The parting of the water was done in reverse.The water is actually rushing in from both sides.Then it was reversed back in slow motion.This is done in small scale.The people walking through part was done in front of a blue screen,then the water superimposed later.It was quite advanced for its time.

I have looked around the net for you and, sadly, could not find anything on the special effect of the parting of the Red Sea itself. however I thought you might like to read this.Here is a statement from Mr Charlton Heston himself, which is hiarious for its tongue-in-cheek: Whenever people talk about The Ten Commandments, a film I made 50 years ago with a fellow named Cecil B. DeMille, they go on and on about the impressive "special effects." So let me take this opportunity to set the record straight: I performed all my own miracles in that picture, so if you're going to praise someone, it should be me. There was nothing in that movie that I didn't make happen with my own two hands. I realize some of these so-called actors today rely on camera tricks and computers to do their jobs for them, but I'm not one to allow some punk editor to cut and paste me into the middle of a Red Sea I didn't part myself. I rode a chariot in Ben-Hur for Pete's sake, and you can be darn sure I'll channel God's power to move a little water about when I need to. There was no soundstage. No on-site tank. Just good old-fashioned elbow grease. That's the only way I know how to part a major body of water. I just stretched out my arm, delivered my line, and saved over a million Israelites from their certain death. Difficult? For some, maybe. But I got it in one take and took the crew out for lunch. Of course, partial credit goes to the walking staff I was holding at the time, which I had the good sense to carve from a gypsy-cursed redwood and grant power over the earth and sea before the film began. If you ask me, special effects are just Hollywood talk for cutting corners. If you really want to give the audience a show, you've got to do something risky like summon God's 10 plagues on Egypt yourself. It was originally God's idea, but the execution was all me, just like every other miracle in that film. That goes for the frogs, rivers of blood, locusts, pillars of fire, even the burning bush. Call me a traditionalist, but that's all part of the job of an actor. For the second half of the film, I also played the part of Yul Brynner. http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/in_the_ten_commandments_i =========================== Seriously, I did find this information on some of the effects used in the film: Visually, the Red Sea sequence depicting the parting of the waters was arguably the most moving in the entire film. Certainly it was the most skillfully done and "realistic" in terms of special cinematic effects. The appearance of the dense "clouds" in the sky was accomplished by producing brit smoke which was then optically tinted and darkened, and superimposed into the appropriate shots. The pillar of fire that barred the Egyptians' way was animated - as was the fire atop Mt.Sinai, which represented God's presence and which, with photographic flash powder, burned the inscriptions into the stone. Twice in the film we hear a voice representing God's. In both cases the voice was of course sonically modified for purposes of drama and impact. The voice heard at the giving of the law on Mt.Sinai was that of the late basso- profundo, Delos Jewkes. The voice heard at the burning bush, however, was provided by Charlton Heston himself. Mr. Heston confirmed this in a personal letter to the author, who had queried the actor about it for verification. Though hindsight is easy, in retrospect the delivery and inflections of speech do identify the voice as Mr. Heston's. One need only listen carefully during that sequence in the film to hear this. That more than one such voice was used in the film seems to correspond to the multiplicity of people's spiritual views.

It was done, believe it or not, with jell-o

He(C.H.) must have done it w/ a gun. The NRA will probably back this theory.

G'day Redrum, Thank you for your question. According to IMDb Trivia, "The illusion of the Red Sea parting was achieved by large "dump tanks" that were flooded, then the film was shown in reverse. The two frothing walls of water were created by water dumped constantly into "catch basin areas" then the foaming, churning water was visually manipulated and used sideways for the walls of water. A gelatin substance was added to the water in the tanks to give it more of a sea water consistency. Although the dump tanks have long since been removed, the catch basin section of this tank still exists today on the Paramount lot, directly in front of the exterior sky backdrop, in the central portion of the studio. It can still be flooded for water scenes, but when not being used in a production, it is an extension of a parking lot." The film won an Academy Award for Special Effects. In the silent 1923 film also by Cecil B. De Mille, it was done using jello. I have attached sources for your reference. Regards IMDb Trivia The Ten Commandments http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049833/trivia Wikipedia The Ten Commandments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten_Commandments_%281956_film%29 Decent Films http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/tencommandments1956.html