Christopher Nolan is widely known for using CGI in his films only when necessary. Otherwise, he opts to use practical effects instead. For his upcoming movie Oppenheimer, which tells the story of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer developing the nuclear bomb, Nolan recently revealed that he did not use CGI to recreate the first atomic bomb test.
Nolan made this revelation in a recent interview with Total Film.
“I think recreating the Trinity test without the use of computer graphics was a huge challenge to take on,” Nolan said. “Andrew Jackson—my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on—was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself to recreating, with my team, Los Alamos up on a mesa in New Mexico in extraordinary weather, a lot of which was needed for the film, in terms of the very harsh conditions out there—there were huge practical challenges.”
However, this is very much on brand for Nolan, who is famous for using practical effects in his movies instead of CGI. For his last film Tenet, which starred John David Washington, Nolan found that it would be more cost-efficient if he crashed a Boeing 747 plane into a hangar instead of using miniatures or CGI. Even in his classic superhero film The Dark Knight, Nolan decided to flip an 18-wheeler upside down in Chicago instead of using miniatures or CGI.
When the news made it to social media, Twitter erupted with jokes.
