A case study of how and why digital or computer effects often don’t look as convincing, or age as well, as practical effects.

Although Daniel Netzel at Film Radar argues that “if it can be done through practical effects, it should be”, he examines the compositing of practical and digital effects used in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The practical techniques examined here include scaled sets and costumes, miniatures and “bigatures”, matte paintings, props, forced perspective, big-rigs, all of which, through blue- and green-screen compositing, are integrated seamlessly with computer-generated characters and locations.

Source: Film Radar.