‘Oppenheimer’ exclusive featurette: Visual and special effects teams on creating the ‘mesmerizing’ but ‘horrifying’ Trinity Test [WATCH]
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“When you do Chris’ movies… things you normally would think would be visual effects, you know that they’re going to be doing the stuff practically,” observes special effects supervisor Scott Fisher about collaborating with director Christopher Nolan. He is one of the three individuals behind the visual and special effects of “Oppenheimer” that are spotlighted in a new video that Gold Derby is debuting exclusively. The featurette combines interviews, film footage, and behind-the-scenes clips of how the dynamic scenes of the film came to life, which many of the effects occurring in front of the lens. Watch the “Oppenheimer” exclusive featurette above.
Nolan championed this dual visual and special effects approach on the epic film, which explores the explosive story of the Manhattan Project. He shares, “With our visual effects approach on ‘Oppenheimer,’ there’s one sense in which computer graphics is the obvious way to do it, but going down that route, I didn’t feel we were going to get anywhere that would feel personal and unique to this character” of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). Indeed, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson says, “A lot of the effects work is special effects and visual effects very much bundled together.”
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Together, Fisher and Jackson “did a lot of experimentation” and “came up with some very interesting analogue methods” to capturing Oppenheimer’s work and imagination on screen. That’s where visual effects producer Mike Chambers came in, as he utilized both “traditional methods” and “low-tech approaches.” For example, editor Jennifer Lame cites the scene featuring the “spinning atom” in Oppenheimer’s bedroom, for which they created an apparatus to include in the shot that allowed her to “use takes and footage when he’s actually looking at something.” Cillian Murphy himself adds, “Oppenheimer sees things in different dimensions, so sometimes when his brain is going, the background is vibrating and that’s all done in-camera.”
The video concludes with an exhilarating look at the in-camera techniques that the visual and special effects teams used to bring the Trinity Test to life on screen. As Nolan explains, “We wanted that Trinity explosion to be both beautiful and mesmerizing, but horrifying in equal measure. What we were able to come out with and get into the finished film, to me, is extraordinarily beautiful but very frightening.” Watch the full video for footage that combines the incredibly tense moments from the film with shots of the crew as they were shooting it, as well as commentary from cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema.
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