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The Great Gatsby is considered one of the Great American Novels, so a silver scene interpretation was always going to be highly scrutinized and criticized.
While many felt the film was thoroughly enjoyable and visually stunning, so much so, that it won two Oscars, for both production and costume design, others felt it was emotionally flat, and that the director's attempt to recreate the roaring twenties by using aggressive zooms, hyperactive fades, and basically "just throwing things at the camera" just seemed confusing and chaotic.
However, the VFX in the movie were stunning! yes, The Great Gatsby did use VFX!.... a lot of VFX..... Almost 1500 shots! that's on a par with Doctor Strange, Batman vs Superman, or Harry Potter.
Animal Logic was the lead VFX house with Rising Sun, Iloura (now Method Studios), ILM, Base Black, and Prime Focus all contributing to create the New York of the 1920s in Sydney, Australia in the 21st century.
Gatsby's New York.
You may be thinking, so if the entire film is set in New York, why wasn't it filmed there?
well, the truth is that not a lot of 1920,s New York remains in today's New York.
90 years is a long time, especially for a city as big as New York, Buildings have grown, signage has changed, bridges, vehicles, roads, services, and skylines have all evolved dramatically over time, and all of this, would have to be altered in post, to be blunt, there just isn't enough of 1920s New York left, for it to be worth it.
In order to build New York the VFX team had a historical researcher who provided reference material, photos, and maps, they also used photos from a book called Mythic City that had lots of shots of Queensboro Bridge. From this material they began to build a library of broken furniture and junk and other CG assets for the streets, different signs, and 20 different building as well as lots of different windows that could be interchanged to create even more variety.
They built a low-resolution version of New York which was then divided into CG sets and more detail was added to the key areas. For the large pull-out shots like the one on Queensboro Bridge, they combined Hi-res builds with lower-res builds and 2.5D matte paintings as they pulled out.
Gatsby's Mansion.
Gatsby Mansion was inspired by an old house called Beacon Towers, the idea was for it to be Exotic, Lavish, and loud, to contrast with Buchanan's more somber and classic mansion. The Mansion was actually filmed in different places and the VFX team were tasked with creating, extending, and stitching it all together to look like one.
The Beach was shot at Doll's Point in Sydney, the front street was shot in Centennial Park in Sydney, and the front of the mansion was shot at Manly, also in Sydney, the Hallway, dance area, and ballroom were all shot in Stage 1 at Fox studios, the Wharf was shot in Stage 1 and 3 and the stairs down to the pool were shot in stage 2. Nick's cottage was shot at Mt Wilson and Centennial Park and in stages 1 and 3 at Fox Studios.
To be able to match scale and layout to the original photography, LIDAR scans were taken of each set and each location, they could then position the shots in their relative places within the 3D space and model the mansion and the grounds around them.
Gatsby's Car.
For the car sequences, a combination of Live-action Photography, CG cars, drivers, digital crowds, and CG environments were used. The VFX team used a car pursuit scene in the 1928 film "Speedy" as a reference as to how busy the streets were and how chaotic the driving was.
The live-action footage for the Duesenberg car sequence was filmed on a disused dock at White Bay in Sydney with a 650ft long greenscreen wall that was made from plywood boards mounted on scaffolding.
The original idea was to use the real car in these shots and just add the reflections of their CG environment to the chrome and shiny paneling on the car, however, the chrome and shiny paneling on the car acted like a mirror on set, and so it picked up the reflections of crew members, cameras and lighting equipment, so they actually ended up just replacing the car with their CG asset in order to properly deal with the reflections.
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