SPOILERS
'Blade Runner 2049' has amazed us in so many ways. The filming, editing and soundtrack are all remarkable. However, there's one technical effect that has succeeded in surprising us. Sean Young made a cameo appearance in the film, appearing as though she hadn't aged a day since the release of the original 'Blade Runner' in 1982. Her presence in the sequel was completely unexpected and the result of a complicated process. Needless to say, for the two minutes that Rachael appeared, we were all left in shock.
The cameo was made possible thanks to certain experts in digitalisation. Oscar winner John Nelson, left in charge of bringing the wonder to life mentioned to Entertainment Weekly that, "Digital humans are sort of like the holy grail -- they're really hard...We had many challenges in this movie but this one was definitely the hardest one we did."
A very long process
So, how was all of this possible? 'Blade Runner 2049's' biggest secret started off with a real-life model. British actress, Lores Peta served as the structure upon which all of the digital effects were applied. Even then, the actress had to apply a considerable amount of makeup. "I never thought I would learn so much about makeup but I did," said Nelson, "It's one thing to make a digital double look real, it's another to make them perform and act". The second stage involved applying a series of points to Peta's face, which would later allow for the digitalisation.
Dennis Villeneuve was responsible for Peta's transformation, and according to Nelson, "he got to direct it again when we did all the CG work". To make the whole outcome more realistic, Sean Young was also on set filming certain lines and gestures, because they took Rachael's body language from the original film too.
The following task involved recreating Rachael's hair, another difficult feat. They didn't skimp on the details, and were very thorough so that the hairstyle looked imperfectly perfect.
Stars of Hollywood, feat not
It's not the first time we've seen this type of cameo. We were also surprised by Princess Leia's appearance in 'Rogue One' at the end of the film. Nelson assured us that digital humans are rare, "doing digital human work is so incredibly hard. To do these shots took an amazing amount of time". It took them a year just to create the digital Rachael. "I think real actors are safe for a long while".
