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I like the vid and I agree with it for the most part. Anything done with practical effects, even if enhanced with VFX/CGI is going to yield more believable results, but above all what makes a movie is good storytelling. Guardians of the Galaxy for example is chock-full of CG effects. Even two of the main characters were 100% CGI. Fantastical worlds and spacecraft flying all over the screen. Yet the story telling was so well done that I believed it all. These scenes from Knowhere for example are almost completely CGI, but what a ride!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO0CgvipQLk
End of argument.
No offense but this is only true if you were trying to reinforce my point. A lot of those landscapes and backdrops were noticably fake, and the most convincing shots were the ones where CG was used in moderation to enhance, rather than replace or substitute actual scenery.
If you want to talk impressive camera work, I would take the diner scene from Goodfellas (shot with a reverse-tracking rig) over a couple of actors sitting in front of a green screen any day of the week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWRncNMEhLw
How the heck did they do that?
It has a few names but it's most commonly called a dolly zoom or the "hitchcock zoom", since it was first used in the film Vertigo. The camera is on a dolly that is slowly pulled twords or away from the subject while the camera simultaneously zooms in the opposite direction. The result is a very unsettling, very clever practical effect.