The Resurgence of Practical Effects in Action Cinema

When contemplating which style is best for a project – shooting “old-school” practical effects in-camera or relying on CGI – both have their merits and pitfalls. While creating kinetic action sequences digitally may be more cost efficient and certainly much safer for the cast and crew, less-than-stellar VFX on screen could distract audiences and emotionally detach them from the story.

On the other hand, the tactile and tangible results of practical effects might work best to amp up authenticity and realism on the screen, but it can also be a logistical nightmare and elevate the risk profile of a project. Depending on the genre, story world, and visual style, one approach might prove better than the other or complement each other in equal measure. The point is to draw the audience into the characters’ psyche and bolster emotional engagement to the story, and as long as the results are top-notch, either method will do the job. But too much, can bamboozle, confuse, overwhelm, and disconnect the audience.

Certain types of stories clearly would not have worked as well – or at all – without the latest advancements in CGI technology. Creating the enormous pre-historic sand worms in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune remake of the sci-fi classic; digitally de-aging Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci for Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, and the motion capture work that gave us Gollum/Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were all made possible by cutting-edge CGI. Last year, James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, fascinated audiences worldwide with its groundbreaking underwater performance capture, water simulation, and facial capture technologies.

 - It illustrates the difference between creating the world and enhancing the world of the story

However, as with any consumer product on the market, the flavor du jour comes and goes as we navigate the shifting sands of audience demand and preferences. After the first Avatar movie and the advent of the MCU films (beginning with Iron Man in 2008) ushered in a decade and a half’s worth of CGI-heavy cinematic spectacles, it seems the pendulum may be gradually swinging back towards practical effects in recent years. With films like the John Wick film series, the later installments of the Mission: Impossible series (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout), and last year’s poster child for practical action – Top Gun: Maverick – it appears the old is new again. 

This shift is similar to the resurgence of vinyl analogue recordings among audiophiles despite the exponential technical advances in digital sound quality. Analogue arguably has more soul, feeling, depth, and impact than the more clinical-sounding digital. Ironically, digital filters are now used to recreate the crackling sounds of vinyl.

With its worldwide box office of $1.49 billion, Oscar-winning Top Gun: Maverick (six nominations including Best Picture) was 2022’s top crowd pleaser, in large part due to its groundbreaking aerial cinematography by DP, Claudio Miranda and director, Joseph Kosinski. Producer and lead star Tom Cruise famously insisted on shooting the aviation actioner using practical effects to put audiences in the pilot’s seat in an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, something that had never been done before. 

With unprecedented cooperation from the United States Navy, six Sony Venice IMAX-quality cameras were specially designed to be mounted inside the cockpit of an F/A-18 to capture the equilibrium-jolting fighter maneuvers with the actors inside. Not only do we feel every orthogonal roll and vertical dive, we can see the actors’ faces being stretched back when enduring G-forces as they pull up in a prolonged steep climb against a rock face. Shooting these sequences in-camera makes every moment more believable and compelling since the actors are able to react to their surroundings in real-time, bolstering the momentum, tension, and emotional/narrative stakes in the process. The audience is by their side fully experiencing every thrill.

Seeing Phoenix (Monica Barbaro), Hangman (Glen Powell), and Payback (Jay Ellis) inside the cockpit dogfighting in the skies puts the audience right in the shoes of these daring aviators, so that we live and die by every hypersonic swoop and every trap landing on the aircraft carrier. As a result, we fear for their lives when Rooster’s (Miles Teller) F-18 is met with an onslaught of enemy missiles and Maverick’s (Cruise) aircraft is shot down over enemy territory in the third act. Another version of this project could have chosen to shoot the aerial sequences on a sound stage instead of filming on five naval air stations and two operational aircraft carriers, but that would have severely undercut the authenticity, believability, and the audience’s emotional engagement to these characters and the story.

The more the audience can see the action unfold on the screen – without cutting frequently to close-ups that obscure the choreography or hide the stunt doubles – the more the actors can maintain emotional connection with the audience. Thanks to Chad Stahelski’s use of longer takes and wide shots in the deliriously entertaining John Wick films, we clearly see Keanu Reeves’ reluctant, yet highly-efficient, assassin pummel, slash, shoot, kick, and punch his way through endless gnarly fights in his bespoke bulletproof suit, all while elegantly executing a myriad of Judo throws and Sambo takedowns. Playing out like a deadly dance on the big screen, this character-driven action choreography reveals the man beneath the battle: not only is he highly trained, he is skilled enough to use pretty much anything around him to fight for his life (a pencil, a leather-bound book, a belt). 

When Wick rides a horse through the streets of Manhattan in John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum, at one point, he hangs off the side of the horse to dodge bullets while shooting back at the hoard of ninjas pursuing him on motorcycles (both the horse and Reeves were wired to a rig system while barreling down the street). With Reeves performing these intense sequences himself, we are able to stay with Wick the entire time, immersed in the incessant threats aimed at this poor grieving widower coming from all directions. In a great example of supplementing with CGI where it makes the most sense, all of the firearms used in these Wick films are electronic plug guns (which don’t emit anything out of the barrel), with muzzle flashes added digitally in post to ensure safety on the set. Approaching global box office of $1 billion over four films, audiences seem to enjoy the way that this franchise has reinvigorated the action space with more naturalistic, albeit elevated, scenes. 

For his 2019 Oscar-winning car racing drama, Ford v. Ferrari, director James Mangold chose to shoot in-camera despite the logistical challenges in replicating the 1966 Le Mans race, a twenty-four-hour race that took place all through the countryside of France. To capture the nail-biting racing sequences in-camera, the production built thirty-four replicas of original cars from that era, including 1960s GT-40s and Ferrari PT-30s. Putting the actors in these cars meant that car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and race driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale) were able to react to the extreme speeds and intensity in real-time, conveying the visceral thrills and dangers to the audience. 

With the seventh Mission: Impossible film slated for release this July, let us turn our attention to one of the most reliable action franchises when it comes to pushing the boundaries of exhilarating action stunts on screen. Perhaps one of the most famous jaw-dropping action sequences ever committed to film is from its fifth installment, Rogue Nation. Within three and a half minutes of the movie’s opening frame, IMF super spy Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is literally hanging off the side of an Airbus A400 military cargo plane mid-takeoff, all in the name of preventing nerve gas from being sold to terrorists. What a way to hook the audience right out of the gate! 

As the plane takes off (up to 5,000 feet above ground), we are in disbelief as we see Hunt clutching onto the outside of the plane with nothing more than his bare hands (Cruise was in a full-body harness wired and cabled to the plane), as the ground retreats and grows smaller and smaller. While he waits for IT guru and IMF teammate Benji (Simon Pegg) to open the door to the plane, we hang on to dear life along with Hunt, hoping that he will not lose his grip and get inhaled into the plane’s fuselage or propellers. Could this sequence have been filmed on a green screen? Of course. But would it have induced the same level of adrenaline, intensity, and peril? Probably not. 

As each track continues to push the boundaries of filmmaking to come up with new ways to captivate audiences, action fans can rest assured that there will many more stops on this cinematic thrill ride. Screenwriters should look to this as a way of enhancing their stories rather than replacing them.