Little Shop of Horrors 1986

American horror black comedy musical film directed by Frank Oz. The film was first released in 1986 on VHS.

There were no digital optical effects, green-screens, or CGI used in the making of Little Shop of Horrors, with the exception of the reshot ending where the plant is electrocuted, designed by Visual Effects supervisor Bran Ferren, and in some shots during the rampage in the original ending. To achieve the various sizes of Audrey II, six different sizes of the plant were constructed. Three different scales of Mushnik’s flower shop were also built, allowing production to work on different sizes of the plant simultaneously.

Once filming wrapped each day, the plants had to be scrubbed, patched, and re-painted for the following day. For scenes involving the actors interacting with the largest versions of Audrey II, the frame-rate was decreased to 12 and 16 frames per second, which required the actors to mouth their lines in slow-motion.

An American Werewolf in London 1981

Horror comedy film written and directed by John Landis, the film was first released in 1981 on VHS.

No CGI. Certain body parts, namely the arms and head are robotics that Naughton would wear. They were designed to move and change on screen, in real time. Here’s a look at the head work:

Also, An American Werewolf in London won the first of many awards for special effects makeup master Rick Baker, “Outstanding Achievement in Makeup” award.

The arms created had movable fingers and stretched through a series of inflatables connected by tubes and syringes. The same method was used for the growing spine. When the team needed the hair to grow before our eyes, hairs were literally drawn on to the skin and then filmed in reverse. All of the effects blend together seamlessly with the brilliant cuts and editing of the scene.

Recalling Total Recall 1990

American science fiction action film shot on film using ARRIFLEX Camera and Zeiss Lenses.

The film was praised for its innovative use of practical stunts, special effects make-up, miniatures, optical compositing and CG rendering – culminating in a visual effects Special Achievement Academy Award for Eric Brevig (visual effects supervisor), Alex Funke (director of miniature photography), Tim McGovern (x-ray skeleton sequence) and Rob Bottin (character visual effects).

Most significantly, the Kuato puppet was built on actor Marshall Bell, who played George, a process which took up to six hours and left Bell unable to use the bathroom while it was attached to him.

But it was one scene in particular that marked the transition to what would quickly become the main form of special effects, effectively kicking miniatures and puppets into touch.

The special effects team were faced with the challenge of creating what appeared to be a real X-ray – with the bones looking transparent at the centre – but equally making it resemble the actors and reproduce their movements convincingly. And the only way to do this was to write special, unique software.

The mo-cap technique to capture Schwarzenegger’s own movements was a primitive version of today’s familiar tiny dots. The actor wore a body suit adorned with 18 reflective bulbs and, initially, it appeared to do the job.

But it simply wasn’t detailed enough, and the team eventually had to resort to rotoscoping the scene using other footage which included all his limbs, which enabled the skeleton’s movements to match his.

This sequence was the only CGI element in the film, and it pushed available computer technology to its absolute limit, so hand finishing was the only way to complete the scene.

Gremlins 1984

Gremlins is a 1984 American comedy horror film

Gremlins was produced at a time when combining horror and comedy was becoming increasingly popular.

Some of the performances were shot on the Courthouse Square and Colonial Street sets of the Universal Studios Lot in Universal City, California. This required fake snow; Dante also felt it was an atmosphere that would make the special effects more convincing. As the special effects relied mainly on puppetry (an earlier attempt to use monkeys was abandoned because the test monkey panicked when made to wear a gremlin head),^[12] the actors worked alongside some of the puppets. Nevertheless, after the actors finished their work for good, a great deal of effort was spent finishing the effects. Numerous small rubber puppets, some of which were mechanical, were used to portray Gizmo and the gremlins. They were designed by Chris Walas. There was more than one Gizmo puppet, and occasionally Galligan, when carrying one, would set him down off camera, and when Gizmo appeared again sitting on a surface it was actually a different puppet wired to the surface. These puppets had many limitations. The Gizmo puppets were particularly frustrating because they were smaller and thus broke down more. While Walas recommended making the mogwais larger to make their creation and functioning easier for the special effects team, Dante insisted on keeping their size small to enhance the cuteness of the creatures.

The Abyss

The Abyss is a 1989 American science fiction film

The Abyss won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and is remembered chiefly for the then-cutting-edge CG water tentacle. But it also ran the gamut of traditional effects techniques.

 The special visual effects work was divided up among seven FX divisions with motion control work by Dream Quest Images and computer graphics and opticals by ILM. ILM designed a program to produce surface waves of differing sizes and kinetic properties for the pseudopod. For the moment where it mimics Bud and Lindsey’s faces, Ed Harris had eight of his facial expressions scanned while twelve of Mastrantonio’s were scanned via software used to create computer-generated sculptures.

The set was photographed from every angle and digitally recreated so that the pseudopod could be accurately composited into the live-action footage. The company spent six months to create 75 seconds of computer graphics needed for the creature. The film was to have opened on July 4, 1989, but its release was delayed for more than a month by production and special effects problems. The animated sequences were supervised by ILM animation director Wes Takahashi.^[21] The technology they used for the CGI was SGI and Apple.

The sub chase demonstrates perfectly how visual effects should work: mixing a range of techniques so that the audience never has time to figure out how each one is done, and using an appropriate technique for each individual shot so that you’re making things no more and no less complicated than necessary to tell that little piece of the story.

Independence Day 1996

Independence Day is a 1996 American epic science fiction action film

The movie contains more than 500 effects shots, combining computer generated imagery, digital compositing, digital matte paintings, and traditional miniature model effects, among other techniques. The sheer amount of effects shots makes it the biggest effects film of the 1990’s.

Director Emmerich rounded up a great team of effects artists; rather than depend on one single effects company, Emmerich and effects producer Tricia Ashford put together their own model photography and CG units. The film was awarded with an Academy Award for Visual Effects, and also won two awards in The 1996 VFX HQ Awards.

One of the revolutions on Independence Day was the decision by Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin to form an in-house miniatures and pyrotechnic unit specifically for the film. Major sequences included views of massive spaceships appearing above Earth, the destruction of landmark buildings including the White House and some stunning F-18 dogfight sequences.

Blade Runner (2049) 2017

Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American science fiction film.

They shot the project in 1.55:1 aspect ratio from a single Arri Alexa XT Studio camera with Zeiss Master prime lenses, assisted with an attached crane arm or a dolly. The filmmakers conducted tests with an Alexa 65 camera but preferred the XT Studio’s somewhat grainy image quality, and the choice of lenses corresponded to the scale and lighting specifications of the scenes. For example, close-up character scenes were captured in 32 mm lenses, but filmmakers captured sweeping cityscape shots with 14 mm and 16 mm lenses. Occasionally, production filmed with Arri Alexa Mini cameras to capture shots from the spinners, the vehicles used in the film.

Blade Runner 2049 has won an Academy Award and BAFTA, for which framestore artists crafted concept artwork used in pre-production, and delivered nearly 300 shots of VFX work in post. Tasked with the creation of large-scale CG environment builds and some challenging animation work, Framestore teamed with VFX Supervisor John Nelson to pay homage to the original picture.

One of the great surprises of “Blade Runner 2049” was a stunning CG recreation of the Rachael replicant played by Sean Young in the original movie. The two-minute sequence brings an emotionally stirring reunion with Harrison Ford’s Deckard that required technical virtuosity and subtle performance.