ABSTRACT
In the history of VFX movies, there rarely was great, memorable acting. In many of those films, we just saw the 'pointers'. There are only a few cases when VFX and acting merge in a symbiotic way. One might recall Disney's classic live-action feature Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) that had Irish Albert Sharpe's character acting with leprechauns thanks to forced perspective, special lenses, an enormous amount of lighting equipment, and the Shuftan mirror process. Modern-day films like Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire resemble digital and mechanical bits and pieces, with the star only partly involved in the virtual environment. The film was shot on soundstages in Los Angeles, where the air-bearing wall rigs mostly became the props for Chris Daniels who doubled Maquire in three pictures. More or less, Tobey Maguire contributed only his face for close-up green screen elements. Sony Pictures Imageworks would create the final composite of Maguire swinging against a rushing background of digital buildings.
