There is a reality to the way the actors play the scenes, given that there is a real, animatronic, moving robot in the room. So the level of nuance and realism in performance was higher because we built the real ones, and it keeps the visual effects guys honest.

There is a reality to the way the actors play the scenes, given that there is a real, animatronic, moving robot in the room. So the level of nuance and realism in performance was higher because we built the real ones, and it keeps the visual effects guys honest.

I've learned that, I wouldn't say I've made that mistake, but I've learned on some of my other movies, like, you always want to show everything that you feel works

The dozens of people working on this at Digital Domain, they knew that you couldn't get away with almost photo real, because we had real real in the room. You have real real in the cut every four or five shots, so you have this constant yardstick built into the footage by virtue of there being no real robot there. So it became the standard of photo reality that the VFX team had to match.

I would say, while I think audiences are savvy enough, I think that the effects work in the teaser is quite a bit more than presentable. I think they look good and representative of the film. The harder thing with the teaser, interestingly enough is, how much to show.

I think that, on the one hand, our audience, our culture is so savvy now to an assumption that teaser effects are not fully representative of the final product. But in the same breath, I would say there's no shot in the teaser that I'm not really happy with.

We know it's being referred to as the robot boxing movie [Real Steel], but truth is, 70% of the movie is the relationships.