Awesome, indeed!

Creating a film which is based on true stories indeed poses a great challenge for its creators. Just like for Rob Legato when he created the special effects for blockbuster films like the Apollo 13, Titanic and Hugo. Now, Apollo 13 and Titanic were both based on real-life stories (Well, for the case of the Titanic, the Jack-and-Rose-love-story may be fictionalized but the tragedy is very real). I think it is interesting to note that Legato had put into consideration the emotions of the viewers as he tried to recreate on the cinemas two of the memorable events in human history.

At the start of the talk he said that he discovered something about the human brain, which is quite true: what we feel alters our perception of things. I had personally watched the three aforementioned films. Legato’s replica of the sunken Titanic is no different from James Cameron’s actual footage of the ship when he went on an expedition miles below the Atlantic. Personally, during the film’s video playback, I could never tell which one is Legato’s model and which one is the real thing. Also I was surprised by the fact that on Apollo 13 no actual footage of the Saturn V mission was used during the filming because usually, film makers do that when they’re trying to put a true story on cinema. As what Ron Howard (Apollo 13 director) said, they basically started from scratch. And it’s amazing how Legato’s replica of the take-off impressed the astronaut Buzz Aldrin! I can say, Rob Legato’ special effects were really good that it almost look authentic for the viewers.