The Great Gatsby and CGI

After my article on The Lone Ranger, I thought I would add this post that also relates to movie-making.  A few months ago, I went to see The Great Gatsby movie after re-reading the book (which I have always loved) with my book club.  I thought it was a visually-entrancing and interesting interpretation that did justice to the book.  I loved Toby Maguire, found Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby to be a credible version, and found my doubts upon hearing that Carey Mulligan was playing Daisy to be confirmed (however, that may be the hardest role in the book--certainly, the previous attempts I've seen to capture Daisy have been similarly unsuccessful).

Of course, viewing all the Baz Luhrmann excesses of the roaring Twenties would not have been possible without CGI.   But I didn't realize how much that was true until I saw this video by Chris Godfrey, who was the Visual Effects Supervisor for the film.  This video displays some of the scenes as  before and after shots--before CGI, that is.  It is really amazing!  I knew some, even lots, of this stuff was computer generated, but there were other elements that I never imagined weren't there in real life.

Watch it for yourself below:


The Great Gatsby VFX from Chris Godfrey on Vimeo.