Movies Insider

Bringing characters like Spider-Man and Captain Marvel to life on screen requires some real-life superheroes off-screen. Specialized teams and experts carefully plan and carry out the stunts, costumes, and special effects that make iconic films like the Avengers the impressive spectacle audiences love. From actual bus crashes in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021) to detailed makeup and training in "Black Panther" (2018), here's what Marvel movies look like behind the scenes.

The second episode of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” centers on an epic storm in the Sundering Seas. Pulling it off involved a method that has become Hollywood’s go-to approach for creating storms at sea: filming the sequence in a giant water tank. Outdoor water tanks have become a staple of productions big and small seeking to recreate scenes of violent ocean storms — from Kumeu Studios in New Zealand, where “Rings of Power” filmed its storm, to Pinewood’s horizon water tank in the Dominican Republic, where films like “The Lost City” (2022) and “Old” (2021) have shot aquatic scenes. Tanks allow filmmakers to exercise exacting control over the conditions of a seemingly chaotic scene, whether a tempest like that in “The Rings of Power” or a tidal wave like that in “The Impossible” (2012).

Sometimes, it’s safer for productions to fake vehicles’ movements for stunts rather than put them in real action. So special effects artists will use rigs and gimbals to make them move in place. NAC Effects will put a given vehicle or set on top of one of its six-axis motion bases capable of creating realistic movements of all sorts. For Netflix’s “Day Shift” (2022), the crew put a pickup truck on a base and added a rotator. This allowed it to make sharp turns while appearing to go uphill and off road before spinning 360 degrees. When it comes to motorcycles, NAC can attach the motorcycle at the bottom and keep the wheels free, which helped The Rock look like his bike was soaring through the air in “Jumanji” (2017). Meanwhile, if the operator adds some vibrations, it can look like it’s going on a cobblestone street, like in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011). Then, by making larger and more sweeping movements, they can make a boat really look like it’s riding the waves, whi

Tech advancements have allowed Disney to go from more static environments in its earliest computer-animated movies to a living, breathing landscape in “Strange World” (2022). This new setting has a level of movement, texture, dimension, and scale that would have been unthinkable 17 years ago, when Disney made its first foray into full computer animation with “Chicken Little” (2005). Since then, Disney has expanded its tool set with each successive film to create landscapes that feel just as alive as the characters. For the storybook setting of “Tangled” (2010), the environment artists created new tree-modeling and growth tools to help them build art-directed forests at scale. For the even more highly stylized vegetation in “Frozen” (2013), Disney developed a full vegetation tool to create not just trees but bushes, foliage, and plants, all in very specific and artistically guided shapes. Having mastered these organic environments, the studio took on the challenge of a densely packed,

Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix adaptation of “Pinocchio” breathes new life into the over-century-old art form of stop-motion animation. The film achieved a new level of expressiveness in its animated puppets by marrying traditional stop-motion techniques with newer technologies. We spoke with “Pinocchio” puppet fabrication supervisor Georgina Hayns and animation supervisor Brian Leif Hansen about the labor of love behind the film. Hayns and Leif Hansen are world-renowned stop-motion artists who brought their expertise to the three-year undertaking that was “Pinocchio.” Previously, Hayns supervised character fabrication for “Kubo and the Two Strings” (2016), “The Boxtrolls” (2014), “ParaNorman” (2012), and “Coraline” (2009). Leif Hansen was an animator on “Missing Link” (2019), “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009), and “Frankenweenie” (2012).

Since the invention of film, filmmakers have tried to trick viewers into believing that an actor is either shorter or taller than they really are. The most classic techniques are sticking an actor on a platform or having them interact with props built to scale. But those need to be paired with clever camera angles and visual effects. In “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001), director Peter Jackson employed a forced perspective so Gandalf would really look like he was interacting with a hobbit. More complex computer-controlled camera moves and blue-screen compositing helped make the shots more complex and were used further in “The Two Towers” (2002), “The Return of the King” (2003), and the “Hobbit” trilogy (2012 to 2014).

It took James Cameron 13 years to make the follow-up to “Avatar” (2009). That time was spent making the sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022), even more technologically groundbreaking than its predecessor. While the first movie’s water-based scenes were actually shot on a dry set, the director and his crew built a performance-capture stage that actually worked both underwater and above the surface. But to get the clearest reference footage possible, the cast had to learn to hold their breath for extended time periods. That way, Sigourney Weaver and Kate Winslet could act out scenes underwater without worrying about breath bubbles obscuring their faces. The crew could also translate Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, and Stephen Lang’s performances to their Na’vi counterparts with even more accuracy thanks to a helmet with two cameras attached to it that was first developed for “Alita: Battle Angel” (2019).

Most of the nighttime scenes in Jordan Peele's "Nope" (2022) were filmed in broad daylight. The same is true of films like "Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), and many other Hollywood classics. So why does Hollywood film its night scenes during the daytime? We spoke with cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema — the director of photography behind "Nope" and other films like "Tenet" (2020), "Dunkirk" (2017), and "Interstellar" (2014) — about the challenges of this approach and how he innovated an entirely new way of shooting day for night for "Nope."

Throughout his 40-year career, Keanu Reeves has pushed the limits of what kinds of action an actor can do on-screen. Keanu’s breakthroughs into action movies were “Point Break” (1991) and “Speed” (1994). In the groundbreaking “The Matrix” (1999) and its sequel “The Matrix Reloaded,” he performed impressive martial-arts moves and wire fu. In “The Matrix Resurrections” (2021), he jumped off a 550-foot skyscraper to pull off the perfect shot. With “John Wick” (2014) and its sequels, Keanu and the stunt team pushed the envelope physically as far as possible. In “John Wick: Chapter 2” (2017), Keanu immersed himself in judo and jujitsu while stunt-driving for parts of the film’s memorable opening scene.

Good Foley artists really sell the realism of a movie. Here’s a look at 10 unique ways sounds are made for TV shows, movies, and video games. We feature surprising sound design techniques, such as using grapes for the terrifying aliens in “A Quiet Place”, to an old lawn mower for “Transformers”. And it even involves recording animals, such as the whimpers of a pair of cute little pugs for the creatures in “Halo.”

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II" is the most realistic version of the game yet. The first-person shooter game has incorporated methods of photogrammetry and performance capture to transport our world into the world of "Modern Warfare," scanning in everything from Ghost's mask to fully-costumed characters. The team even distresses its costumes in real life to add naturalistic wear and tear to the military gear in the game. And it creates and scans real miniature models to stand in for BattlePass's emblem and rewards. We visited Infinity Ward's studio in LA to find out how the developer continues pushing the boundaries of realism and immersion in video games.

Action scenes set on moving trains happen over and over again throughout movie history, but they're rarely filmed on actual moving trains. When they are, they have to be meticulously planned, from the train derailment in "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) to James Bond's fight on top of a real moving train in "Skyfall" (2012). There are a variety of techniques to simulate thrilling train action. For a deadly train explosion in "RRR" (2022), Surpreeze used a scale model of a train that could be pulled across a bridge and blown up. For another shot, the VFX studio was able to launch a full-size train car safely into the water by mounting it to a flipper. Scenes that take place inside or on the exterior of a moving train will have to create constant motion. The continuous forward movement and turbulence you see on the train in "Snowpiercer" (2014) and on the subway fight in "Spider-Man 2" (2004) were done by putting train cars on top of motion platforms.

Pixar has been at the forefront of 3D animation innovations for nearly 30 years, developing new methods and technologies with nearly every new project. With their newest feature film “Elemental” hitting theaters, we take a look back at the ways Disney/Pixar has evolved over time. The studio has made advancements in how characters move, going from robotic motion in 1995’s “Toy Story” to characters who can intricately play music in “Coco” and “Soul.” In the early Pixar days, human characters were hidden in the shadows, but breakthroughs in movies like “The Incredibles” and “Brave” paved the way for more believable human characters. And clothes, which were once stiff, took center stage in “Onward” thanks to innovations from movies like “Monsters Inc.”

Tom Cruise famously does nearly all of his own stunts throughout the "Mission: Impossible" series and is constantly finding ways to elevate them to new levels. In "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000), he free-solo climbed on camera, a stunt which was originally supposed to be done by a professional climber. In "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" (2011), Cruise climbed on the side of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is the world’s tallest building. For the action scenes in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" (2015), he clung to the side of an airplane flying 1,000 feet in the air and then trained alongside co-star Rebecca Ferguson to hold his breath underwater for an extended period of time. In "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" (2018), he performed a HALO jump on camera from 25,000 feet in the air, trained 16 hours a day to fly a helicopter, and then rode a motorcycle at up to 100 mph in Paris. In the latest installment, "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023), Cruise’s stun