Filmmakers today can bring just about anything to life using state of the art digital effects.
Whether it's exploding space stations or giant transforming robots, if you can imagine it,
the movie industry can spare a couple hundred million to put it up on the big screen.
But all that technology can also be used for decidedly more mundane purposes - like making
an actor's body parts look bigger or erasing embarrassing tattoos.
In fact, the movie industry's top effects animators are often hard at work adding and
subtracting tiny elements that may never be noticed by most filmgoers.
Here's a look at some actors whose real-life features had to be digitally altered for the
movies.
Dakota Johnson
Whenever you see a new d scene in a movie, there's a good chance that nobody on set ever
really got nekid.
Often, actors wear flesh-colored underwear, and for most movies this is enough, because
intimate scenes don't really factor into the plot.
Not true for the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Those scenes are the plot, which posed a unique problem for the effects department.
Specifically because it showed more skin than most other films do, a decision needed to
be made about whether or not Dakota Johnson's character, Anastasia Steele, had a personal
grooming routine.
Apparently she didn't, because a digital effects artist had to go in during post-production
and use CGI to give Johnson, um, one of THESE.
Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey would later refer to this as one of the most surreal moments
of his entire career - closely followed by overseeing the hiring process of a suitable
butt double for Johnson.
Nicolas Cage
It's safe to say that Nicolas Cage loves comic books.
His son Kal-El is named after Superman, he changed his own last name early in his career
from Coppola to Cage as a nod to the Marvel character Luke Cage, and he even has a large
tattoo of the Ghost Rider on his arm.
This latter tribute proved to be a problem when Cage was set to star in the 2007 Ghost
Rider film, because, well, it would have been kind of weird for Johnny Blaze to have a tattoo
of his own superhero alter ego on his bicep.
So the decision was made to use the magic of special effects to hide the offending tattoo
whenever Cage needed to take off his shirt.
A persistent rumor surrounding the movie suggests that Cage's abs were also created using the
magic of CGI; however, his Ghost Rider co-star Eva Mendes has confirmed that they were, in
fact, 100 percent real.
Kristian Nairn
There's a scene in the first season of Game of Thrones when the character Hodor, played
by actor Kristian Nairn, gets nekid - revealing the giant character's suitably plus-sized
anatomy.
To achieve the illusion, Nairn was asked to wear a realistic-looking 16-inch prosthetic
that was attached to his groin using glue.
"For weeks later, I would be finding pieces of prosthetic piece, um, attached to my own."
The effects department then blended the whole thing to his body using digital effects, airbrushing
out a special thong Nairn was wearing beneath the whole get-up.
According to the actor, this thong shielded his actual package from view so well that
one of his co-stars asked if it was real.
There's only one response to that question.
"Hodor."
Paul Reubens
If you happened to catch Pee-Wee's Big Holiday on Netflix, you may have noticed that actor
Paul Reubens looked surprisingly spry and youthful for a 60-something-year-old man.
To give the impression that Reubens hadn't aged since his last TV appearance as the character,
CGI was used in tandem with makeup, lighting and sticky tape to de-age the actor.
And that last part isn't a joke - tape was used to pull back Reubens' face for some scenes
to make his skin look smoother.
Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.
To his credit, Reubens was surprisingly open about the use of CGI to remove his wrinkles,
admitting that Pee-Wee simply wouldn't work "with age mixed into it."
"Breakfast bar!
Scone!
French toast!
American toast!
Achoo!"
The cast of Glee
The hit musical dramedy Glee continued the longstanding Hollywood tradition of hiring
older actors to play teenagers.
Although none of the actors playing high schoolers on the show were the age they were supposed
to be, they still apparently suffered from a fairly common affliction that plagues all
young people: acne.
This didn't zit well with the producers, who paid an unnamed visual effects company to
do what was dubbed "a pimple pass" on most episodes to ensure every actor's skin was
blemish-free.
Because if there's anything that's going to make a show relatable to young people, it's
flawless-looking actors with perfect skin complaining about being unattractive.
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba resolved long ago to not take off her clothes for a movie.
She told Scarlet magazine in 2010:
"I can act sexy and wear sexy clothes, but I can't go naked.
My grandmother would freak out and throw a towel over me if she saw me wearing just a
bra and panties…I can handle being sexy with clothes on but not with them off."
Anyone who watched 2010's Machete after reading the article in Scarlet was likely surprised
when Alba appeared to be newd during a shower scene - but the key word there is "appeared."
In reality, Alba was clothed, and her garments were digitally replaced in post-production
with computer-generated skin.
Claire Danes
When a regular for a hit show gets pregnant, sometimes creators use the tools the universe
has given them and write the pregnancy into the story.
But when Claire Danes announced she was pregnant with her first child in 2012, she assured
fans her Homeland character Carrie Mathison would remain "fervently non-pregnant" for
the show's second season.
Danes' on-set work for season two of Homeland continued as late as six weeks before she
gave birth.
Her baby bump was digitally erased in post-production, and body doubles were also used to help with
the subterfuge.
It wouldn't be the last time Homeland used these strategies to keep a pregnancy out of
the story - the following year, they used similar techniques on Morena Baccarin.
Even though it didn't show up on-screen, Danes' pregnancy didn't make things any easier for
her.
She described one particularly difficult scene that had her chained in a basement.
"It was 4 a.m.
I was seven and a half months pregnant, and I was like, 'This sucks.'"
She also said the pregnancy made love scenes difficult, using the example of the shooting
of one love scene when her baby was particularly active.
"It was like he was protesting on my husband's behalf."
Chris Evans
Among all the otherworldly characters in Marvel movies, the young, scrawny Steve Rogers in
2011's Captain America: The First Avenger remains one of Marvel's most impressive CGI
effects.
No single technique was used to create the smaller and skinnier pre-experiment Steve
Rogers.
Marvel hired Lola Visual Effects to do the digital body work on Chris Evans for Captain
America.
Lola's supervisor Edson Williams told Variety that the so-called "Benjamin Button" method
- or digitally attaching Evans' face to a body double - was only used for 15 percent
of the shots.
For the rest, Lola digitally shrunk Evans' face and body.
The process involved shooting everything at least three times: Once with Evans, once with
Evans' smaller body double, and one "clean shot" without either of them.
With each shot, the team determined whether to go the easier "Benjamin Button" route,
or what Lola came to call "Steve slimming."
Williams said that the most challenging part of the process was caused by Evans' massive
arms.
When shot in profile, they blocked an entire third of his body, so the fabric of Evans'
shirts would need to be digitally erased and replaced with something else to give the illusion
of skinny and comparatively weak arms.
That's probably the only time in the history of superhero movies that bulking up turned
out to be a bad thing.
Guy Henry & Ingvild Deila
For better or worse, prequels are now a staple of film franchises, and CGI is part of what
makes them possible.
The filmmakers of Rogue One faced particularly tough challenges.
For the story they wanted, they needed to recreate the characters of Grand Moff Tarkin
and Princess Leia.
Peter Cushing, who played Tarkin in 1977's Star Wars, passed away in 1994.
Carrie Fisher, who portrayed Princess Leia, was still alive during the making of Rogue
One, but she looked and sounded nothing like she had...since about four decades had passed.
So Tarkin and Leia were digitally recreated.
For principal photography, Tarkin was played by British actor Guy Henry, who wore a motion-capture
headpiece during filming.
Animators worked meticulously to recreate the actor's mannerisms.
Not quite so much work was needed for the digital rebirth of Princess Leia.
When seen from behind, she's fully Norwegian actress Ingvild Deila.
From the front, what you see is almost entirely a digital creation, though Leia's outstretched
hand is Deila's.
Patrick Stewart & Ian McKellen
X-Men: The Last Stand is not a well-loved movie among comic book fans, but at least
one aspect the film was pretty groundbreaking.
The film opens with Professor X and Magneto making an early attempt to recruit Jean Grey
into Xavier's school for mutants.
The flashback sequence takes place around 20 years before the events of the rest of
the film, and the filmmakers wanted the actors' appearance to reflect those younger days.
Rather than using prosthetics or special motion capture suits, the sequence was shot as if
no changes were going to be made to it at all.
The VFX team then used a process called digital skin grafting to rejuvenate Stewart and McKellen,
utilizing old photographs for reference as well as consulting with a plastic surgeon
to learn the specifics of how skin changes as people age.
Kurt Russell
Like the film that preceded it, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 opens on Earth, several
decades in the past.
We see Meredith Quill being romanced by a Kurt Russell who looks like he could've just
finished filming Big Trouble in Little China.
But there seems to be a little disagreement regarding how his onscreen rejuvenation was
achieved.
When Russell talked about the transformation, he said it was "about 90%" make-up and added
that the filmmakers didn't do much digital manipulation.
Russell says he's been working with the same make-up artist - Dennis Ledger - since 1989,
and Ledger pulled off most of the work.
"They just did the little brush up, clean up on a couple of things, but it's pretty
much what Dennis Ledger did."
Writer-slash-director James Gunn's recollection is significantly different.
In the comments section of a video Gunn posted on Facebook, the director responded to a fan
question about the flashback sequence.
He wrote:
"A company named Lola did the effects, and they did an incredible job.
First we film every scene with Kurt.
A young actor, Aaron Schwarz […] watches everything [Kurt Russell] does.
He then goes in and mimics Kurt's actions.
We then take Kurt's acting and general face and body and place Aaron's skin onto him.
It is a long, painstaking process that took many, many months to accomplish."
Robert Downey Jr.
For all the CGI used in Captain America: Civil War, the film's most stunning visual effect
came in a comparatively low-key moment.
An early scene in Civil War opens to what appears to be a flashback.
A young Tony Stark is giving exactly the snark we expect from him as his parents Howard and
Maria are about to leave for a fateful trip.
"Who's the homeless person on the couch?"
"This is why I love coming home for Christmas.
Right before you leave town."
We eventually learn we're seeing Stark's memories as they're translated through a device Stark
has developed.
As they did when digitally rejuvenating characters in earlier films, Marvel Studios called on
Lola Visual Effects to take 20 to 25 years off Downey.
The scene presented one of the toughest challenges Lola has had to tackle while working with
Marvel because the entire sequence was filmed in a single shot.
Trent Claus, Lola's visual effects supervisor, told The Hollywood Reporter: "The shot was
nearly 4,000 frames long, with Tony Stark turning from one side to the other multiple
times, physically interacting with other actors, and the set itself, and moving closer to the
camera for a very long, uninterrupted close-up."
Claus went on to say that analyzing footage from Downey's late '80s film work was essential
in achieving the effect, and singled out 1987's Less Than Zero as a focal point.
"But it's so real, it freaked me out."
"You think?
It freaked me the heck out!
I was like, 'My God, he was beautiful, what happened?'"
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