Still, sometimes it's the small, scrappy productions that go above and beyond, often putting their own asses on the line. Let's take a moment to celebrate the projects that only got made because the filmmakers didn't give a fuck.

It might not always look like it, but every movie you've ever seen was pretty hard to make. That's why Transformers had over 1,700 people in its credits .

5 The Cove Filmmakers Hired A Team Of Covert Specialists To Infiltrate Japan

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You're probably already familiar with the notorious Japanese whale trade, but what you might not have heard is that the Japanese government is also complicit in the wholesale massacre of dolphins, because apparently they hate the shit out of cetaceans.

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"Needs more tentacles."

In 2009, filmmakers Louie Psihoyos and Jim Clark set out to expose the horrific tragedies of the annual dolphin harvest in the town of Taiji. But it was proving to be a difficult task, because it turns out that the Japanese government isn't super jazzed about releasing details on the dolphin harvest, possibly because there is no way to put a positive spin on the phrase "dolphin harvest."

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Access to Taiji Cove is restricted during the hunting season. It's blocked by wire fences and regularly patrolled by guards. In order to put together his documentary The Cove, Psihoyos had to make like Nick Fury and assemble a team of conservationist Avengers. Among the recruits were Ric O'Barry (the guy who trained Flipper), "Clandestine Operations" specialist and real-life treasure hunter Charles Hambleton, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank and Kirk Krack (two of the top free divers in the world), and former Canadian Air Force avionics specialist Simon Hutchins. The only thing they were missing was a guy who mutates into a giant dolphin when he gets angry.

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"DOLPH SPLASH!"

The filmmakers found themselves monitored by police, harassed by journalists, and bombarded with anonymous death threats, so the making of the documentary required some legitimate covert operations. With the help of Cruickshank and Krack, they infiltrated the cove with hidden cameras disguised as rocks, using camouflage so sophisticated that they later had trouble figuring out where the hell the cameras were. The technology they were using was so advanced that, after retrieving the footage, they needed to wait for Sony to develop the goddamn software required to watch it so that they could put the film together.