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    16 Truly Fascinating Movie Secrets That Just Prove Filmmakers Are Magicians

    Between practice and actual filming, Tom Cruise skydived about 106 times in order to get one shot in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

    1. In You People (2023), Jonah Hill and Lauren London's characters kiss during the final scene when they get married, but the kiss itself was actually CGI, according to their costar.

    Netflix

    Andrew Schulz, who played Cousin Avi, explained, "I'm there, I'm watching the wedding, and I see them go in for the kiss and their faces stop [six inches apart]." He added, "And I'm like, 'I wonder how they're going to play that in the movie. Oh, they're probably just going to cut right there,' But in the movie, you could see their faces come close, and then you can see their faces morph a little bit into a fake kiss."

    2. In Knives Out (2019), because there were several close-ups with characters who wore glasses, Matt Mania, the movie's Key Grip, created appliques to put over the lights so that the film crew wouldn't be seen in the glasses' reflections.

    Steve Yedlin @steveyedlin

    #KnivesOut subtly features art by Matt Mania, Key Grip. We had many closeups of characters with eyeglasses, so he cleverly sculpted mattes to reshape our lighting equipment into scenery you'd realistically expect to see reflected in the glasses. #NerdyFilmTechStuff

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    Steve Yedlin / Lionsgate

    3. In Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018), to get the shot of Tom Cruise's character jumping off the plane, the cinematographer also had to sky dive with him.

    cinematographer and tom cruise in the air
    Paramount / youtube.com

    Director Christopher McQuarrie explained that they wanted to film the scene at dusk, so there was only a three-minute window that they could shoot it each day. Between the practices and actual filming, Tom Cruise jumped about 106 times. 

    4. In Sh! The Octopus (1937), since VFX weren't as far along in the 1930s, the filmmakers used an optical illusion to create the effect of a woman turning into a creature before our very eyes.

    Warner Bros.

    In a Corridor Crew video, Niko Pueringer explained just how the effect was achieved. He said, "This is an effect that's only possible in black and white. It's quite simple actually. It's just a red and blue filter. Just like when you have like 3D glasses, and where the red side doesn't let you see the red lines and the blue side doesn't let you see the blue lines." He explained, "So, you have a red filter in front of the camera and it's filtering out any red on her. So, you have all these red marks on her face but you can't see any of that because the red filter is cutting all of it out. You transition it to a blue filter and suddenly all of those red splotches become bright and you can see all of the luminance difference."

    5. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), BB-8 was controlled by a group of puppeteers wearing greenscreen suits who would literally push him around the set.

    person in a green screen suit controlling the small robot
    Disney / youtube.com

    6. In The Menu (2022), the first shot of the movie (where Anya Taylor-Joy's character is lighting a cigarette) is actually stock footage.

    the stock footage and then anya actually smoking the cigarette
    Searchlight Pictures

    In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Peter Deming, the cinematographer, confirmed it. He added, "When I saw the first cut, I was like, 'Oh, that’s interesting. They got a stock shot that fit into the movie.' And the more I looked at it, the more I had issues with it. Thematically, it’s a perfect way to start the movie. There are some technical issues with the shot itself, which I won’t bring up, but no one notices it. Even I didn’t notice [those issues] the first two or three times I saw it. It wasn’t until we got into the color correction on the film that I was like, '….wait a minute.'"

    One of the technical issues with the shot is that the person lighting the cigarette is indoors, but just a few seconds later we see Anya and Nicholas Hoult's characters outdoors. 

    7. In Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Josh Brolin wore a giant floating Thanos head so the other actors would know where to look when they were talking to him. Then, the actual Thanos-ification was done in post with CGI.

    josh standing on set with a floating head above him
    Marvel / youtube.com

    To record his performance, motion capture cameras had to be installed all over the set. This allowed for other actors to have more space while interacting with Josh, but to also pick up all the subtle movements he made as Thanos. All of the close-ups were shot with an HD camera that was attached to a helmet and then pointed back at his face for comparison. Then, all the footage was put into a database so his expressions could be used when crafting Thanos's computer-generated face. 

    8. In Titanic (1997), all of the water scenes were shot in a giant pool that was actually only waist-deep.

    leo dicaprio and kate winslet being directed in a pool
    Paramount Pictures / youtube.com / youtube.com

    9. In the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014–) movies, Sean Gunn plays Rocket's body double on set, so while filming, he crouches and crawls around to match the character's height. Then, Bradley Cooper voices the CGI character in the final version of the film.

    sean gunn crouching in different scenes
    Marvel / youtube.com

    10. In Baby Driver (2017), because the car chases were so complex, a stunt driver would sit in a contraption on top of the prop car and drive from up there.

    stunt driver placed in a cage on top of the car
    TriStar Pictures / youtube.com

    Stunt driver Jeremy Fry explained, "What that does is it lets the actor who is behind the wheel concentrate on the acting. From every camera that sees it, it looks like they're driving."

    11. In Iron Man 3 (2013), during the final scene, Robert Downey Jr.'s head was actually CGIed onto a body double because, at the time, RDJ suffered an injury that halted production for six weeks.