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If you look at the Superhero movie genre today, it's pretty much dominated by Marvel, but it hasn't always been that way.

Marvel didn't actually have a full feature-length movie until 1986 with the unsuccessful Howard The Duck, and that film was the first in a series of flops all the way up until Blade was released in 1998.

DC, however, dominated the superhero genre throughout the 80s and 90s and this began back in 1978 with Superman and the slogan "You'll Believe A Man Can Fly".

Nowadays, modern VFX can not only easily make us believe a man can fly but it can also make us believe he can do it whilst wearing a bulletproof metal suit and being attacked by fighter jets and missiles!

But back in 1978, making the audience believe that a man could fly was a bold statement to make and a complex and seemingly impossible feat to accomplish.
The special effects team began the process by testing numerous techniques.

The first was shooting a model Superman out of an air cannon, but this method lacked controllability and natural movement.

next, they tried a radio-controlled flying model. This gave them control, but again, it lacked natural movement.

Another technique was to have the model fly using wires but this too had the same unnatural movement.

so they tried out animation. This gave them the control and the movement they wanted, but they couldn't get a photoreal look and so it always appeared cartoonlike.

This test was just a stuntman in front of a projected image and although it allowed them to composite any background image they wanted with the actor himself, the actor's movements and those of his cape were very limited.

To try to solve the cape movement problem they did tests using a model on wires and a large fan.

These then evolved into stunt people lying on fiberglass trays that were either attached to a hydraulic gimbal or just a long arm with a counterweight in front of black velvet.

In the end, the special effects teams actually used a combination of all these effects, and some new ones to achieve the illusion of flight.

For the majority of "In-flight" shots, Front Projection was used.

Superman, or anyone who was supposed to be flying, was mounted on a fiberglass mold of their body and attached to a rig with a counterweighted arm.

Behind them was a projection screen made from 3M Scotchlite, this material is capable of reflecting light back at close to 1000 times its original intensity.

In front of the camera was a two-way mirror set at 45 degrees.
A projector, set at 90 degrees from the camera would project the background footage onto the mirror which in turn would reflect it onto the Scotchlite screen.

The camera could then film both the actors and the background through the transparent side of the two-way mirror.

Unfortunately, this method meant that little or no movement could be given to the actors themselves and so, any movement they wanted in the shot, had to be done by moving the camera around the actors, or the footage on the background behind them.

In order to achieve this the filmmakers developed a lightweight front projection rig.
The projector, camera, and mirror are all mounted on one highly maneuverable rig.

This meant that Christopher Reeve could remain horizontal whilst the background moved and revolved around him.

In order to achieve this effect here, of Superman racing toward the camera, Zoran Perisic placed synchronized zoom lenses in front of the projector and the camera.

As the camera zooms in, both Christopher and the background image on the screen become larger.
But as the lens on the projector zooms in, the background image becomes smaller, canceling out the camera zoom and effectively leaving the background plate unchanged.
Zoran named this process, Zoran's Zoom Optic flying rig, or Zoptic flying rig for short.

Now I know what you're thinking,
"If he's lying on a stationary rig, how come his cape is moving?"
well, this movement was achieved with a bit of wind from some fans and this clever device.
a radio-controlled motor drives a camshaft that moves these wires that are attached to the cape, making it appear to flutter

(...)


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