Narrator: This year's Oscars won't include

a Popular Film category, like the Academy once proposed.

But, many of your favorites will still be there.

Campaigning for an Oscar takes a lot of work

but nothing like the work that went

into actually making the movie.

From groundbreaking visual effects

to daring stunts, to layers of makeup

there's a lot to admire from this year's Oscar nominees.

Here's what 2019 Oscar nominees

looked like behind the scenes.

Few movies in the last decade have altered our culture

as much as Black Panther did in 2018.

Its showing at the Oscars proves

that it took blockbuster filmmaking to new heights.

The movie involves a lot of demanding stunt work

from the cast for each intense fight scene.

Yes, Danai Gurira really did use a wig

as a defense mechanism. And yes, Chadwick Boseman

did kick a guy across a field, with the help of a few wires.

Meanwhile, Michael B. Jordan went to set every day

and was covered in around 3,000 prosthetic dots.

Makeup artist Joel Harlow told us

the fake scars were made to withstand

the actor's more physical scenes

as well as the ones where he got wet.

And a studio in Atlanta

was convincingly transformed into Wakanda.

That space came complete with bustling city streets

and a waterfall that would become Warrior Falls.

Horror movies are often overlooked during awards season

but this box office and critical success

was too impressive for the Oscars to ignore.

While the movie produced scares from its lack of sound

the ways it did use sound were impressive.

The film's sound team used a strange array

of objects to make Foley sounds.

Crab legs perfectly captured the sound

of the monsters walking.

A combination of celery and romaine lettuce

would make the sound of an ear opening.

To figure out the monsters' spine-chilling

echolocation sounds, the team did some experimenting

and discovered the best way to do it

was by tasering a patch of grapes

and then slowing the sound down.

There'll always be a place for period pieces at the Oscars.

The historical epic, centering around Mary Queen of Scots

and Queen Elizabeth I, and starring Margot Robbie

and Saoirse Ronan, is notable for its costumes

makeup, hairpieces, and sets.

The movie was shot on location

around the United Kingdom and Scotland.

The stars acted with a literal army of extras.

The Favourite plays a bit more fast and loose

with history, but it still flawlessly immerses

the audience in 18th-century British aristocratic life.

The costumes and wigs are eye-popping and elaborate.

The movie was shot at Hatfield House in England.

They stripped many of the beautiful rooms in the palace

and built a massive bath, as well as Abigail's room.

The reception of First Man, which chronicles

Neil Armstrong's trip to the moon, was mixed.

But one thing nobody can deny

is that it's visually stunning.

Its set pieces are as historically accurate as possible.

Production designer Nathan Crowley told us

that the lunar module and space capsule

were built to scale.

Meanwhile, the Saturn V model seen in the movie

was actually just 14 feet tall.

That's about 1/25th the size of the actual rocket.

Some of the models could even move.

In some scenes, to convincingly replicate zero gravity

they put the camera below the actors.

A technique that has been used in many movies set in space.

The moon landing sequence, which is shot in IMAX

will actually make you feel like you're walking on the moon.

Some parts of this sequence were shot in a quarry.

Other parts were shot on

a very convincing-looking soundstage.

The stunts were equally impressive.

Gosling allowed himself to be launched

out of a capsule, and then got dragged around

in the movie's most daring stunt.

What sets A Star is Born apart is that

all the concert scenes were filmed live

and Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga

are always performing together.

Even for two people as talented as them

they still had to rehearse a lot.

A big part of the production was sound editing

which required layering multiple sounds

in a single scene, including the vocals.

All of which were sung live.

Wes Anderson's second stop-motion animated feature

was one of the best animated movies of 2018.

It's staggering just to look at

the numbers behind the movie.

Isle of Dogs animators were working with

around 1,105 puppets on set.

A single sushi making sequence from the movie

took six to eight months to bring to life.

Animators, meanwhile, had to use pins and wooden sticks

to move the dogs' eyeballs and lips around

to make the characters move realistically.

The animators even painstakingly moved the fur around

to give the impression that dog's fur

was blowing in the wind.

Stop-motion animation requires faces to get changed out

for each different mood and emotion.

Andy Gent, the head of the movie's puppet department

told us that the character's fur made this process

much more difficult than usual.

Marvel's most ambitious movie yet

didn't quite get the same awards love as Black Panther

but it still managed to make an appearance.

The biggest standout technical aspect

of the latest Avengers was Josh Brolin's

towering performance as Thanos.

The actor performed in a motion capture suit

for a character who would then be created using CGI.

Because Thanos is so tall, Brolin often acted

with an object on top of his head.

That way, actors would know where exactly

they should be looking.

Motion-capture technology has gotten so good

that Thanos felt real.

Honestly, it's about time the Academy starts taking

motion-capture performances more seriously.

The long-awaited sequel involved

a cast of very committed actors.

Meanwhile, production designers created

a very accurate version of 1930s London inside a studio.

For this shot, in which Mary Poppins falls into a bathtub

they built a giant slide beneath the tub

that Emily Blunt had to slide down backwards.