ABC’s new series Pan Am focuses on the glory days of American commercial aviation, so it’s no surprise that greenscreen and visual effects come into heavy play to reconstruct some of the bigger scenes of the era.  But thanks to the technology from Stargate, you may be surprised to see just how much of it actually is (as shown in the image above).

Stargate based its virtual set on historical photographs to more or less exactly match the Pam Am terminal of the day. “We built the entire set digitally in conjunction with the production designer,” explains Nicholson. “Then we optimize it. It may have 20 million polygons, so you need to cut it down so that it can be pushed through a real-time system at 24 frames per second.”

via Pan Am: retro green screen world | fxguide.