Miniatures in film are tool directors use to create the illusion of the life size version of a city, building, ship, etc. the physical model of the setting the director wants to shoot provides a realistic version to shoot. Miniatures are particularly effective for a shot of anything that is too massive in scale that would take weeks to construct. For example the fortress of Helm’s deep, had a miniature model that was used in the production of The Two Towers. In this case the miniature model also helps create a fictional location to shoot without having to create a completely digital version. From the miniature model a digital overlap can be created with a shot of the Mountains in New Zealand that Peter Jackson and his location scouts chose.
The end result of the miniature model with the mountains in editing creates a very nice and realistic location. As a result of realism, in the film the Battle of Helm’s deep then for fans looks believable. Though the fans know the place does not exist, the footage on screen makes the audience believe it could. Digital effects are getting good at recreating a fictional world in live action films, like James Cameron’s Avatar, where it looks computer generated. On the other hand live action films where one would expect the set to be a real location, they are CGI. For example The Wolf of Wall Street there are lots of scenes that have separate layers of CGI. |