Digital Deception: When VFX Is So Good, You Don’t Even Notice

From jaw-dropping explosions in the latest Fast & Furious movie to dragons soaring over medieval cities in Game of Thrones or the breathtaking landscapes of Avatar, visual special effects (VFX) have come a long way in the last few decades.

The old saying is true – if you do a good job, no one will notice you’ve done anything at all.

Behind every scene is a VFX artist working tirelessly to make a thrilling, believable scene. It takes an incredible level of coordination from every department to achieve VFX that is “invisible”. The seamless integration of these effects ultimately draws viewers deeper into the story and makes the cinematic experience exhilarating.

What Makes VFX Invisible?

Even though we know that a scene is unreal, if it is done exceptionally well, this fact doesn’t matter anymore. The same principle applies when a CG element is inserted into a film. It might be a creature that doesn’t exist, but if it’s well-crafted, it moves with its surroundings and interacts so naturally that we accept it and let our brains play along.

Many factors need to be considered as the object moves throughout a scene: the surroundings, the lighting, and even how the CG object interacts with other objects or subjects in the scene. It takes a carefully curated eye and skilled VFX artists to make artificial objects “invisible.”

Let’s use VFX lighting as an example. The proper application of lighting integration can maintain the illusion of reality and keep the audience completely immersed in the storyline. Great VFX lighting is just one VFX element that separates professional VFX teams and amateur VFX teams.

Amateur VFX teams can easily be spotted with subpar applications of VFX by any audience when the lighting in a scene does not feel natural. Imagine if a creature is not casting a shadow. When the creature is next to a shrub, the creature should cast a shadow identical to that of the shrub, same angle, color, and brightness. This level of VFX lighting detail needs to be applied to every frame, otherwise, that creature quickly becomes detached from the scene, revealing itself as an artificial addition to the scene.

When VFX are executed at a high level, they become invisible in their perfection, transforming the fantastic into the believable and allowing viewers to fully engage with the narrative without distraction.

The Power of Invisible VFX

In the field of VFX, nothing is impossible. Many scenes are not filmed in the actual location where the story takes place. Filming elsewhere is cheaper, easier, or often safer. With VFX, we can remove unwanted items from the footage and add elements and information. When a scene is shot in Canada, VFX teams can reflect the United States by adding specific environmental details to make the location feel more American, like cabs and police cars, street signs, and even buildings.

Scenes shot indoors with a green screen and markers mean any world or environment can be created with the power of VFX. Actors can appear to be in the middle of a jungle or in a desert. For historical period films, VFX can remove modern cars, streetlights, and advertisements or add historical elements. An experienced VFX team can easily blur the lines between real and artificial to achieve invisible VFX.

Beyond what can be created and removed with VFX around actors, VFX can fix actors’ actions and appearances like:

•     Perfect details like misplaced hair or closing eyes.
•     Add crowds to outdoor scenes, for example, where a politician is giving a speech. Usually, these scenes are filmed with just the main actors and a few extras in the foreground. Duplicating the small group of extras, adding CG people to bring a massive crowd and adding slight movement to the standing crowd is important to make these types of scenes more believable.
•     Change body type or even age to make actors look younger, older or have a different physicality.
•     Make stunt doubles true doppelgangers by replacing the double’s head with the head of the main actor.

The work behind Invisible VFX

Imagine the following story: a woman is walking down the street, talking on the phone, when suddenly she is hit in the shoulder by a projectile. She immediately drops her cell phone, and the projectile, containing a magical substance, begins to take effect. She seems dazed as if something is bothering her in her head, and then two long rabbit ears start to grow.

The filmed scene would look quite different: our actress walks down the street, talking on the phone. Suddenly, she drops her cell phone and uses her other hand to clutch her shoulder. Within seconds, she appears dazed, shaking her head from side to side, then stops.

And here is where the real magic begins: the VFX.

The VFX team adds the projectile to the scene by making it hit the actress milliseconds before she puts her hand on her shoulder. The movement that the actress made in the scene must look like it was motivated by the projectile that didn’t exist. Now we move on to the transformation of the ears: her ears need to become wider and more pointed to the point that we no longer see the actress’s original ears. As the ears grow, the animation progresses frame by frame. The ears must physically react to the movements made by the actress in the filmed scene, and this is the biggest challenge. The human eye can effortlessly sense when something, such as movement, is not right; it doesn’t know exactly what it is but knows that it is not natural.

So, the 3D animator makes those ears move independently, with movements motivated by the actress’s head movements. They must consider the natural resistance and structure of a rabbit ear: not so light as to move like a scarf, but not so rigid as to appear metallic. And so the painstaking work begins, frame by frame. This meticulous process ensures that each ear movement looks natural and is perfectly synchronized with the actress’s performance, resulting in a seamless integration that enhances the scene’s believability and keeps the audience immersed in the story.

Behind every Best Picture Film award is a VFX army creating special effects magic. It’s essential to recognize that VFX teams have become a crucial cog in the production of every film and TV show.

So the next time you watch a movie, be sure to take a second and appreciate all the VFX names that scroll down the screen during the end credits. It would mean the world to all of us in the VFX industry.

BIO of Fernando: 

Fernando Gallo is a Lead 3D Animator based in Toronto/Canada and works for WeFX Studio. With over two decades of experience in 3D and 8 years in VFX, he specializes in creating engaging and realistic effects for acclaimed feature films and TV shows, including “John Wick 4”, Del Toro’s “Cabinet of Curiosities”, “The Boys” and many other successful projects. Known for his innovative techniques and creative vision, Fernando has received multiple awards for his work through his projects and also served as VFX Supervisor and co-producer for award-winning short films, he academically mentors students at Centennial College’s 3D Animation program. When he’s not pushing the boundaries of VFX, Fernando enjoys hand drawing, writing, traveling, skydiving, and scuba diving, all of which fuel his creative inspiration.