CGI has been both a blessing and a curse to the movie industry. It allows today’s filmmakers to do things that before they, and movie viewers, could only have dreamed of. For all that, though—and I do think the balance is far more to the positive side than the negative on this one—there are shortcomings. One would never find a better example of this than to watch AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and then watch the sequel, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS. One was done before CGI and the other relied completely on it. Which movie do you think looks better? It’s not even close.
At the source link below is a compilation of special effects sequences that were achieved before CGI. The one we are interested in for this site (although they are all interesting) is the one chronicling Rick Baker’s transformation sequence created for the aforementioned AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. It’s the second on the list. How did Baker do it? Prosthetics, robotics, and film reversal (for the hair growth). Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Yet the sequence took several months to achieve. It also won Mr. Baker an Oscar, and deservedly so. Could a computer have done it quicker? Possibly. But it wouldn’t have looked half as good.
