Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness
Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol
How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?
Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.
*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed
So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.
And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:
Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:
Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.
CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.
In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.
Just look at this beauty
You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC
Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.
made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey
the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield
The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning.
I want to talk fantasy.
This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.
This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.
This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)
And this? This heartstopping shot?
This does appear to be from the version with CGI—
—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.
The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.
How about this?
You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.
A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.
MAN IN A COSTUME.
HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.
And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.
You come into my house and insult practical effects?
I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.
That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.
You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.
There are so many practical effects in Mary Poppins that it’s unbelievable. Ranging from the big ones (popping through pictures, tea parties on the ceiling, flying with an umbrella, etc.) to the incredibly little details, there’s a big reason why Mary Poppins won the Oscar for “Best Visual Effects” in 1965
I can’t find a list of all effects used, so this is just going off my memory of a documentary I watched once, so bear with me here; some of these things might be misremembered. But, some of the practical effects used in this film:
- Actors suspended on wires
- Scenes filmed front of a white screen lit with sodium vaporlights (early cinema’s “greenscreen” before greenscreen was invented)
- Matte paintings on glass for the cityscape scenes (rooftops of London, St. Paul Cathedral, etc.)
- Animatronics (the robin that whistles with Mary Poppins is an animatronic controlled by a wire, and the movement and sound you see on-screen was what it was actually doing on-set. The talking parrot umbrella head was also an animatronic.)
- Moving set pieces (every time they slide up or down the banister, they’re riding on a mechanized chair-lift hidden from the camera)
- Padded stairs (when they climb up the staircase made of smoke, the actors actually were climbing up a staircase padded with thick styrofoam, so that their feet would actually sink in some. The children found it particularly challenging, prompting Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews to offer extra help in keeping them balanced, thus really selling the idea that they are two kids walking on smoke with assistance from their guardians)
- Scene splicing (When she pulls impossibly large items from her carpet bag, she’s pulling them through a hole from under the table. The scene was spliced with footage depicting the table with nothing underneath it - except for Michael, who crawled underneath to ‘examine’ for a hole)
- Hidden compartments in bottles containing liquid of different colors (this one is my favorite lol; the children were not told that the medicine would come out of the bottle in different colors; they were just supposed to complain about taking it. Their reactions of shock and amazement are 100% genuine)
Even tiny details that you wouldn’t normally even think of as “special effects” were paid careful attention to, in order to help sell the story. Such as, during the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious scene, while Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are dancing and acting their hearts out, the children are supposed to sit on a fence and eat candy-apples. However, after filming for a long time, the kids were sick of the candy apples they’d been eating. So, Disney called for candy-apples made in tons of unique and delicious flavors, just colored to all look the same. It became the children’s favorite thing about the scene: they just got to sit and listen to fun music and watch the adults sing and dance while they tried a hundred different candy-apples, which is why they’re devouring them like little lions every time you see them on-screen.
(Also not so much a practical effect but just cute to note while I’m talking about Mary Poppins: the kids kept actually falling asleep during filming for the scenes in which Julie Andrews sings them lullabies lol)
CGI has its uses, to be sure. But it ought to be used to ENHANCE practical effects, not REPLACE them.
tbh that’s what Coraline is. And pretty much every movie by LAIKA Studios. It’s all filmed with practical effects and then enhanced with CGI.
Practical effects are actually amazing, and the overreliance on CGI makes films look far more ‘fake’ and causes them to grow outdated far more quickly than modern producers want people to admit.
Mainly because set designers and practical effects specialists are UNIONIZED but computer animators are not, making their labor easy to exploit and often leaving them massively overworked and underpaid.
I know I was already here, but since @plushchrome1212 made this incredible addition, I just want to point out this is a gold standard of practical effects work. Like. What I wrote above probably clued you in that I love looking for the man behind the curtain and going “oh, THAT’S how they did that!”
Mary Poppins is my favorite Disney movie. In 33 years, it has never once occurred to me to question how any of it was done. The illusion is so complete, I’m a grownass adult who just. Accepted that they disappeared into the sidewalk.
Can Someone please add the plant puppet from “My little shop of horrors”!?
That special effect was fenomenal and it took 6-8 people to move that puppet!
Had the pleasure of working with the super careful Lizzie Hart (AD) at this piece for the Wash Post last month and know more about Cameron Mackintosh, the producer behind most of the all time BroadwayBusters Plays of the last couple of decades.
My hyperfixation on Mary Poppins has led us to Bert, Mary and their children. I got nothing other than it’s a charming film, and Bert and Mary shall forever be couple goals.
You have seen your neighbors many times, after all, it is impossible not to notice them. One with her white hair and a figure of a model makes anyone shiver when she gets too close. Her frosty aura can cool everyone’s enthusiasm, you know that because you asked. A lot of people have contact with her as she is the mayor of your city. Everyone considers her a cruel and cold person, but to you, she was always nice, and her smile melted all the ice in your heart.
Her partner is a bit of a different story. Children like her, even love her. What about the parents? Parents don’t want to get in her way because she likes to rule them. And when they try to oppose it? Suffice it to say, no one has tried it for a long time. So long that almost everyone has forgotten what happened to those who tried. Perhaps for the better, no one is trying to find out what happened to the Baker family anymore. This time, you also didn’t understand why people saw her that way. After all, someone working in a school can’t be bad. She was never like that to you, always smiling, praising all your work and helping to organize any parties.
They were a strange couple. They were in love with each other, everyone will say it and you knew it, but at the same time, when you were alone with one of them, you felt uncomfortable. They both stood close to you, very close that you most often touched some part of your body. You won’t say it wasn’t pleasant, especially since both women were very attractive, but they were in a relationship! They shouldn’t be with you that long and become familiar with you like that.
That’s why you were surprised when Mayor Freya invited you to the cinema for the movie you planned to go to, but the tickets were sold out for the next spectacle. Your first reaction was to decline, but when Freya explained that she didn’t want to go alone, you changed your mind. After all, it’s nothing bad, and you can return for the ticket later. Mary Poppins reportedly proposed such a solution herself when she urgently needed to leave the city.
While you were waiting in front of the hall on Freya with your popcorn, you were accosted by a big man. You knew him only by sight, and you know that he always causes problems with his addiction. You did not know how to defend yourself, you were too weak mentally and physically, and a twice as big guy wanted to take you with him to make his night pleasant. You didn’t know how to deal with the big hand holding your arm when you suddenly felt a tug. The man landed on the ground and Freya was standing next to you with popcorn in one hand.
She looked at you and for a moment you saw the great fury in her eyes. When she noticed your reaction, that you backed up at the sight of her, she immediately softened and extended her hand to you, waiting for you to catch her. It took you a while, but you knew this woman, she wouldn’t hurt you, and she was just defending you.
Throughout the movie, she was touching you, and this was brushing the hair from your cheek that was constantly slipping out from behind your ear, and this was touching your hand when you wanted to take popcorn at the same moment and her bare foot was stroking your calf every now and then. She took off her high heels almost at the beginning, explaining that she wasn’t going to sit in them when it’s not needed. You were wearing your favorite summer dress, and every time her foot touched you higher and higher, you adjusted it down, although it was impossible for it to go up.
You tried to focus, but it was very difficult because of all the gentle touches from the Mayor and the breath on your cheek as she leaned over to you to comment on something in the movie happening. You had the feeling that she was doing it on purpose to take you to the limit. You didn’t know what the point of it was. At one point you thought that maybe she and Mary Poppins had argued, so she is now with you at the cinema and not on the road with her beloved as it usually happens.
When her fingers touched your neck after she once again brushed your hair from your forehead, you were fed up. Enough of her games, teasing you, and you’ve decided that the next time you are alone, you will not move away from her, just encourage her to do these forbidden activities. After all, it would not be your relationship that would be broken, and you would get the tension you have craved for a long time.
You were glad the movie was over, even though it was such a great movie that you had been waiting for several months. You’ll have to watch it again anyway, because you don’t know what exactly was going on in it.
Freya offered to walk you home when she noticed you winced at the sight of another drunk man. You were very grateful to her, and you thanked her especially that she would have to walk to her own home, quite a long distance. Therefore, you were not surprised to hear how you propose that she stay with you for the night. After all, you were supposed to encourage her if you were alone with her again.
You opened the wine, and you sat on your living room couch to chat and watch a movie together. Freya conducted the conversation as she handles all her affairs in life. You got the feeling that she knew the answers to questions when, after hearing them, she knew immediately without thinking what to ask next. You also knew a lot about her, but mainly public information.
The whole time, she was focused more on you than on the movie, and for a moment you wondered what the movie was for. But you realized that you are saving yourself with it when you don’t want to look into her blue eyes. You felt as if you were paralyzed, or the hand on your cheek is doing it.
You turned to face her and found that she was sitting even closer to you now. You were still sitting in the same clothes as in the cinema, she was in her silky smooth pants, and you were in your dress. She stared at you with a silent question in her eyes. You looked at her lips, and apparently that was enough for her as an answer, because after a while she was sitting on your lap with her mouth over yours.
Your hands landed in her hair as you tried to pull her closer to you. After all, after all this time, you can touch her. Nothing stands in your way, and you don’t give a damn what her wife will think of you.
“I can hear you thinking. Stop.” Freya said firmly.
The tone of her voice unsettled you a little, but the hands that reached for the zipper of your dress distracted you from everything. She pulled down hard to get to your chest as quickly as possible. It felt amazing, after all, after waiting so long, you are wearing the mayor’s hands.
When she finally pulled the top of her dress off you, you wanted to get her for another kiss, but Freya had other plans. She grabbed your hands and held them above your head while kissing your breasts. Her lips were soft and rough at the same time. You didn’t know for a moment exactly where they were, you had the feeling that they were in several places at once.
The rush of sensations made you squirm, wanting to draw attention to other parts of your body. Freya moved away from you to meet your hazy eyes. She smiled at the sight of you and rose from your lap to extend her hand to you. This time you didn’t think at all, just grabbed it right away. Your dress slipped off your body, and you were left with only your underwear. You were glad that you decided to wear this set earlier that day because the fire that showed in Frey’s eyes set you on fire, and you knew she was pleased with what she saw.
She led you to your bedroom, and you didn’t even have time to wonder how she knew such an exact layout of your rooms. You also didn’t notice the bag that was lying next to your bed, you were focused on other things.
“Hope you don’t mind the blindfold and the fact that I would like to bind your hands to that comfortable bed of yours?” She asked you, wrapping her arms around your waist. You blushed but nodded your head. “Use your words, princess, please.”
“I do not mind.” Hearing your words, she kissed the tip of your nose.
“Good girl.”
Your knees buckled under you, which Freya used to place you on the bed. You sat in the middle and leaned back against the cushions and raised your hands to the headrest. Freya smiled at the sight and reached over to her jacket, which she tossed over the bag, you still hadn’t noticed. She took a piece of rope out of it and began to tie your hands together, finally tying them to the headrest at the end.
“Not too hard? Too loose? ” The concern in her eyes made almost tears appear in your eyes, for a long time no one has worried about you.
You pulled the rope in each direction to check for tension and if the rope was unpleasant or if it would stick firmly into your skin, but it was perfect, as you told the mayor. You got a kiss, this time on the forehead, on which you felt a very soft and pleasant to the touch material.
Freya was slipping the blindfold over your eyes and trying to arrange it so that you could see as little of the room as possible. When she achieved this, she moved away from you. For a moment you had the impression that she left and would not be back, leaving you in such an uncomfortable position. It wouldn’t be the first time someone important to you left, but you thought it would be different. She was nice to you, and she was the mayor, she couldn’t disappear like your previous partners.
But after a while you felt a mouth on your neck. Your senses had sharpened by this moment of waiting, and her touch was now more intensified. That’s probably why her lips seemed bigger and firmer. Their journey began with gentle kisses in places that are usually visible, but as they hit points that are covered by clothes, they began to kiss harder. You felt her teeth brush against your skin, like a vampire looking for the perfect spot to bite into your skin. After a while, when you thought she found one, the mouth completely disappeared on one side of you to bite you on the other.
The pain you felt was sharp and unpleasant at first, but as you felt the tongue soothing your skin, you immediately breathed in and relished the pleasure you felt. The next kisses grew stronger and harder, and you knew that they would be left behind for days afterward. You wonder what Mary Poppins would think if she saw them.
You didn’t have time to think about it because the mouth appeared on your stomach. You didn’t know how it was possible for her to change the destination of her kisses so quickly. One moment she was around your neck, she was brushing your hair back to bite your ear, and the next she was at your stomach. And lower and lower. And lower.
You felt her hands on your thighs, opening them slightly to give herself access to more of your body. You liked the way she steers you. Giving full control is not an easy activity, but despite rumors about a woman’s character, you trusted a woman between your legs and had no problem marking her territory with her bites. Maybe the one aimed at the skin of your thigh was painful, more than the one around your neck, but you knew you would look great with this mark. And the fact that Freya liked it turned you on even more.
So you weren’t surprised at how wet you were right now. As the woman began to slowly pull your panties off, they stuck a bit to your wet femininity. You heard her gasp as it appeared before her, and you smiled proudly at her reaction. You were proud of yourself to surprise such a woman. But your pride didn’t last long because her lips that popped over your body took the thoughts out of your head. You didn’t care about anything, only that magical feeling mattered.
Her lips started with the soft, barely felt strokes of her tongue on the most tender points of your body. You’ve been vulnerable since that long time of waiting, and didn’t know how much you could endure direct contact. That’s why you rejoiced when her movements began to become less and less gentle. You slowly started to love her tongue, that it wasn’t as soft as it was before when you could feel it in your mouth and in your living room, and you didn’t know which version you preferred.
As Freya began to expand her exploration area, you had been spinning on the bed for a long time and your strength grew strong enough to disturb the woman. You felt a strong bite on the other side of your thigh, and then her tongue hit your entrance, and she entered you as hard as the position she was between your legs allowed. At the same time, her nose landed on your clitoris with such force that you had no way out and the strength and your orgasm spread over your body with such force that you had the impression that you passed out for a moment, but it’s hard to tell with a blindfold over your eyes.
Seconds after your orgasm, you heard a woman scream from between your legs, and it woke you up a bit from your strange lethargy. The voice wasn’t Freya’s, but you were sure you knew it. Unfortunately, you didn’t have time to think about it deeper, because you felt a wonderful scent above you, and after a while sweet nectar touched your mouth. Without thinking more, you went to work. You licked, kissed, sucked alternately, and you knew you were doing right when a hand was entangled in your hair to hold you tighter. You felt the woman’s entrance above you begin to pulsate even more, and you focused on your task with more force.
It didn’t take long for you to be flooded with the sweetest drink you had in your mouth. It didn’t matter that your access to air was getting worse and worse and a moment longer, and you would pass out, but since Freya was happy, nothing else mattered. But you didn’t have to worry because you were released, and you felt your wrists drop gently from above your head. The blindfold was taken off as well, but you were so tired that you didn’t even have the strength to open your eyes. If you did, then maybe you would understand what exactly happened.
The woman sitting next to you brushed the hair from your forehead and removed your bra so that you could sleep comfortably at night. She threw the rope and the blindfold on the floor beside the bed and looked at the previously abandoned toy. She will leave cleaning it for later. She has to take care of you for now, because by now you are probably already sound asleep, and when you wake up, you will surely have a massive ache after mixing alcohol with intoxicating powders. But there was no other way for you.
Freya looked at the woman lying between your legs. Mary Poppins always looks great, but now that she was resting her head on your stomach, disheveled and tired from a strong orgasm, she looked really sweet, and the mayor wished you could see her like that. Or like when Mary Poppins’ tongue was deep within you, and Freya stood behind her with her favorite toy immersed in her wife.
But there was no other way for you. There was no way you would ever get smart and see that two women want you and will do anything to make you theirs. Even if it means that they will manipulate you and drug you so that their dream is finally fulfilled. Tomorrow, when you wake up, you will surely understand that they did it all for your own good, because with whom will you be as safe as with them?
Mary Poppins in this scene express perfectly what an illustration means to me. You draw a world that people can live far beyond what you actually draw. <3
