[Although we recognize the use of digital effects in some (e.g., science fiction and fantasy) films and television programs, in a common and extremely effective form of presence we completely overlook the role of many sophisticated digital manipulations used by visual effects artists to make the people and settings in films and programs appear realistic and natural. Some of these manipulations are described in this New York Times story (see the original version for two more images). –Matthew]
[Image: Digital effects were used to create the background of this scene from “Roma.” Credit: Netflix]
It’s a Visual Effects Extravaganza, but There’s Not an Explosion in Sight
Though blockbusters are synonymous with computer imagery, dramas and art-house films rely extensively on tech magic, too. Don’t be fooled by the naturalism.
By Calum Marsh
March 16, 2024
A woman crosses a bustling street at night. Cars pass noisily. A streetcar cruises by. Behind her, we see twinkling streetlights, a cinema marquee, towering neon signs. It rained earlier; the roads are still wet. It’s Mexico City in the early 1970s, and it feels vibrantly alive.
This is a scene in “Roma” (2018), Alfonso Cuarón’s naturalistic, semi-autobiographical black-and-white drama based on the life of the housekeeper who helped raise him as a child. It’s also, less obviously, a dazzling showcase of visual effects.
The huge movie theater in the background is entirely CGI. So is the streetcar, and many of the other vehicles, as well as most of the buildings, signs, facades, lights and pedestrians. Even the reflections visible in the puddles on the road were created on a computer. Though it’s been designed to be completely inconspicuous and convincing, Aaron Weintraub, the head of creative operations at the visual effects studio MPC, describes this moment as “one of our flagship shots.”
What comes to mind when you think of visual effects, or VFX? For most people, it’s fantasy and science fiction: aliens in spaceships, superheroes zooming across imaginary lands. And while it’s certainly true that big-budget genre films and summer blockbusters are rife with computer-generated imagery, VFX studios like MPC estimate that about half the work they produce is made to be invisible. For every “Kraven the Hunter” or “Argylle,” there’s a “Ferrari,” “Maestro” or “Killers of the Flower Moon,” movies with sophisticated visual effects that the filmmakers hope you’ll never realize was an effect at all.
“When people talk about VFX, it’s the obvious stuff — the explosions, the laser beams, the science-fiction stuff,” Weintraub said. “But there’s a whole world of work being done that’s transparent to the audience, and no one is supposed to know.” He likened it to the work of film and TV costume designers. What attracts attention and wins Oscars, he said, are “lavish period costumes and fancy superhero suits,” but in fact, “you have a costume designer on every film who makes normal clothes that normal people wear, and no one talks about them.”
Robert Grasmere, a VFX supervisor with the boutique effects studio Temprimental, takes a certain pride in his work going unnoticed. “Almost every film I’ve worked on, my friends and family see it, and then say to me, ‘You didn’t do anything; there were no effects in that movie,’” he said. “I love that.”
Invisible VFX work ranges widely in scope, purpose and style. Much of it is a matter of problem solving — correcting mistakes and oversights on set. Changes have always been made in the editing room, of course, but as VFX have become cheaper and more plentiful, filmmakers are increasingly relying on computer wizardry to fix errors, make adjustments, and otherwise tune things up.
“Everyone tends to underestimate the amount of invisible effects that go into a movie,” said Raoul Bolognini, chief executive of Temprimental. “This work takes months and months to do, costs thousands of thousands of dollars, and you’d never think in a million years how much work goes into it because you can’t tell it’s there.”
Visual effects are regularly used to change the color of an actor’s shirt, adjust a hairstyle, or alter the look of a set or a backdrop to better suit the director’s vision. They can also help eliminate problems that turn up at the 11th hour. “You might be looking at a shot for the thousandth time” and notice a problem with a background extra, said Luke Groves, senior vice president at MPC. Where a gaffe like that might once have wound up in a YouTube supercut, VFX artists are now able to wipe it out before anyone’s the wiser.
Many of these effects are remarkably subtle. When an actor is asked to play dead, Groves said, effects artists are there to make it more realistic: “No matter how great a performance is, there are always going to be micromovements. We’re constantly taking out breathing or eye movements. We are able to come in and preserve the performance, but present a heightened level of reality.”
There’s a moment in “Nightmare Alley,” Guillermo Del Toro’s moody noir from 2021, in which Bradley Cooper’s con man, Stanton Carlisle, returns to his hotel room to find showmen from the carnival waiting for him. As it was originally shot, Toni Collette greets him with a quip. But in the finished film, she says nothing — a change achieved by cutting the audio and digitally replacing the actress’s mouth.
It isn’t simply that most viewers would never notice this change. It would never occur to them that such a change was even possible — and changes like this are being made all the time, in films that don’t seem to feature VFX.
Performances are often fine-tuned now using effects work. For a dramatic monologue delivered in close-up, VFX artists may be asked to remove an actor’s blinking by superimposing a set of open eyes over their eyelids to make the shot more engaging. “We’re constantly finding eyes that aren’t closed and putting them in over eye blinks,” Grasmere explained.
For a comedy set piece, different lines can be stitched together digitally to make sure the film keeps the funniest material from each take. “One guy’s line might be funny, but the other guy’s response isn’t,” Grasmere said. “If they touch each other during the shot, we might have to rebuild a hand, or an entire arm. Or we’ll repaint the background from one shot, blend two faces from two other moments, or superimpose something into the foreground to match two different performances together. There are a million ways to make it work.”
A lot of invisible effects work concentrates on faces. Artists can do replacements on body doubles, either for nude scenes or dangerous stunts. More commonly, there’s extensive cosmetic work performed on actors — removing wrinkles, smoothing out blemishes or otherwise correcting imperfections to make actors look their best. This kind of work is usually referred to as “visual makeup” or vanity VFX, and it’s becoming so common that many top stars have this work written into their contracts.
“Cosmetic VFX work is often super complex, but because we have to sign nondisclosure agreements, we can rarely talk about or advertise that work,” said Martin Pelletier, a VFX supervisor with Rodeo. “You might do a sequel where an actor returns to a role and has put on a humongous amount of weight, and we have to come in and fix it. Or someone has a triple chin, and we have to make him or her look nice and thin.”
“It can be a sensitive question,” Pelletier added. “We once had an actress who didn’t want to look overweight in a scene surrounded by a bunch of people. We had to shave off about 80 pounds.”
One of the most common invisible effects is what’s known as “retiming.” If a director feels that a shot or a scene is running too short or too long, it can be sped up or slowed down by either removing frames or adding them. This can create visual artifacts or a kind of unnatural distortion, or cause the shot to look “jittery” and “steppy.” Visual effects artists make imperceptible adjustments “so that it all moves smoothly,” Weintraub said. “It gets tricky, and it’s a subliminal thing.”
All of this affords filmmakers a level of control over continuity that borders on perfectionism. “Maybe there’s a spot on somebody’s face in one shot, or someone’s hair was slightly off and we have to go in and replace it,” Groves said. “On the one hand, it’s like, who cares? No one will notice. But at the end of the day, it’s these little things that can make a film just that much better.”