One of the big nail-biting scenes of the new Iron Man 3 is the “barrel of monkeys” freefall, where Iron Man has only seconds to save a crew of 13 freefalling from a now-crashing Air Force 1.  At first glance, you may think it’s some amazing CG and bluescreen work, but the reality is far more impressive.  Involving a full team of parachuters and multiple jumps, the entire scene was actually done in-air and then touched-up for final results.

“I’ve worked on movies in the past where we’ve done fake free fall sequences, with vertical wind tunnels, people on wires, but by actually shooting it, you get the visceral, kinetic camera work that comes with actual free fall photography,” said Digital Domain VFX supervisor Erik Nash, who is an experienced sky diver himself. “It’s something that’s incredibly difficult to fake — the high-frequency camera shake that’s inherent to free fall photography. If you start with something photographed, it’s real, it’s believable and even if you change everything about it you’ve got a foundation.”

via ‘Iron Man 3′: The VFX that made the ‘barrel of monkeys’ scene soar [videos] | Hero Complex – movies, comics, pop culture – Los Angeles Times.