(exciting orchestral music)

[Announcer] Attention incoming vessels,

you are in violation of Elysium airspace.

[Computer Voice] 10 thousand kilometers and closing.

(rockets firing)

Hi, I'm Mike Seymour, from FXGuide.com for Wired.

While there's been a trend to more and more computer

graphics effects in films,

directors, and frankly speaking, audiences,

have been looking for more realism.

So, there's a push to get back

to doing as much as possible in-camera,

as much as possible on set.

We've seen this particularly at work

on the new film Elysium.

Director Neill Blomkamp was nearly obsessed

with getting as much in camera as possible,

which meant models, miniatures, props, sets,

and some really hardcore locationss.

For the opening half of the film set on Earth,

the team went to a locations in Mexico,

to one of the world's largest garbage dumps,

and when real props could be used, they were.

When they couldn't, Image Engine,

the visual effects company behind the film,

and the Director's earlier District 9, used doubles.

They doubled the spaceship, or the Ravens, with helicopters,

and they doubled the robot droids

with guys in special grey tracking suits,

to allow for greater interaction and believable movement,

all of whom, of course, were replaced

later in post-production with digital CG droids,

that were controlled with over 686 individual controls.

(machine gun fires)

(explosion erupts)

Grey suit performance on set, so that Neill can direct

and edit with a performance that's very, very close

to what he's anticipating is going to be the final result.

Once off earth, the task of getting realism

is a little harder.

Of course, the orbiting Elysium is enormous.

It's about 2 kilometers wide, 40 kilometers in diameter,

and has a circumference of 125.6 kilometers.

So, where would the team go for reference?

Where could they film down here on Earth

to match Elysium's Nirvana?

Where else?

Malibu.

I went out with Neill to Malibu, and the Hollywood Hills,

and did a lot of helicopter reference photography out there.

Neill actually said, You know, this shot,

this helicopter shot of you flying over Malibu

is exactly what I envisioned it should look like

when we're flying over top of Elysium,

but, we need to remove the roads,

we need to remove all of the Earthly structures,

and just keep the mansions, and then add in

maybe some landing platforms for shuttles, and so on.

The more complex shots of that Elysium ring

actually contained over 3 trillion polygons,

but you've gotta know Neill Blomkamp would have still

built the darn thing if he had been able to.

Well, don't forget, subscribe

if you want more behind-the-scenes action.

I'm Mike Seymour for Wired.

(thrilling electronic music)