Nolan has been clear during interviews that no CGI was used to create these scenes \u2013 which at one point in time led to some rather outlandish speculation that the director had detonated an actual<\/em> atomic bomb in New Mexico during production.<\/p>\n Of course, those rumours don\u2019t actually have any bearing in reality, and Nolan in fact worked extensively with Oscar-winning special effects supervisors Scott Fisher and Andrew Jackson to create the nuclear fire and mushroom cloud that is seen in the film.<\/p>\n Read on for everything you need to know about what effects were used for these sequences.<\/p> If you\u2019re familiar with Nolan\u2019s work, you\u2019ll probably already be aware that he has a strong preference for practical effects \u2013 and so it\u2019s no surprise that he was determined to avoid resorting to CGI for the atomic bomb sequences.<\/p>\n Speaking in the film\u2019s press notes about putting together the Trinity test sequence, the director said that he always knew it \u201cwas going to be one of the most important things for us to figure out\u201d.<\/p>\n He explained: \u201cI had done a nuclear explosion via computer graphics in The Dark Knight Rises, which worked very well for that film. But it also showed me that with a real-life event like Trinity, which was well documented using new cameras and formats developed for recording that event, computer graphics would never give you the sense of threat that you see in the real-life footage.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a visceral feeling to that footage. It becomes tactile, and in becoming tactile it can be threatening as well as awesome. So that was the challenge. To find what you might call analogue methods to produce effects to evoke the requisite threat, awe, and horrible beauty of the Trinity test.\u201d<\/p>\n And so a number of experiments were carried out by Jackson and Fisher, which included such relatively low-tech ideas as smashing ping pong balls together and throwing paint at a wall.<\/p>\n These experiments were filmed in super-close-up using small digital cameras at various frame rates before Nolan would provide feedback and ask them to work out a way to recreate these effects on a bigger scale \u2013 using massive IMAX cameras.<\/p>\n Alas, if you\u2019re wanting to know exactly<\/em> what techniques were eventually used, you\u2019re out of luck: Nolan and co have opted to keep the process top secret, which almost serves as a nod to the Manhattan Project itself.<\/p>\n But whatever the techniques, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema said that Jackson and Fisher\u2019s unit was \u201cone big science project\u201d adding that he was \u201cvery jealous that they got to play around so much with all that kind of stuff\u201d.<\/p>\nHow did Christopher Nolan\u2019s Oppenheimer film atomic bomb sequences?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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