Hollywood auteur Christopher Nolan has made it very clear in his previous movies, that he is not a big fan of using computer-generated imagery CGI. He would rather employ practical camera work, as he believes it adds an essence of realism to the movie, only adding effects if it smoothens the scenes.
When it comes to “Oppenheimer,” his upcoming film, Nolan said his latest work not only has a focus on practicality, but it contains “zero” CGI shots, according to Collider.
This sounds like a very difficult thing to do considering the base of the film. The film, adapted from the book “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and the late Martin J Sherwin, tells the remarkable story of the infamous American physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, who is known as the father of the atomic bomb.
Essentially, scenes, including excruciating details of atomic blasts done by scientists, had to be recreated, without CGI, as per the director's goal.
It was already known that Nolan had already recreated the Trinity test, the first-ever test explosion of the nuclear bomb in the desert of New Mexico in 1945, entirely without CGI, which is monumental and extremely surprising given the detailed planning needed to story the explosion described by the onlookers at that time.
Yet, Nolan seemed to have pulled it off. He managed to take in the excruciating details of the test from those present and transmuted it into a detailed scene.
For a movie that involves the usage of bombs, any average film-enthusiasts would certainly expect and accept CGI given the enormity of the scenes. However, Christopher Nolan apparently used no CGI to create a stunning movie, astonishing everyone when they watch any of their fiery trailers.