As the Harry Potter movies continue growing darker and more mature, each one proves to be a grander technical achievement than the last. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hooks in the audience early on with the spectacle of the Order of the Phoenix flying on broomsticks over London, and every element used to generate this sequence comes together seamlessly without a single giveaway of a green screen in sight. These types of effects look even better though in the Hall of Prophecies, an environment made entirely on the computer. Among the CGI creatures that contribute to the film’s tremendous visual effects include thestrals, dementors, patronuses, centaurs, and a giant.
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The effects with the wand fights are likewise an improvement from the previous four movies, as they were arranged by a dance choreographer, and the wands were made out of rubber so they wouldn’t break while filming. The designs are also unlike anything seen throughout the rest of the Wizarding World up until this point, particularly the enormous Ministry of Magic set, which took twenty-two weeks to build and looks like it was built with 100% authentic materials. So no longer is this Wizarding World limited to just gothic-inspired designs, now it’s stepping into the look of a Churchill-era London. Thus, despite the messy plot, this fifth installment to the series continues proving just how much of an impact it left on the art of blockbuster filmmaking.

In the fourth cinematic installment of the legendary Harry Potter series, another new director, Mike Newell, comes on board with a different approach to the Wizarding World. That includes kicking off the film with the immense spectacle of the Quidditch World Cup, which features a campsite and a larger-than-life colosseum. Then from there, the French Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and the Northeastern Durmstrang Institute are introduced, providing greater context to what the wizarding community is like in other parts of the world. Yet that’s still at the start of the movie, virtually every other scene is a showcase of incredible technology and design work merging harmoniously.
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The Black Lake sequence was perhaps their most daring sequence yet, as Daniel Radcliffe had to spend six months learning how to dive, and then had to spend long days shooting underwater in Europe’s largest water tank. Aside from the fact that filming this kid underwater was challenging enough, the use of underwater bluescreens also proved to be groundbreaking. Equally as impressive are the icy silver designs for the Yule Ball, all topped off by gorgeous dresses and lovely accompanying music to demonstrate the incredible work of the set and costume designers. While Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire may be considered by most to be the worst of the saga due to its disloyalty to the book, it still proves how technologically innovative the series continues to be.

The Harry Potter series takes a darker turn from the first two installments, and with the visionary director Alfonso Cuarón now taking control, he brings the blend of practical and digital effects to the next level. Numerous magical objects are rigged inside the set to move on their own, some of which were even consulted by real magicians. Other visual effects tricks included the hippogriff, which had both CGI and a mechanical figure used for the actors to interact with, as well as Professor Lupin’s horrific transformation into a werewolf. Also, the dementors were originally going to be puppets filmed underwater and then reversed, but this ultimately didn’t work out and was just used as reference footage for the CGI animators instead.
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The Hogwarts castle also looks much different from before with more detail, particularly in how the moving paintings are utilized. Plus, with this being an Alfonso Cuarón film, there are many long takes stitched together to look like an even longer seamless take. Yet the greatest symphony of practical effects in the entire film, or in all of cinema perhaps, is Aunt Marge blowing up, which was done with almost no CGI. This isn’t to say that the quality of the script or acting ever got better compared to the first two movies, but the wild magical tone marks Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as the most ambitious movie in the series yet.

The legendary Harry Potter series continues its reign with this second adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s bestsellers. Just like in the first movie, this one knows how to intentionally place every design element to give crucial information about Hogwarts’ dense history and the people who walk through its walls, while also being genius showcases of imagination. Yet it’s the special effects that shine, right down to the digital backgrounds that make the miniature models of the school feel much bigger. There’s also plenty of effects choreography in the sequence where the flying car gets caught inside the whomping willow, which imaginably had to take weeks to film.
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Yet that’s still child’s play compared to the creatures that were all made with a mix of digital and practical effects: pixies, mandrakes, ghosts, giant spiders, a phoenix, a basilisk, and of course, the ever-lovable Dobby. There are even mechanical effects used to create these enchanted objects that perform household tasks in the Weasley’s home. However, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is still guilty of all the narrative problems that came with the first movie and does nothing to fix them. Even so, this proved that The Sorcerer’s Stone was not just a one-hit wonder, all of the books J.K. Rowling had plans to write were officially about to see the light of day in cinemas, and in turn, influence the franchise treatment of all modern blockbusters.

Even with a problematic screenplay void of much any logic, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is still a fine textbook example of designing an immersive fantasy world onto the silver screen. When it came time to figure out what Hogwarts would look like, J.K. Rowling herself was brought on board to draw a layout of the whole campus as a reference. Then the production crew visited universities throughout England for design inspirations, meaning many places within Hogwarts were filmed at real historical landmarks across the UK. Among the sets built for the movie included the Dickensian aesthetic for Diagon Alley, which didn’t have a single vertical line in the architecture.
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As for some of the special effects used to bring this Wizarding World to life, it’s populated with a sorting hat, a dragon, a troll, a centaur, a Cerberus, and many ghosts. But one of the most clever effects in the movie is Hagrid, who was realized with a body double wearing a mechanical face; everything he touched and interacted with in specific shots had identical props, sets, or costumes of a different size for other shots to sell the illusion that Hagrid was enormous. The efforts put on by the production crew to bring J.K. Rowling’s creation to the visual medium resulted in a whimsical, magical experience—an excellent start for the cinematic series that went on to influence all other cinematic franchises!

To create The Lion King, the animators poured their whole hearts and souls into each animal they put onto the screen. They even brought real lions into the studio as references for their work, just like what Walt Disney did with his animators for films like Bambi and The Lady and the Tramp. Other digital effects made the beautiful African landscapes feel bigger than life, such as by implementing mist, sunbeams, and changes in camera focus to give a sense of perspective. Together, all these ambitious techniques make possible the unforgettable moment when Simba sees the vision of Mufasa in the sky.
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However, the film’s greatest accomplishment is the stampede—an endeavor in computer animation that accomplished a vision impossible to be met by traditional hand-drawn animation. First, a digital wildebeest model was made off of a hand-drawn piece of animation, and then to get hundreds of these models running together, a new software was developed so the wildebeest wouldn’t collide with one another. Yet the hard work of these animators would’ve been futile without the legendary musical score, with talent including Tim Rice, Elton John, Hans Zimmer, and Lebo M- a South African composer. The result is a definitive motion picture event designed at the same grand scale as Hollywood epics such as Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. So today, it’s remembered as one of the most influential animated films ever made.

While this famously underperformed at the box office, The Shawshank Redemption’s life on TV and video helped make it into the classic it’s known as today.  With its innovative use of cinematic spectacle that enhanced the story’s various complex morals, director Frank Darabont’s masterpiece presents a rich understanding of the rarely explored world of prison. Each of the stories and substories told within this overarching story about Andy ranges from suspenseful to heartbreaking, together encapsulating the most complete depiction of prison life in all of cinema.
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It's all thanks to the production crew that made this relevant character study tick; filming took place in a real prison facility that had been previously shut down, which must have created plenty of challenges for the cinematographer when it came to maneuvering through the prison walls with wide high angles. The soundtrack works just as well in giving the movie’s melancholy tone, not just because of Thomas Newman’s score, but also because of the iconic scene where Andy plays opera tunes on the speakers to demonstrate the therapeutic power of music. These examples were among the many sequences that clearly had to be difficult to realize in both sound and image, yet they all worked perfectly. Its ending leaves the viewer with a realization that when prison becomes all one has ever known in life, the outside world no longer feels so welcoming. It raises the question: What is freedom anyway?

Written over the course of a single weekend, Home Alone defied all odds to become an instant holiday classic. It’s known by many for its hilariously violent cartoonish gags, which the production crew had to get creative while staging. For instance, in the shot where the blowtorch incinerates the top of Harry’s head, a two-way mirror was used to cast the reflection of a flame to give the illusion that it was on top of actor Joe Pesci’s head. Also, when the iron falls onto Marv’s face, there’s a shot that takes place from the iron’s point-of-view, which was achieved by a camera on a rope that fell toward actor Daniel Stern’s face.

Aside from the film’s famous climax, there are still many more problems the cast and crew had to solve together on the spot to achieve what most films at their budget level wouldn’t dare to tackle. That includes the set for the McAllister house, which was built inside a school gymnasium, and filming the scenes with John Candy, which took place over a twenty-three-hour shoot day. But of course, what would all these incredible behind-the-scenes stories for this slapstick comedy be without the wondrous musical score by John Williams? With that fine balance between heart and humor, this number-one box office smash hit generated a massive step forward in how filmmakers can stage effective gags while still retaining the heart of the story.

PG (DLV)
Comedy
1 hr. 43 min.

Watch it for FUN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY and AFRAID.

Groundhog Day is not just the rare type of movie that everybody can love, but it’s also a lovely character study on existentialism. It teaches about self-acceptance, which only comes by helping others rather than by selfish motivation. When this film was first released, it was praised by religious groups, including the Buddhist community, because of the philosophical ideas it addresses. When writing the first few drafts of the script, it originally was going to start in the middle, where Phil is already stuck in the repeating days, with a much more morbid ending that suggests the film overall was originally going to be a very dark comedy.
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But then Harold Ramis was brought in to change the script so it could better appeal to mass audiences, and so it instead started with the audience getting the chance to see Phil’s reaction when the time warp starts. When filming, many of the shooting days were actually days of 80-degree weather, meaning fake snow had to be put in and the cast had to dress for winter weather in the heat. Yet it pays off: the small town of Punxsutawney feels so lived in, with the outdoor settings looking unbearably cold and the indoor settings looking warm and comfy. Anyone watching this beloved motion picture likewise will feel warm and comfy inside as they learn how to become better people from observing the transformation of Phil Connors.

PG (LV)
Comedy
1 hr. 41 min.

Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY, SAD, and AFRAID.

This shook the world with its brutally realistic portrayal of the Holocaust, one that took filmmaking techniques from documentaries, including a handheld camera during more chaotic scenes. The gorgeous monochrome cinematography further contributes to the sensation of watching real archive footage of the horrific events, while the long 3+ hour runtime runs smoothly with the masterful editing. It certainly helps in the film’s authenticity that director Steven Spielberg is of Jewish background, which naturally led to a sharper recreation of the setting. Other Holocaust survivors were also there on set, including one of the producers, who spent three years in several Nazi labor camps as a child.
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The structure of this narrative is quite genius when promoting the true value of life: rather than a traditional story with a beginning, middle, and end, the stories of individual Jews at the concentration camps are used to tell the story of Oskar Schindler, who started off as a con artist intending to make money off of the war, but over time lets his mysterious character come out more clearly. While the cast does put on some pretty awful fake accents, and there are many historical inaccuracies (for instance, the real Oskar Schindler never even created this list of his), Schindler’s List is still a powerful, important story about the failure to act on injustice. Hard to believe that Spielberg made this while also managing post-production remotely for Jurassic Park!

R (DLSNV)
Drama/Historic
3 hr. 15 min.

Watch it to THINK.
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY, SAD, and AFRAID.