Gladiator

"An emperor who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, the gladiator who defined an empire."

Unquestionably one of if not my favorite films, it was absolutely perfect from the storyline, the actors performance's and some of the most iconic movie lines ever to be created.

I am not however just rambling on about my favorite film but I want to talk about the visual effects used in Gladiator.

The visual effects used in this film was simply to enhance the film and you do not necessarily think about it while watching the film.

The Colosseum was incredible, they used 2,000 actors to form the bottom tiers and the rest were computer generated characters. Its not in your face and just is used to increase the epicness of the movie.

I think the best piece of Visual Effects was achieved and no one would have noticed it when watching the film, i certainly didnt. Oliver Reed died during the making of this film, they deemed it to be too expensive to shoot all over again and decided to shoot and replace a doubles body with Reed's head pieced together from previous shots where he was alive. It truly was amazing to see how they adapted to this situation.

And won them the VFX award at the 2001 Academy Awards, an award I had the privilleage of seeing up close after our recent visit to 'the Mill' one of UK's most prestigious post production houses.

In conclusion a great example at how VFX was used to enhance an already brilliant storyline.