The North Pole of Elf is built for the diminutive elves, and Will Ferrell’s human character, Buddy, is much too big for the winter wonderland. As a human raised in an elf world, Buddy is always squeezing himself into an environment intended for magical beings who are almost half his size. Although viewers might expect Ferrell was digitally added to these scenes where he towers over his elf family, friends, and coworkers, the striking result was actually accomplished with practical effects, creating sets that skewed characters’ sizes and filming from crafty angles. Elf's excellent visual effects are one reason the movie has become a modern Christmas classic.
Director Jon Favreau is known for his focus on practical effects, from Elf to his more recent work on The Mandalorian, and he made no exception to create the magic of the North Pole. Favreau wanted only analog techniques used in the North Pole to harken back to Christmas classics of the past. There was often only a height difference of less than half a foot between Will Ferrell and his co-stars like Papa Elf Bob Newhart, but the way Favreau filmed the cast and had Buddy interact with the world showed Ferrell as being huge by comparison. To accomplish it, Favreau’s team worked their own tricky magic on the set and camera behind the scenes of Elf.
The size effect started with the set design, as the North Pole was built on a two-thirds scale to ensure every object in the scenes with Buddy looked too small for him. Meanwhile, a different set was built for the elves to film on where everything was a third larger than normal. Then, to make Buddy look larger than the other actors, Ferrell was placed on cleverly concealed platforms. In the elf classroom, Buddy's desk sits on an elevated platform in the foreground with the other desks on the ground. When standing near elves, Ferrell stood on a platform while the others were on the floor. Different parts of the floor in these sets could be raised or lowered to align the small and large sets. The perspective built right into the sets helps give Elf its timeless quality, but that's not the only trick they used.
After Will Ferrell was placed on a platform in his comically small furniture, the crew adjusted the height of the camera so the two sets looked continuous and the lower-placed elves looked like they were only just tall enough to be in the shot with Buddy. To create the full forced perspective effect, Ferrell was placed several feet further ahead in the foreground of every scene with his co-stars well behind him, though the camera angle makes it look like they're next to each other. When Papa Elf was holding onto Buddy's shoulders or Buddy was sitting on Papa Elf's lap, a small child was placed between them with Bob Newhart in the background to make Papa Elf's arms and legs look the size of a child's. The actors couldn't look directly at each other while filming these scenes, so Elf's top-tier cast had to make it look natural with their performance.
The success of Elf's visual effects is due to the collective efforts of the excellent cast and crew who committed to working on two completely different scales throughout the North Pole scenes. The final result is an astonishing testament to what can be accomplished using practical effects. The combination of old, tried-and-true techniques like forced perspective, and even stop-motion animation, weave seamlessly together into a highly memorable opening sequence. Favreau carefully sidestepped letting his Christmas masterpiece become outdated as technology evolved, making Elf a lasting Christmas staple for years to come.
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