'Ghostbusters' Reboot VFX Reel Shows How Some Practical Tools Helped Create The Ghosts

The reboot of Ghostbsuters arrived this summer and stirred up plenty of buzz, both good and bad. It doesn't sound like the movie performed well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel to get made, despite Sony's confidence immediately after the film opened, but we'll see how things play out after it hits home video.

However, regardless of how you feel about the franchise reboot, I think that even some of those who didn't like the movie would commend the Ghostbusters visual effects, especially in the spectre department. The new ghosts in the movie were creepy, colorful and really brought some visual style to the reboot. Now a Ghostbusters visual effects reel from the company Iloura shows how some practical tools combined with digital animation helped bring them to life in the movie.

Here's the Ghostbusters visual effects reel from Iloura on Vimeo:

It's cool to see that the color palette created by the ghosts and the proton streams in the movie was something that was done partially on set with practical tools. The swarm of ghostly green rats that come pouring out of the subway had a lightbox as a stand-in on set while the giant winged dragon demon from the rock concert was doubled by a light-covered drone. That's a cool way to create the lighting effect you want practically so not so much has to be done in post-production.

In addition, some of the actors who played ghosts or interacted with them had some lights put on their body. The horde of ghosts in the middle of New York City had lights all over their wardrobe while Leslie Jones wore something akin to a neckpillow with lights on it for the reflection of the demon ghost to properly reflect on her face.

My favorite part of the video though is seeing Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones all pretending to wield their proton streams at the concert. It's not something that you think about while watching the movie, but it's pretty amusing to see them doing their best to act like they're actually using these tools, staring at absolutely nothing in the middle of the air. It just goes to show you that making movies is just one big expensive game of pretend.

Hopefully we'll get to see more of the behind the scenes work from Ghostbsuters whenever the film arrives on home video. There's no release date just yet, but director Paul Feig has said there will be an extended cut of the movie available on Blu-ray. Hopefully it will be one that explains some of the weird narrative gaps in the movie, mostly involving Chris Hemsworth's character Kevin.