11 Movie Tricks Every Director Knows About but Viewers Don’t

When creating a new, great film, directors are ready to do anything just to make sure that the end result is perfect. But just like people from other professions, they often have to deal with different problems. In order to show a new film to the world, they have to solve a lot of issues and adapt to the ever-changing industry.

We at Bright Side want to share the amazement we felt when we read these 11 unexpected movie facts that’ll surprise even the most experienced viewers.

1. Bad guys don’t use Apple products.

American director Rian Johnson, who recently made Knives Out, talked about a funny detail in his film, and in the movie industry as a whole, that can help the viewers understand who the bad guys are in any movie. Bad guys will never have an Apple product in their hands. The company allows creators to use their devices under one condition: the devices have to be used by the good guys only.

Apple has been the leader in product-placement in Hollywood films. Since 2012, iPhones and other products from the company are only shown in a positive light in movies.

2. In the past, 3D-films made people dizzy more often than today.

Today, when producing 3D-movies, creators avoid the effect of having something fly right at you. The thing is, our brains don’t understand that the pictures we see are just an illusion. The eyes try to react as if they were real physical objects. But in the end, the brain just tenses up the eye muscles, which leads to dizziness, headache, and nausea.

So, lately, special effects artists have tried to make movies so that 3D-objects just fly by very fast and the brain has no time to focus on them, or they use small particles (like dust, ash, or snow) that the brain sees as noise and doesn’t focus on.

3. The children starring in horror films often don’t know what the film is about.

In most cases, the children in horror films have no idea that they are acting in a horror film. The shooting is rarely done in chronological order and it would be very hard for a child to build a solid picture of what happens in the film. There is nothing scary on the set either: the music and the sounds are added in post-production and all the costumes, masks, dummies, and other things look funny, rather than scary in real life.

When it comes to the scenes where children have to deal with blood or something really scary, this is made to look like a game. Danny Lloyd, the boy from The Shining, had no idea he was working on a horror film. Stanley Kubrick decided to not tell him the story. Danny thought it was a drama about a family that lived in a hotel.

4. Movie trailers are not made by movie companies, they’re made by advertising agencies.

In order to make a 2-minute trailer for a film, directors hire special companies. It seems that it would be easier and cheaper to make the people who shot the movie create the trailer. But in fact, it is not that simple.

Most of the time, directors know that they are not very good at marketing and they have no idea how to sell a film to a specific target audience. So, they decide to hire professionals and not take the risk.

5. The sound of broken bones in thrillers is the sound of carrots and celery breaking.

When the sound editors need a sound similar to breaking bones, they break carrots and celery. So, the next time you watch a violent scene in a movie, think about these poor vegetables.

6. The scenes with mirrors are some of the most difficult ones to make.

The scenes near mirrors have to be made from special angles so that the person and their reflection are visible but the camera and the lights are not. For example, in Terminator 2, they decided to use stuntmen and dummies.

In the episode where Linda Hamilton’s character removes a microchip from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s head, there is no mirror: in front of the camera, you can see Schwarzenegger with a stunt double doing something with his head. And Linda is right next to the camera with a dummy. Movie magic at its best!

7. Sometimes, directors make bloopers on purpose.

Many famous blockbusters have a lot of bloopers. And some of them seem too obvious. For example, during the stock exchange scene in The Dark Knight Rises, Batman enters a tunnel during the day and exits it in complete darkness.

The thing is, very often, directors know about these plot holes and they make them on purpose. Batman looks more epic and impressive in darkness, rather than in daylight. And for director Christopher Nolan, this was a good enough reason. Besides, the creators know that most of the viewers will be very interested in the story and they won’t notice these details.

8. There is a special company that provides snow for Hollywood films.

The snow used in Hollywood films is artificial. In almost all cases, it is provided by a company called Snow Business. The company was opened in 1983 and its portfolio includes about 200 different kinds of snow.

Real snow is very difficult to deal with in the shooting process because it melts under the cameras. But some movies were actually filmed in snowy areas. For example, The Revenant was shot at a ski resort in Canada.

9. If extras look into the camera, they could be fired.

Extras can’t look directly into the camera and they can even be fired for this. Besides, the extras that look even remotely like the main characters won’t have a lot of screen time. Also, it is recommended that they not wear white clothes or clothes that have big captions, in order to not take the attention away from the main focus of the scene.

10. In movies, they rarely use real food.

Very often, the food that appears in films is actually made of inedible materials. Do you remember the foods that you saw in the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies? The thing is, the food was only real in the first film. It spoiled really quickly, so it had to be replaced over and over again. In the next movies, most of the foods were made of resin.

11. There is a reason why the background has to be green for creating special effects.

When creating special effects, directors use the bright green colored background because the color is as far from the colors of the human eye as possible. If an actor’s eyes are green, they can use a blue background. Also, the character, the accessories, and all the props won’t be green in the scenes shot with this background. This trick helps to significantly reduce the time it takes to edit the scenes.

Have you ever seen something in movies that was absolutely mind-blowing and you had no idea how it was done?