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How A Low Budget Alien Film Changed Visual Effects Forever
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Jun 9, 2025
District 9 was way ahead of its time, when it was released in 2009. Utilizing a handheld documentary style, director Neil Blomkamp had a vision for a new type of science fiction film. One that would seamlessly incorporate alien CGI characters into gritty real world footage, something that was thought to be impossible at the time. However, thanks to a painstaking VFX process, true grit, and a dedicated team... he succeeded. And changed filmmaking forever...
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Residents in Tempisa rioted for the third consecutive night in an attempt to remove all the aliens from their township
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In 2009, an unknown filmmaker took the movie industry by storm. Thanks to impressive visuals and jaw-dropping effects, he created a lean, mean motion picture
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that explored topics of discrimination, xenophobia, and the never-ending cycle of war
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But what he couldn't have imagined all those years ago is that the process by which those special effects were achieved
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would completely redefine how we make movies today. That movie? District 9
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We're from MNU. We require your scroll on this eviction notification. Prior to his feature film debut
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South African-Canadian filmmaker Neil Blomkamp had an extensive resume working in the visual effects industry
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on shows like Stargate SG-1 and Dark Angel. He spent his free time, like most aspiring filmmakers
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making short films. One of those films was titled Alive in Joburg
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a science fiction story of aliens living on Earth. The short blew up online so much
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that it attracted the attention of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who at this time were producing a Halo feature film for Microsoft
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A few years of development hell and a collapsed Halo project later, Jackson asked Blomkamp if he had any ideas for a feature film
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that he would want to direct independently. His answer was simple. He wanted to make a feature version of Alive in Joburg
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And they eventually decided, after much deliberation, that the best thing to do would be to physically cut their way in
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But here's where Blomkamp's years of grinding it out in the VFX world
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gave him the experience to do something truly unique. He felt there was a glaring issue with the way CGI images were being presented to the public
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Something small in approach, but massive in end result. Blomkamp wanted to make a film with VFX that no one would notice
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Yes, this sounds counterintuitive, but just bear with us. He wanted to make an effects-laden project, set in a near-future world
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where the reality of the situation was the star, not the laborious effects
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There was a million of them So what was a temporary holding zone soon became militarized and before we knew it it was a slum On the surface District 9 is a fairly trope sci effort but the thing
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that sets the film apart from other similar genre entries is the style in which it was created
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The first half of the film is produced in a faux documentary style, which then segues into a
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traditional cinematic narrative starring Charlotte O'Copley's Wicked's Van Merva. The handheld and
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energetic style of the filmmaking has an effortlessly real feel to it. It's a film that's
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attempting to obscure the fact that there's millions of dollars on screen with every second
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of the film. It's attempting to root the viewer into a reality and move beyond the artifice of
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oh, look at these cool aliens. Choosing to shoot the film in a deeply cinema verite style is a bold
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choice and one that fundamentally alters the viewing experience. However, while most low-budget
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filmmakers choose to shoot in handheld docu-style because, well, it's cheap, District 9 turned out
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to be the exact opposite. As you can see, many of the shots in the film feature the prawns with the
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top of their heads cut off, shaky handheld footage, and fully CGI elements that are not center frame
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being shot with a sense of awe. They're fully integrated into the environment. Blomkamp told
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Wired.com, you treat the effects no differently to anything else. I think that when you start
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treating them as though they're visual effects and you put them on a golden kind of pedestal, You have to treat them like every other thing, and then they begin to feel quite real
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So that sounds like a fairly straightforward design remit, right? You're going to make a faux documentary about aliens where you're going to composite in a bunch of CGI aliens
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Well, here's where we get to how District 9 reinvented the language of film
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The concept of green screen and motion capture have been employed for a long time at this point
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but they require a long and laborious prep process. Everything had to be planned, rehearsed, and meticulously created
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The standard way of post-processing a CGI character at the time was to shoot two plates
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one with a reference actor standing in for the CGI character, and one that worked as a blank plate, or clean plate
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You combine these two shots in post animating on the clean plate while using the reference actor to inform what the animator was doing However you need to have the camera make the exact same movements or preferably not
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move at all in order for these plates to perfectly sync up. That just wasn't going to be an appropriate
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solution for District 9. Something else needed to be done. What did Blomkamp and the team at
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Weta Digital decide to do? They decided to shoot plates with actor Jason Cope wearing a data
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capture suit to stand in as the reference for all the prompts. But since they couldn't shoot
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clean plates because the entire film was shot handheld, they, by hand, painted in the background
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information behind the actors, frame by frame, for every shot in the film. Today, Adobe products
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have a content-aware film mechanic that can, with surprising accuracy, completely fill in a large
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empty space. Even smartphones have magic erase buttons that allow you to digitally remove objects
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or people. But in 2009, this was a laborious, expensive, and frankly insane process to embark on
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But it worked. It's like I want it to look as grotty and kind of real as possible because you're
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not putting the visual effects up on a pedestal. You're just, they just happen to be there and you
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just happen to be filming. This push for realism echoed throughout every element of the production
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Ironically, even though the finished screenplay for the film was nominated for an Oscar
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much of the actual dialogue for District 9 was improvised. Charlton Copley was completely in sync with what Blomkamp wanted to do
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He understood that it was important to capture the insanity of the situation
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but meld it with a sense of verisimilitude. And his performance, coupled with the wildly compelling VFX
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propelled the film to greatness. The fact that the film was constructed out of real reactions and real emotional moments
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where neither the actor or the camera people knew exactly what was going to happen
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is exactly what they needed to do in order to make the documentary sections of the film really
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feel alive. Were they a nightmare to comp aliens into? Yes, absolutely. However, Blomkamp's process
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of creating believable spontaneity won out in the end The film feels instantly tactile and completely real And that idea was carried through to the marketing campaign and the trailers for the film They presented the film as a straight documentary Then the twist is that it actually centers on aliens Why don you just leave How do your weapons work
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District 9 is a shining example of when a director has a vision in their head that pushes the
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technological limits of what can be accomplished, and ends up redefining how we make films
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Blomkamp's drive to make a real-feeling experience forced the filmmakers to rethink
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how they approach comping CGI characters with VFX shots, and it changed everything
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Because the film places narrative primacy on Wickes' journey and the chaotic nature of
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Johannesburg, the special effects take a back seat. But to make things even more startling
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This process of post-production is now industry standard. The lessons that Blomkamp employed about shooting VFX as if they were real have been utilized in countless blockbusters
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Take, for instance, the way Denis Villeneuve shot the ornithopters in Dune
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He shoots them as if they're real helicopters. They're not doing anything outlandish, just flying, obeying the laws of reality
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James Cameron even pointed out how well he shot them in this interview
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And we've all seen that shot done with helicopters. and you instantly made your aircraft, your exotic aircraft design, familiar
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He might as well be describing something right out of Blomkamp's playbook. It's these types of gritty reality touches that makes today's films work
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But going even further, VFX has become so dime a dozen that films use them to fix little things that the audience never notices
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Take the Marvel movies, for example. Falcon Cap's cowl looks completely different in the raw footage
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It's fixed in post, and half the time when you think they're filming on the street in a Marvel movie
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There are digital set extensions or even background actors in the scene
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The lack of awe and wonder put on these CGI elements isn't exclusively because of District 9, of course
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but the process and the brazen independent spirit of the movie was the spark that lit the fire that created
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the process that so many directors use to this day
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