practical special effects

27 movies and shows

Return to Jurassic Park

Sat, 05 Feb 2011

A multi-part documentary about the making of the Jurassic Park trilogy. Each part walks through the making of part of one of the films, including the hurricane during the shooting of the first film, and how advances in CGI for Jurassic Park helped change the world of special effects forever. All interviews for these retrospective documentaries come with comments from Spielberg, Johnston, Neill, Dern, Goldblum, the effects crews, the child actors, and Peter Stormare. This documentary is broken into six parts: Dawn of a New Era (25 min), Making Prehistory (20 min), The Next Step in Evolution (15 min), Finding the Lost World (28 min), Something Survived (16 min), and The Third Adventure (25 min).

An American Werewolf in London

Fri, 21 Aug 1981

American tourists David and Jack are savaged by an unidentified vicious animal whilst hiking on the Yorkshire Moors. Retiring to the home of a beautiful nurse to recuperate, David soon experiences disturbing changes to his mind and body.

Viking Wolf

Fri, 18 Nov 2022

After witnessing a grotesque murder at a party in her new town, a teenager starts having strange visions and bizarre desires.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

Tue, 20 Apr 2010

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

Sat, 29 Sep 2012

There’s only one person who so accurately personifies movie magic in the history of film, and that man is special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen. Focusing on the man behind the landmark effects on films like Clash Of The Titans, One Million Years B.C., Jason And The Argonauts and many more, this in-depth film features interviews with the great man himself, and with an array of animators and directors influenced by his work including Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Terry Gilliam, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. The film also features unseen footage of tests and experiments recently uncovered.

The Killer Robots! Crash and Burn

Fri, 15 Jul 2016

Four fallen robot gladiators are rescued from the scrap pile, turned into an elite group of mercenaries and sent on a mission to bring about a new age of enlightenment in a post-apocalyptic universe.

Beware the Moon: Remembering 'An American Werewolf in London'

Mon, 14 Sep 2009

Host Paul Davis takes a trip through some of the iconic backdrops of John Landis' 1981 werewolf classic An American Werewolf In London. The original cast and crew tell the story of how the film was made over a quarter of a century ago featuring rare footage and never before seen photos.

Film Adventurer Karel Zeman

Tue, 31 Mar 2015

A look at the life, work and importance of Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman (1910-89), a genius of world cinema, a wizard of special effects, revealing his sources of inspiration and his revolutionary filming techniques.

The Making of Jaws 3-D: Sharks Don't Die

Fri, 15 Jul 1983

Academy Award winner Lou Gossett Jr. takes you underwater on the trail of the great white shark and behind the scenes on the production of Jaws 3-D.

Final Voyage

Thu, 05 Aug 2021

Adem and Novak, two very different young men, escape from a desolate planet in a small, old spaceship in search of a new home in space.

Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters

Sat, 14 Sep 2019

An in-depth, sad, and beautiful documentary about the stop motion and VFX artist Phil Tippett, a man who changed the landscape of visual effects in film.

Handmade - A Tale of Stop-motion

Fri, 05 May 2023

A documentary about an old animation technique and the film studio that tries to carry on the legacy. The worlds oldest animation studio still making film with stop motion technique is Nukufilm located in Tallinn, Estland. Here we can follow the work in the studio which was founded in the Soviet era and has survived heavy censorship and global competition.