When catching a contemporary Hollywood movie like ‘Blade Runner 2049’ at the theater, it’s easy to assume nearly everything we see is CGI, but a new video from the famed Weta Workshop gives us an inside look at the incredible miniature world they created for the film. They bring Philip K. Dick’s dystopian sci-fi vision of Los Angeles even further into terrifying focus through the lens of director Ridley Scott, showing how the city evolved over the decades that have ensued since the original 1982 film took place.

The city is now blanketed by smog, constant rain and snow from extreme pollution of the entire earth. The Weta design team built upon the original film’s classic aesthetic, making the architecture even more doom and gloom than it was before, and exploring the ways in which the polluted atmosphere affects residents of the city, even at ground level.

Weta artists conceived, built and hand-painted the miniature sets, creating an entire fictional L.A. that’s terrifying and amazing all at once. The centerpiece of the set is the LAPD building, which has come to loom villainously over the rest of the city. The miniature for this particular structure is 16 feet tall, so large and heavy, they had to build it lying down and lift it into vertical position with a chain block.

As noted on Weta’s Instagram, each and every shot of the city (led by cinematographer Alex Funke) “represents many, many hours of meticulous setup and painstaking attention to every detail.”

Our massive miniature for @bladerunnermovie – standing at nearly 5 metres tall, it was so large that we had to build it lying down and lift it with a chain block! 3D modelled, it was built with laser-cut components and then textured by hand, section by section. The shot here was captured in camera thanks to the magic of practical effects. #wetaworkshop #photooftheday #BladeRunner #miniatures #handmade #filmmaking

A post shared by Weta Workshop (@wetaworkshop) on Nov 2, 2017 at 1:00pm PDT

Another view of our @bladerunnermovie miniatures for LA, this time worked on by Rob. Even standing up straight, the building dwarfs him. #photooftheday #filmmaking #handmade #bladerunner2049 #wetaworkshop #miniatures

A post shared by Weta Workshop (@wetaworkshop) on Oct 27, 2017 at 1:06pm PDT

Behind-the-scenes of our miniatures work on @bladerunnermovie. Zac stands in the middle of our LA cityscape, carefully piecing together one of the towering mega-skyscrapers that dominate Denis Villeneuve’s vision of the future. #photooftheday #bladerunner2049 #BladeRunner #miniatures #movies #wetaworkshop #amazing #handmade

A post shared by Weta Workshop (@wetaworkshop) on Oct 25, 2017 at 1:27pm PDT

“During the film’s production, Weta Workshop was brought on to build large miniatures for many of the key environments. The sequences had been worked out in pre-vis, but required a detailed design pass to imbue the environments with life and realism, these concepts were used as a guide for the miniature teams. Extreme weather, tropical storms, and tsunamis are commonplace in 2049, leaving coastal cities destroyed. Mostly abandoned, the cities are now wastelands, occupied only by scavengers and those that were unable to escape.”