Whether it’s through the use of impressive cinematography, editing, or visual effects, every so often we encounter a scene from a movie that absolutely blows us away and leaves us pondering just how the filmmakers actually achieved it. Sure there are amazing things that can be done in post-production with a green screen these days but, to give the audience a more real sense of the environment in which the film is taking place, using practical effects with real-life objects is often the best way to go. Even though practical effects tend to be costly and time consuming to set up, sometimes knowing just how much painstaking work went into making a movie can give you deeper appreciation for it. Here are 10 movie scenes that were light on computer graphics and extremely difficult to shoot.
Warning: Some of these scenes contain graphic violence and imagery.
10. Apocalypse Now – The Smell of Napalm in the Morning Scene
In 1979, back before computer graphics were a pillar of Hollywood film making, Francis Ford Coppola had to rely entirely on practical effects to create the huge explosions and battle scenes in Apocalypse Now. To create the famous napalm scene, cameras needed to capture real F-5 Tiger fighter jets flying in formation over a massive extended explosion. But, as impressive as fiery blast looked on screen, it was really Robert Duvall’s historic line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” that elevated the scene to its iconic status.