Movie Secrets That Will Make You Never Watch Movies The Same Again

The very best movies of all time make us believe that everything we see on the screen is real. But in order to immerse you in a world full of wonder, there are hidden details, covert methods, and even secret backup endings concealed behind the scenes. And once you start noticing and learning about them, you’ll never be able to watch movies the same way ever again!

Historic Visual Effects

When most people think of computer-generated imagery or CGI in films, they tend to refer to superheroes defying gravity, or impossible looking alien creatures in sci-fi and fantasy movies. Though not many audiences realize it also plays a huge part in period and historical dramas.

While painstaking amounts of detail are poured into making each shot look authentically old-fashioned, there are some settings and items that simply can’t be sourced. That might be because they don’t exist anymore, or they’re just too expensive to re-create! And that is where studios such as Technicolor VFX are brought in to save the day.

During the film’s post-production, they add crucial details like massive missing landmarks, lush-looking forests, and even entire armies on the brink of war! The scene from Vanity Fair, had an entirely fictional street created so that directors could include a shot of the characters in a perfect stone courtyard! And that shot saved the producers from hiring and kitting out hundreds of extras in soldier uniforms by simply adding them in a little later. Who knew history needed so much re-touching?

CGI Subtractions: Superman Moustache

As amazing as CGI is, it does have its limitations. While creating something and adding it in seems pretty simple, editing or removing features from footage can be a pain staking process. And that’s something that the effects artists who worked on the phenomenal failure of a film "The Justice League" know all too well. DC film fans might have noticed Superman’s super-blurry upper lip pulling focus in several shots. It doesn’t look quite right.

After finishing work on the Warner Brothers production, Superman actor Henry Cavil grew a moustache for his role in Paramount pictures’ Mission Impossible 6. But when Warner required a few reshoots later on, Paramount expressly forbid him from shaving his stoic moustache. That forced the effects artists to scramble and remove every last hair from every last frame of the re-shot sections. And the result was pretty unsettling, to say the least!

It’s hardly surprising the film was panned as one of the worst productions released in 2017. But just because CGI subtractions are hard, doesn’t mean they’re impossible to get right as proven by Marvel’s Captain America. Despite starting out as scrawny little Steve Rodgers, actor Chris Evans flawlessly gains both bulk and height when he’s transformed into the god-like Captain America.

Directors can ask an actor to gain weight, but it’d be impossible for him to really grow several feet! Marvel actually achieved that effect by compositing his face onto a body double, as well as using CGI to slim down his massive muscles in post-production.

It sounds simple, but almost all scenes required a minimum of three takes: one with Chris Evans, one with the body double, and one scene where the actors were missing to focus on background detail. And each of those scenes required around 4 or 5 different takes, taking up a tremendous amount of filming time. Although, we can all agree it’s an effect that’s worth every second!

Dramatic Weight Changes

When it comes to finding the perfect performer for a specific role, actors will go to incredible lengths to really look the part. But some take it to stomach-churning extremes and commit to incredibly punishing weight changes. Christian Bale, for example, dropped a shocking 63 lbs. for his role in the Machinist. He then gained a mighty 100 lbs. of pure muscle for his role as Batman, and then later added an unhealthy-looking 43lbs on top to play Dick Cheney in Vice.

That kind of fluctuation just can’t be good for you. But he’s not the only one! Jared Leto lost a frightening 40 lbs for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. That was made even more concerning by the fact he’d previously gained 62lbs to portray Mark Chapman in Chapter 27 and had accidently given himself gout in the process! As bad as that is, it can’t be worse than his cameo as the Joker.

But even more terrifying than that, some actors will purposefully and dangerously dehydrate themselves to appear even more lean on screen! Hugh Jackman famously admitted to severely dehydrating himself for his role in Logan. The results did look incredible, but that method of extreme dehydration has actually claimed the lives of professional bodybuilders in the past! Even so, plenty of actors still thirst for a physique as good as Hugh’s.

Foley

Have you ever noticed how everything in the movies sounds pitch perfect? From a creepy door opening. To the gentle sound of moving sand?

Everything sounds exactly as you imagine it, and it’s never interrupted by any background noise. Well, that’s not by coincidence it’s actually by design. Sound design, to be specific also known as foley! Foley studios like Studio Unknown create sounds that are perfectly in sync with the world on the screen, to make a movie world sound as seamless as it looks. To do that, they use a variety of different things to emulate specific sounds, like using celery for breaking bones:

They also similarly use a patch of earth and a water bottle to capture the essence of a character taking a leak. But those can also be combined into complex sounds, like someone graphically losing a body part!

Almost everything in a major Hollywood film can be dubbed over using techniques like that: from the soft rustling of clothing, to rushed footsteps, and even the perfect fart.

Wilhelm Scream

Here’s a question: what do Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Spaceballs all have in common? Check the clip below:

Each movie had the exact same scream sound effect edited in! You’ve probably heard it somewhere else as well, and that’s because that is the infamous Wilhelm Scream. It’s believed to have been recorded by actor Sheb Wooley way back in 1951, when it was first used in the film Distant Drums. Take a listen!

The hilariously dramatic high-pitched wail was used in several other films before being added to the Warner Brothers’ stock sound library. But it really came to prominence when it was used in all three films of the Star Wars trilogy.

Since then, the hysterical scream has become a secret in-joke in the film industry, and the seemingly random sound bite has featured in over 100 Hollywood movies! But as iconic as it’s become, no royalties have ever been paid to the originator of the iconic scream. No wonder he sounds so wounded!

The Blair Witch Project

Getting genuine reactions of shock, surprise, and even fear from a cast when filming is a great way of making a film feel all the more real. And it was that admittedly morally questionable method, that made the 1996 film ‘The Blair Witch Project’ an unexpected success.

It was a low-budget, documentary style horror-film that followed 3 student filmmakers into the woods in their search for a mysterious and murderous supernatural entity. But as it was being shot, the directors would play small, unexpected tricks on the cast to really get their adrenaline pumping.

In the dead of night, they’d shake their tents, or play the ominous sound of children laughing in the distance. Because the actors had almost no idea what to expect, their reactions of shock and fear caught on camera are all real creating an unparalleled feeling of suspense for any audience watching.

Over the course of filming, the actors were also slowly given less and less food, all to elicit their reactions of frustration and hunger for the sake of the camera. While those shots made the whole story feel incredibly real, it was the marketing team who really took it to the next level.

The film used all the actor’s real names, and with it shot like a documentary, the marketing team pretended the actors had genuinely gone missing while filming. They created a memorial page online and handed out missing person flyers during screenings of the film to make the world believe it all really happened. And it clearly worked, because family members of the cast received heart-felt bereavement cards from friends who were non the wiser!

The Cloud Tank

When you’re watching a classic film and a rolling waves of ominous clouds start to dominate the screen, you know the characters are in for some seriously supernatural trouble! But scenes like that in Indiana Jones, Independence Day, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were all created before super-detailed computer-generated effects were widely used in the industry.

©cjohnson7 via Wikimedia Commons

So how exactly did they create such unnatural yet realistic looking cloud formations? The answer surprisingly lies inside a giant water tank! Visual effects artists would fill huge 7 by 7 ft tanks with a layer of salt water, before covering it with a thin sheet of plastic and adding in a separate layer of fresh water. Once the plastic was removed, the two water layers remained separate thanks to their different densities.

From there, mixtures like paint or milk would be injected into the water at the point where the two layers met. As it dispersed in the fresh water, the paint would start to resemble huge billowing clouds, which could be recorded and edited into the sky of any given film later on. So next time you hit play on a golden oldie, turn your eyes to the skies and see if you can spot some of those strange clouds!

Marlon Brando's Cue Cards

The Godfather is widely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. Without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t gotten around to watching it yet, it charts the Corleone crime family’s rise to power in New York back in the 1940’s. And at the head of the films acting family sat the Godfather of actors himself Marlon Brando. He was an academy award winning actor, who’s performance in the Godfather was so impactful, it saw him named one of Time’s 100 Most Important People of the Century. Even though to me he sounded like he was speaking with a mouth full of pasta!

But for all his critical acclaim, Brando’s iconic, suspense-filled lines weren’t memorized! Unlike every other actor, Brando relied on cue cards, which he felt increased his spontaneity. His lines were all printed and placed in his characters line of sight, hidden among the shadows of the set.

Some photos from the production even show his fellow actors holding the cue cards up to their chest for him to read! It’s amazing to think he was able to convince the director to let him do that, but maybe he made him an offer he couldn’t refuse!

Nothing Corny About It

Christopher Nolan is a film director who famously makes visually stunning pieces of cinema, like Inception, Dunkirk, and The Dark Knight. But it was his 2014 film, Interstellar, that showed the world just how far he was willing to go to make a truly spectacular movie. Part of the central plot of the space adventure revolved around the value of corn, and as such the main character’s home sports a healthy and huge crop of it.

But Nolan didn’t want to rely on CGI to make such a massive set look real. Instead, he spent a staggering $100,000 planting and growing 500-acres of the gold and green crop! It was a lot of effort, but the realistic effect was worth it. Especially when you compare it to similar scenes like this obviously fake one in the clip below, from the famous flop-of-a-film that was ‘The Justice League’.

The way it moves and looks is completely different, and even though it’s a tiny detail, it cemented Nolan’s reputation for excellence in the industry even further. And that’s not all! Once filming was complete, the crop was still in relatively good condition even though he’d sent a car crashing through god-knows how many thousands of stalks! He was able to sell it off for a tidy profit, so you could say he managed to turn that film set into a cornucopia!

Jurassic Park Secrets

Jurassic Park changed the sci-fi game when it was released back in 1993. Even though it’s remembered for its innovative use of computer-generated visual effects, only 4 minutes and 14 seconds of the film featured fake dinosaurs. The rest were all real in a manner.

Using a mix of animatronics and puppetry, the visual effects team created dinosaurs that the cast could also interact with. But most notably, the raptors really took on a life of their own. That was thanks to the genius of the Stan Winston visual effects studio, who built functioning raptor puppets large enough for a person to fit inside!

By having someone inside each raptor, the movements they produced looked incredibly natural, while also giving them a believable appearance. It made them so impressively life-like that the puppets were used in all three of the original films, with special effect creators like John Rosengrant piloting them for key scenes.

The only thing they didn’t make were the noises the raptors made, which turn out to have been based on recordings of copulating animals. According to sound designer Gary Rydstrom, that famous Raptor bark that had kids cowering in movie theatres:

Was actually a recording of a mating tortoise! Obviously, it was given a little tweaking to make it scarier for the theatrical release. But with all those men in animal costumes and animal mating noises, you have to ask yourself, was Jurassic Park really a family friendly film?

Pixar Changes Scenes For International Audiences

Sometimes it’s the little things in films that get an audience on board, and that couldn’t be truer for Pixar’s animated phenomenon Inside Out. The film about feelings was a surprise hit globally, and the visual designers made extra effort to ensure it could be something everyone related to. In the US release of the film, baby Riley is seen turning her nose up at a plate of broccoli, but in the Japanese release, the broccoli is replaced with green peppers!

In western culture, broccoli is considered an enemy by many children and particularly picky adults! But in the east, they actually tend to like it, with Japanese babies finding green bell peppers a little yuckier! Armed with that factoid, animators changed the broccoli to green bell peppers in the Japanese release so that all audiences could relate, no matter where in the world they were.

The same little detail changes were also seen in Disney’s Zootopia, an anthropomorphic family adventure following human-like animals around a fun and fictional world. It turns out that in the film’s news reading scene, the animal anchor changes depending on which region it’s being watched from! Japan, for example, got a talking Tanuki, Australia got a Koala, and China got a Panda!

Samuel Jackson's Purple Lightsaber

Fellow Star Wars nerds will all probably have noticed one incredibly obvious detail regarding the film franchise’s iconic lightsabers. Before 2002’s Attack of the Clones was released, light sabres had just three different colors. For the good guys, the badass blades were green and blue, and for the bad guys, they were red. Aside from the clear good versus evil connotations that established, it also helped the audience to track who was fighting who in battles.

But then along came Samuel Jackson! Even though he’d made iconic appearances in films like Jurassic Park and Pulp Fiction, he was only scripted to play the minor role of Jedi warrior Mace Windu. But knowing that the film would have a huge fight at the end with hundreds of different light sabers slicing through the air, Jackson was determined to stand out.

He asked Director George Lucas if his lightsaber could be changed to his favorite color purple just so he could spot himself in the midst of all that action. Lucas just couldn’t say no, and the final result made Jackson look even more cool than he already was!

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But it also sparked a running gag in the majority of movies he appeared in after. His role in ‘Unbreakable’ saw his character Mister Glass decked head to toe in a bright purple suit. His villainous portrayal of Valentine in ‘Kingsman’ saw him don a bright purple cap. Lazarus in ‘Black Snake Moan’ was given a prominently purple guitar. And even his character Whiplash in the animated adventure ‘Turbo’ was a snail with a purple lit shell! So next time you watch a Samuel Jackson movie, remember to keep your eyes peeled for a prolific purple prop.

The Titanic Had Another Ending

James Cameron’s Titanic is, without a doubt, one of the most heart-breaking movies of all time. Based on the real life events of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it tells the fictional story of two lovers, Rose and Jack, who do not get their happily ever after.

As an old lady, Rose regales her tale to a bunch of intrepid treasure hunters, who are after a priceless diamond called ‘The Heart of the Ocean’. Rose tells her story of love, loss, and survival, while claiming that she lost the diamond when the ship sank. But little do they know that Rose kept the diamond all those years, and she secretly throws it into the sea over the ship’s wreck site!

It’s a hard-hitting ending that in no uncertain terms demonstrates to the audience love really is the greatest treasure of all. But it wasn’t always going to end so poignantly! In 2005, the DVD release of the Titanic included an ‘alternative ending’ which had film-lovers recoiling in disbelief!

In it, Rose is caught about to throw the diamond into the waves, and the treasure hunter begs her to reconsider. She briefly hands the diamond to him, before making a painfully cheesy and obvious statement about life being truly priceless. But, suddenly, the old lady performs a spectacular god-tier troll maneuver and whips it out of his grasp before tossing it into the ocean!

Suffice to say, the scenes were filmed just in case the core message of the colossal 3 and a half hour movie was lost on the audience. And fortunately, it wasn’t included in the final cut! If it had been, the film’s reviews might have really sunk.

Harry Potter's Green Screens

In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, the computer generated special effects are so good that you’d be forgiven for thinking that magic was real! Unfortunately, making the magic come to life on the silver screen actually took a lot of green screens!

Brightly colored backdrops allow media technicians to use a process called ‘Chroma Keying’, where they separate the green screens from anyone standing in front of them. They can then replace those backgrounds with pretty much anything, making characters look like they can fly, become invisible, or even emerge from impossibly small spaces!

Although there’s some parts of the films that took a little more imagination than others. In a scene from ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’, Hermione is busy chatting to Harry around the Hogwarts library as she idly replaces books back onto their shelves. Each tome magically floats back to its own place on the shelf, but none of those books are animated.

So how did they do it? One shot from behind the scenes reveal they were being handed to people in green screen suits stood on the other side of the shelves! That’s certainly one way to keep the magic alive.

Adult Actors Playing Teenage Roles

Have you ever noticed that in films about haphazard teenagers or even young love, the actors filling the main roles always tend to look a little older than their characters are? Well, if you didn’t before, you certainly will now. Classic coming of age films like Mean Girls, for example, are often set around the school life of 16 year old kids.

But at the time it was made, not one of the main Mean Girls actors was even close to that age. The youngest of them was Lindsay Lohan at a passable 18 years old, but Rachel McAdams who played the ever-iconic Regina George was actually 26!

But it’s not just Mean Girls trying to pass off older actors as youthful young ones! In ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, the ghost of poor 14 year old Myrtle Warren is portrayed by Shirley Henderson, who was a staggering 37 at the time! Suddenly that bathroom scene she’s in with a half-naked Harry feels all manner of wrong. But it doesn’t just apply to female characters. Andrew Garfield played the 17 year old Spiderman when he was 29, and Toby McGuire had previously played the same spandex-clad role well into his thirties!

As weird as that is to realize now, there’s actually a pretty good reason why older actors are often used instead of their younger counterparts. If a film contains mature content, like violence or risqué scenes, companies can look really bad putting literal child actors front and center stage. So, it’s much safer to use older actors and just cover up their age with a little make up and really, really good lighting!

Foam For Fight Scenes

A well-choreographed fight scene in any film has the power to make or break it. The John Wick films are an amazing example of just how well those can be done, and Star Trek has given us the opposite of that. But in some more shocking scenes, actors are literally thrown into the ground, smashed onto floors, and pile driven onto bare concrete.

How can they actually do that without breaking any bones in real life? Well, take a look at this fight scene footage from Mission Impossible: Fallout, a film where Tom Cruise does all his own stunts and Henry Cavil reloads his arms.

Both actors are pummeled into the floor and smashed into the tiles, but that set up isn’t as dangerous as it seems. To protect the actors, sets like that can be built out of a dense foam pack floor called insulate. It mimics the appearance of hard surfaces but gives the actors enough padding to prevent real injuries when they hit the deck. And if you look closely, you can even notice Tom Cruise’s knee indent the supposed stone steps, proving there’s a little foam there to break his fall. It’s a brilliant set-design trick that makes all the stone-pounding action feel real, without pulling any punches!

If you were amazed at these movie secrets, you might want to read about more movie secrets here. Thanks for reading!