A scene that's wet and wild.(USER FOCUS: WATER)

Turbulent water plays an important role in various stages of College grad Christopher McCandless's adventures, chronicled in both the best-selling non-fiction book Into the Wild from Jon Krakauer and its film adaptation.

The movie, like the book, is based on the true story of McCandless, a top student and athlete who, after graduating from Emory University in 1992, abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 life savings to charity, and travels around the country, eventually finding his final adventure in Alaska, living in the wilderness until his untimely death.

"The water's power, plus Chris's battles to master it, are major symbolic threads through the movie," says Mat Beck, president of Entity FX, which produced a number of digital effects shots, including those in the movie's early Wash sequence.

During his initial flight from his conventional life, Chris pulls off the road and drives into the Arizona desert to park and spend the night. After a beautiful sunset, lightning storms are seen in the distant mountains as the camera cranes down to show Chris asleep in the back seat. A very wide camera pans left across the dark desert to find the tiny car at the base of a bluff--just as a surging wave enters from the right frame. Inside the vehicle, Chris awakens in response to the sound of the surging water. Over his shoulder, we look out the windshield to see a torrent of water as it hits the car. The car swings around violently to the right as the water hits and cracks the windshield. In a view from the bluff, we see the car smack into a big rock and lurch to a stop.

When the flood begins to recede, Chris smiles. In the morning, he puts on his pack and walks away from the muddy, battered car for good. This becomes a prelude for what's to come in his journey. In fact, the movie opens with the story's end, as Chris is found dead inside an abandoned bus in Alaska.

To create the desert scene, the Entity FX group had to battle 118-degree heat while shooting in Arizona. "The first and greatest commitment was to follow Chris's journey. Some shots would have been easier in a more controlled environment as opposed to a desert location, but somehow not as good," says Beck.

The crew also found themselves battling nature's clock: The sequence is supposed to occur at night, though shooting at that particular time was not practical. "Shooting the wider shots in the 'dusk for night' meant ...