This weekend, teen-horror-film fans will be treated to more than just Jennifer's Body--they'll also get Jennifer's projectile vomiting of icky black bile. After all, she is possessed by a demon. Large amounts of puke are the number one sign of demon possession. Or bad shrimp at a summer street fest.
But there's something special about Jennifer's Body. And no, it's not just that Megan Fox has finally found the perfect role: a totally hot girl who alternates between a shallow, mean, vacant skank and a shrieking, blood-thirsty, entrails-devouring succubus. It's also special because as much as possible, Jennifer's Body's director, Karyn Kusama, wanted to shoot the gory horror flick with practical effects.
A practical effect is a type of special effect that is done right there on the set, in front of the actors and director. So when Erika talked last week about the stages of filmmaking, a practical effect would be done during the production or filming stage, while a visual effect--like CGI imagery, green-screen backgrounds, or model work--would be done during post-production. (Though for the sake of budgets and schedules, sometimes visual effects are being done simultaneously with principle photography, although most likely far away from the set in an effects shop.)
For example, when Jennifer is filled with the unholy spirit and starts blasting copious streams of demonic barf all over the place, that was done by clipping a tube to the side of Fox's face and pumping gallons of chocolate syrup out onto the set. (Mmmmmm, chocolate syrup.) Other great cinematic moments in practical projectile vomiting include, of course, The Exorcist and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
But practical effects are more than just spewing. They include stunts, artificial animal and creature puppets, and used to also include fires, bullets being fired and striking walls (or people), and wind and rain.
Today however a lot of that can be done with CGI. For a while it was hard for CGI wizards to convincingly recreate fluid materials such as fire and water, so those scenes were still done using old fashioned water tanks and big orange fireballs. But now CGI has advanced to the point where much of the fire, explosions, and giant killer waves you see on screen are computer generated.
Steven Spielberg made his name by working with one of the most famous--and infamously malfunctioning and fake-looking--practical effects: Bruce, the mechanical Great White Shark in Jaws. By comparison, when Renny Harlin made his own epic shark movie in 1999, The Deep Blue Sea (BIG PLOT SPOILER in the linked clip, but it's a riot), he almost exclusively used CGI fishies. (And which one is the better film?)
So when Spielberg returned to his "monster attacks" roots in Jurassic Park in 1993 he used both CGI dinosaurs and practical dinosaurs--life-size heads, arms, and legs that the actors could actually touch on the set.
For example, although the T-Rex was an amazing CGI creation (the best of its kind at the time), this entire, gripping scene was done with a practical T-Rex head.
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