Located in the middle of the land, a large building can be found for guests showcasing a wide range of special effects that can be used to take a movie to the next level. Guests load into a loading area to ensure they would have a full theatre. While waiting for a full theatre, a “producer” asks as a host and comes out to talk with guests about some classic movies filmed at Pinewood and how they used Special Effects to take these classic movies to the next level. While the producer is talking, screens throughout the loading area play a montage of the movies through the years. Once the loading area is full, the bay doors open and guests load into a large open room with a large blue screen on the far wall with benches for the guests to sit on. 

Once everyone is seated, the producer comes back out and lets guests know the first special effect covered is visual using Superman (1978) as the example. With a famous character like Superman, he is known for his ability to fly. Unfortunately, the human actors who play him probably can’t fly so they needed to find a solution (or multiple solutions). Through the use of screens throughout the room, guests can do a live comparison between the actors on the blue screen in front of them and how it looks live with the blue screen edited out through a camera. The first effect showcased uses wires highlighting how Superman would take off and land. The blue screen background is quickly edited out to showcase in front of a building to simulate where Superman would take off and land. Next, a stunt person comes out in a Superman costume to help simulate the effect. Now, cables are attached to his waist. When everyone is in place and checks are good, stunt Superman gets into pose and suddenly takes off into the night sky. His cables pull him up as the video on the blue screen pulls up at the same speed giving the effect of a quick take off. The stunt superman then has some fun with dancing on the cables, doing a moonwalk, and more showcasing just how much flexibility is given with a harness like this to simulate the idea of weightlessness. The Stunt Superman lands and they get ready for the next effect on the blue screen, pulling out a large pillar to stand/ sit on. For some longer scenes, instead of using cables, they’d use pillars/ stands in order for stunt Superman to rest and not use so much core strength while still flawlessly executing the scene. This is showcased throughout this demonstration as Stunt Superman completes more flights around Metropolis to save the city. With the Blue/green screen effects done, the producer thanks Stunt Superman and the video/ visual effects team before getting guests to stand up and move to the next room (allowing the loading room to now fill this room). 

As guests enter the next room, they see a small-ish stage (the whole room is smaller than the last room due to being cut short by a large curtain) that is mostly empty, except for a tarp covering something right in the middle. As guests load in, the producer reminds guests that while visual effects are great when it’s trying to do something otherwise impossible like fly, few things beat physical props and effects to get genuine and real interactions. The host then lifts the tarp off of the stage to reveal a medium sized Audrey II puppet from Little Shop Of Horrors (1986). 

“A physical prop of this size is already impressive, but with a skilled puppeteer, Audrey II really comes to life” the producer proudly says as Audrey II “wakes up” with a puppeteer. “Hello Audrey II!” says the Producer, “how about a little show for this great audience?”.

“Let’s get it” Audrey II bites back as a Seymour fill in walks on stage. The two of them perform Feed Me from the movie complete with the same movements and interactions to show how right in front of the guests eyes, with no help from some movie magic. With just a singer and a puppeteer, Audrey II goes from a large Alien Flytrap statue to a live singing and breathing alien performance. The song ends and Seymour covers Audrey II back up with the tarp. Unfortunately, Audrey II isn’t a big fan of that and yells out “how dare you”. 

Suddenly, the back curtain of this room drops to reveal the final, massive Audrey II to perform a clean version of Mean Green Mother From Outer Space. Through the use of multiple puppeteers, this massive 10’ tall Audrey II with complete movement to his song in a flawless demonstration of how to have physical effects also interact in the environment. The producer panics and electrocutes Audrey II causing a brief panic as Audrey II flashes in the dark before the curtain is raised on him again. 

The producer thanks the guests for staying brave before using them to the next room for more effects. 

Fresh off of showcasing effects in one musical, the next room focuses on another musical: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). This room contains a stage matching similar to Me Ol’ Bam-boo from the movie complete with the stage and tent, with a screen on the wall above the tent.

This scene focuses on the effect of adding in additional or louder sound effects to enhance the sound in the movie, specifically here with added effects to tie into songs. 

The first example used is the theme song, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and how the noises of the car turn into the name of the car, and the song. And how even throughout the song, the car noises can still be heard to enhance and tie fully into the song. 

Once showcasing the example on the screen, a large line of dancers come out of the tent and onto the stage. At first they demonstrate how the dancing, bamboo sticks, etc. sound just as is and how they’d be picked up on audio (showcased with a replay of the scene on the screen with speakers playing the audio). After a few examples of the scene with normal audio, the full scene is playing dialling up the sound of the bamboo sticks hitting the ground, the clapping, etc. to tie it into the song for a seamless dance number. With the dance routine done, the producer thanks the dancers as guests head into the final room for the last effect.

For the last effect, the stage has a few chairs set up. One great effect that can go overlooked in so many ways is makeup. When done right, it doesn’t get noticed because it ties into the costuming and world flawlessly. When done exceptionally, it flourishes and brings a whole new dynamic to any movie. 

The producer invites two makeup artists as well as two performers to get transformed in a short amount of time on the stage in front of guests eyes. The left artist/ performer will be put in makeup of The Joker from The Dark Knight (2008) while the right artist/ performer will be put in the makeup of Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

The entire makeup process won’t be done in the short timespan, as for the original movie Drax’s makeup took almost 90 minutes each day from scratch, so the artists on stage cheat a little bit with prosthetics pre-made in key spots they can then blend into the rest of it. As the artists are working, the screen over head plays a montage of various makeup artists getting an actor ready including timelapses of Dave Bautista getting makeup for 90 minutes, or Heath Ledger for the Joker, as well as tons of other makeup Oscar nominated movies shot at Pinewood like Les Misérables and Emma where these actors and actresses enter the makeup trailer as themselves and leave as a completely new character. 

At the end of the video montage, the makeup artists reveal their work, showing to guests complete transformation in only a short amount of time. With that, the producer thanks the guests for coming to the Special Effects Stage and hopes it helps them see how movies are made a little differently.