Fast & Furious 6 is poised to become not only the most successful in the franchise, but also one of summer's biggest movies. Critics are cheering, and audiences are turning out in waves, keeping the sixth installment of this gleefully bonkers franchise at the top of the box office for a second week in a row. With a cast that includes Vin Diesel, Dwayne "franchise Viagra" Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Gal Gadot, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, and Gina Carana, there's tons of charisma in the cast, but what's got people most giddy is director Justin Lin's absolutely off the hook action sequences, including an ambitious finale that has moviegoers in absolute hysterics.
First teased in the movie's Super Bowl spot, the climactic sequence (spoilers ahead) has Dominic Toretto and his crew trying to prevent a massive airplane from taking off by lassoing their fast and furious rides to it. Hey, you do what it takes for your family. If we've learned nothing else from Fast & Furious 6, we have learned this!
In the video above—courtesy of WIRED and Conde Nast Entertainement—we're granted a look behind the scenes on this epic action sequence. Visual Effects Supervisor David Vickery steps us through the marriage of in-camera stunt work and CGI effects that were blended to create the movie's most mind-blowing moments. See, Lin knew that part of the magic of Fast and Furious is that the audacious stunts look like they were actually performed, not constructed with computer imaging.
Dedicated to shooting as much as possible in camera, the production built a movie set that would stand in for the aircraft hurdling down an impossibly long run way. Then in post-production, a plane would be painted over this stand-in monstrosity, complete with much fire and explosions. Visual effects house Double Negative shares their passes on the construction of this blend of real stunts and CGI madness, so you can see how it all came together. Considering the difficulty the FX industry has been facing, it's fantastic to see what exactly they do so clearly displayed.
