Behind the Effects: Inside the Pacific Rim Jaegers

Pacific Rim used a lot of CGI.  If you don’t belief me then you probably live in a magical wonderland of ignorance.  See this?

 It’s all CGI! 

Could they have filmed this next bit in a real city? Probably.

But apparently not. Because that’s all CGI as well.

Hey! Look at this next picture of a super-cool set that they built!

Oh wait no it's all green-screen.  That’s CGI too.

Yet even in a movie as ridiculously CGI heavy as Pacific Rim some practical effects are necessary, and they thought up some doozies this time around.  For many of the sequences that happened inside of the big robots, where the actors were supposedly piloting said robots, there is actually little CGI (but never a lack of CGI) used.

If you watch any of the fight scenes from the movie you’ll notice that it cuts between the fighting that’s going on outside and what’s happening to the robo-pilots inside.  The outside portions are almost entirely computerized, but what you’re looking at when you see those actors strapped into bizarre sci-fi contraptions and tossed around is mostly real.  You see this. . .

And you might assume that it was created digitally, and the flailing and phaux-fighting the actors have to do are false, but in reality what you’re looking at is a four story rig meant to simulate the movements and contraptions inside the big robot heads.

So, often without stunt men, the actors would be squeezed into these Oculus-Rift looking suits, strapped to real robotic arms and forced to try and walk on a fancy looking treadmill.  And while they were doing this, their robot head, which was attached at the base to what was essentially a giant mechanical bull ride, swung around wildly.  It was like a demented kiddy ride.  They even would blast gallons of water right into the actors faces while they were trying to pretend to fight.

Guillermo Del Toro, the director of the film, called it a torture machine.

One thing you might notice that is particularly spectacular about the set photos I’ve shown you is that the camera man is often in the giant mechanical bull/robot-head while the thing is going wild.  They had to get stunt coordinated camera men for these shots who would be able to stay safe while still being able to shoot Guillermo’s torture machine from various angles.

Well that’s it today for Behind the Effects!  I hope you’ve all learned something about so-called CGI fests.  Even the most computer graphic heavy movie uses some level of practical effects.  I hope you’ll look more into the special effects behind this, and other movies, that seem to be all animation.

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