Here's how 'The Jungle Book'- the most visually stunning movie of the year - looks without special effects
"The Jungle Book" is being hailed one of the most visually stunning movies of the year thanks to its beautiful jungle and striking animals.
In the movie, Mowgli (Neel Sethi) wanders the jungle and runs into a wide array of creatures, such as a gigantic snake (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).
In reality, the movie was mostly shot in a warehouse in Los Angeles, and Neel Sethi wandered around a handful of plants.
Early in the film, Mowgli visits the crowded watering hole and has his first face off against Shere Khan (Idris Elba).
In reality, he faced down some cutouts and a puppet.
Look at these things!
This imposing cliff?
Entirely CGI.
This incredible buffalo stampede ...
... was once a patch of mud in the studio.
Here's Mowgli hanging out with his buddy Baloo.
In reality, his animal friends were puppets.
Here's a closer look at them:
All of the jungle's animal inhabitants were created in post-production.
The details were slowly but surely fine-tuned ...
... until they looked like this. King Louie (Christopher Walken) became larger than life in the film's final version.
And while Sethi was sliding through mud and braving rainstorms ...
... the voice actors recorded comfortably from a studio.
Bill Murray and Giancarlo Esposito were able to watch their animated selves as they recorded their voices.
Sethi was mostly on-set by himself.
Crew members could see what shots would eventually look like through their monitors. This log ride ...
... would eventually turn into this.
The crew was able to see a rough version of the jungle that the young star could not while performing.
While he wasn't always hanging out with Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, or Scarlett Johansson, the first-time actor still had plenty of face time with director Jon Favreau.
Favreau helped guide Sethi to a great performance.
"[Favreau] told me not to overreact," Sethi said.
That small piece of advice proved helpful: in the movie, it always felt like he was reacting to a real monkey, as opposed to a blue man with a puppet on his hand.
Besides Favreau, Sethi had other company on set.
He was chased around by a man acting as the tiger nemesis, Shere Khan.
In the epic finale, Mowgli sets the jungle on fire.
It looks a bit less epic behind the scenes.
It's incredible what CGI could turn a simple warehouse in LA into.
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