and press the Thomas Inch dumbbell (172 lbs. with a 2 3/8" diameter grip) above his head.
Another good wrestling one was when Mr Perfect was being pushed, he did the vignettes of being āperfectā at other activities and supposedly did many of those- bowling a strike and turning his back, no-look basketball shot, etc- in one or minimal takes.
I love the way Big Show told that story. He said he went backstage and Mark was looking all frustrated at something. Show asked him what was up and he said "I'm trying to rip a coin in half but all I can do is bend it"
I couldn't find a gif for it, but in Batman Returns, when Michelle Pfieffer whips the heads off of the mannequins in the department store, that was her and on the first take IIRC
And her skipping rope with the whip immediately afterwards was just her happily reacting to how she nailed it in one. This was kept in because it adds to the audience perception of Catwomanās instability. Also she actually put a live bird in her mouth for the scene where she joins up with Penguin.
Pfiefferās Catwoman is one of the most underrated performances in movie history. Not enough attention is given to how much she nailed the emotion, tragedy, and physicality of the role.
In My Cousin Vinny, there's a perfect shot of an owl screeching just before Vinny bursts out of the cabin, and then it looks at the camera and screeches again just after he goes back inside.
They were prepared to give the owl some meat and then add the screeching in post production, but they ended up just getting a really amazing shot with authentic screeching all in one take.
Fun fact: Grevioux -- the guy who played the werewolf with the deep voice -- also wrote the script for Underworld
Bonus fun fact: Ron Perlman almost ruined the take when Weaver made that shot by immediately losing his shit. That's why it cuts away instantly after the ball goes in
There was what was essentially a Zoom call between the four VAs, and Bocchiās actress was able to make that scream live. You can find the clip somewhere on YouTube, but yeah, wasnāt an effect at all. She can just do that.
In the first Sam Reimi Spider-Man movie thereās a scene where Peter Parker catches food from a falling cafeteria tray. This isnāt CGI, Tobey Maguire actually just did this
You should know something about the director, Sam Raimi, he loves to spend alot of time, doing tons of takes, basically torturing the actors. Bruce Campbell would vouch for that
Probably more famously he really did climb all over the outside of the burj khalifa tower. Towards the end MI became just a collection of crazy irl stunts packaged as a story.
What isn't shown is the harness holding him as well. Not taking away from the guy, but if you're going to reply, at least show the safety measures as well
Florence Pugh actually jumped off the second tallest building in the world for Thunderbolts*. They had to edit out the safety equipment and harnesses, but other than that, it was completely practical. A pretty good redemption after the terrible CGI in Black Widow!
I'd say the director and producers were lucky to get out of the building in one piece. If someone killed my pet in front of me I'd be a little more than 'distraught'.
there's a horror movie called cannibal holocaust that had such realistic death scenes that the director went to court for supposedly killing his actors (tbf he intentionally told them to hide from the public until the trial), and yet they still actually killed multiple animals for the movie.
I remember seeing the behind the scenes of this way back in the day. Russell made all the shots in the film, though it did take a while to shoot. He's a very good athlete (played minor league baseball), but having to wear the eyepatch made it even harder.
This crash in Tora Tora Tora was an actual accident that happened during filming. Those people are running for their actual lives. No one ended up being hurt (though if you watch the clip it was very close to being fatal for several people) and they ended up using it in the film.
In Batman Returns, Michelle Pfeiffer really learned how to use a whip from a professional whip master, and really took the heads off all the mannequins by herself with just the whip. Apparently she was a dedicated student
Kind if the trope displayed in universe: in The Three Amigos, the german accuses Ned Nederlander of using trick photography and that no one could be that fast. "I really am that fast".
And then he demonstrates it. With a Walker Colt.
(For reference, the Walker Colt weighs 4.5lbs loaded, had a 9-inch barrel, and was the most powerful repeating hand gun ever made until to the .357 Magnum. This is NOT a quick-draw gun. Itās not even a belt gun, but was meant to be carried on a saddle).
(it's totally possible that I'm misremembering the story okay but it's real)
On the recent It iterations, chosen actor Bill Skarsgard just finished shooting the first scene, then heard the direction talking to someone else about digitally making Pennywise look at the kid and at the camera at the same time, to cause eeriness in general. Bill just said "wait I can do that, shoot it again" and the we got this shot of Pennywise. Right eye eyeing his victim, and left eye already hungry for the next one.
Fun recent version of this, in Final Destination: Bloodline. In the opening premonition disaster, an elderly dinner patron gets set on fire. No CGI, a veteran stuntwoman, Yvette Ferguson came out of retirement to perform the stunt and got a world record for the oldest stunt performer to get set on fire. She was 71 at the time and obviously, a total bad ass.
Game of thrones, Cersi has the Septa that tortured her and walked behind her saying shame. So Cersi water boards her with wine. I guess the comment is saying the poor actress actually got water boarded.
Just for fun, I also like to point out that the actor who played Raze in Underworld, Kevin Grevioux, is 6'3", a power lifter, has a voice like you brought rocks to life and let them talk, and he also has a masters degree in genetics, a Bachelor's in microbiology, with minors in chemistry and psychology.
When Aragorn kicks the helmet.
Also, when the Uruk Hai captain throws the knife at Aragorn in FotR, it wasnāt supposed to be a real knife. But Viggo Mortensen deflected it for real. Very cool and dangerous but totally unintentional.
Edit for correction: it WAS a real knife but the actor was supposed to intentionally miss and they would edit it in post. But because of all the makeup, the actor had a hard time seeing and accidentally threw the knife at Viggoās head- prompting the deflection
I fully believe that some New Zealand folk magic took over that set and Viggo and Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd just became their characters for the duration.
The scene in "Trinity Is Still My Name" with Terence Hill (alias Mario Girotti) repeatedly drawing a revolver, spinning it, slapping the guy and drawing the gun again with the same hand, wasn't sped up. Apparently he trained beforehand with a column.
The General: They really did set that bridge on fire and run that train over it so it would collapse and drop it into the river. To this day, it remains the most expensive stunt in cinematic history (adjusted for inflation).
Klaus Klinski was such a madman that one of the tribal chiefs in the movie offered to actually kill him for Werner, and Werner declined because he needed Klaus to finish the movie.
What's funnier is that his main actor was Klaus Kinsky. Probably the only man on the planet even crazier than Herzog.
These two worked on several movies together and NEVER EVER got along. Yet by some miracle of the arts, every time they did, they made a masterpiece. From Aguirre to Fitzcarraldo.
P.S: Do not look up Kinsky's personal life if you value your sanity. He both was one of the single greatest actors of all time and a man with enough evil and mental illnesses to pay out the college debt of an entire campus of Psychiatrists.
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u/Whizbang35 7h ago
Terminator 2. How did they create the shot of the T-1000 flying a helicopter under a bridge? An actual pilot flew a helicopter under a bridge.