Behind the scenes video shows hilarious reality of Will Ferrell’s famous rapid snowball throwing scene from Elf
Christmas is officially over for another year, with the full attention now turning to the New Year's Eve parties.
But on the exciting buildup to Christmas Day, a lot of us will watch a fair amount of Christmas films to get us into the festive spirit.
One film that millions of Brits would have watched this year is Elf, and if you haven't, then what are you doing with your life?
But for those who have seen it, you'll certainly be familiar with the iconic snowball fight. Well, here's how they did it:
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After Buddy receives a pretty frosty reception from his father, he tries to talk to his half brother Michael.
After embarrassing Michael as he walked out the school gates with his friends, Buddy follows his younger brother into Central Park - all while asking a lot of questions.
But the brothers are soon confronted by a group of bullies who are launching endless snowballs at them.
With Michael wanting to get out of there as quick as possible, Buddy decides that they should take them on.
He gathers up a staggering number of snowballs in a shockingly quick time, and the group engages in a snowball fight.
However, Buddy throws them at a superhuman speed, and causes the bullies to flee the scene.
As with most blockbuster films, Elf included a behind the scenes feature on the DVD of the film, where they showed how Ferrell was able to throw at lighting speed because, obviously, he is not superhuman.
The move was pulled off by CGI or computer-generated imagery, with Ferrell not even needing to throw a snowball for some bits.
In the clip, director Jon Favreau tells Ferrell to do the actions with his body, saying they will put his arm in 'digitally', which leads to the Anchorman star doing little turns as he pushes his shoulder forward.
Ferrell is also heard joking after the scene has been filmed, with him saying that filming 'wrapped up two days ago'.
While this clip provided some extra content for Elf fans to enjoy, there looks to be very little chance any more Elf content will be following it, as Ferrell looks to have no intention of reprising the role.
This is because of apparent tensions between Ferrell and Favreau, according to actor James Caan - who played Buddy's dad Walter in the film.
In an interview with 92.3 Sports Radio in 2020, as per MovieWeb, Caan revealed that ‘the director and Will didn’t get along very well'.
He added: "Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director… it was one of those things."
Following Caan's claims, neither Ferrell nor Favreau have commented on them publicly or on their relationship.
At least we've got the hilarious behind the scenes stuff, though.
Topics: Will Ferrell, Elf, Christmas, TV and Film
Callum Jones