Why Overlord’s Director ‘Selfishly’ Used Practical Effects Over Visual Effects

Thanks to the progression of computer-aided digital effects, there’s essentially nothing that you can’t create in the movies today.

However, while one might assume that such effects were used potentially excessively in order to create the Nazi zombie’s of Overlord, it turns out that whenever possible, director Julius Avery used practical effects and prosthetics. He, along with actor Pilou Asbaek spoke to CinemaBlend’s own Eric Eisenberg recently and spoke about his “selfish” decision to use more practical effects, because it made his job easier capturing performances while also keeping the movie grounded, to a degree. According to Avery…

“For me it was just about, how can I keep it in reality and keep it as practical as possible. I’m selfish that way.
I like the actors to be behind the prosthetics and, for me, if it went too far and too outlandish it would too fantastical.
And also, just selfishly again, I can get a good performance with a whole bunch of, like, weird stuff hanging off you.
You start looking like the blob.”\

While the premise of Overlord is certainly fantastical, iIt’s clear that Julies Avery wanted to make the movie feel as realistic as possible. As impressive as most CGIis, often it still looks animated to a degree and not like it exists in the same world as reality. While that’s usually fine for your average comic book superhero movie that is meant to look larger than life, it’s not what the director wanted here.

For many directors, digital effects might seem like the more selfish option. It’s all done in post-production meaning that you don’t have to wait for actors to spend hours in makeup chairs in order to look the way you need. However, Julius Averysays he really wanted to be sure that the actors were behind the performances that were given, even if those performances were behind significant prosthetics.

(Excerpt) Read More at: CinemaBlend.com