[0:00] - [Narrator] Have you ever watched a movie
[0:02] and had your mind blown
by the special effects,
[0:05] and wondered, how did they do that?
[0:07] Well, I'm going to take that question
[0:09] all the way back to the beginning of film,
[0:12] looking at the magic
used on the silver screen
[0:14] to bring its stories to life.
[0:16] From stop-motion monsters to
computer-generated marvels,
[0:19] this is the evolution of movie magic.
[0:23] (soft music)
[0:29] Silence is Golden.
[0:31] Camera tricks have existed
[0:33] since there were cameras to trick us.
[0:35] One of the earliest techniques
was forced perspective,
[0:38] used to whimsical effect
in the silent comedy era,
[0:42] like here in the 1909
short "Princess Nicotine".
[0:46] (mellow music)
[0:54] It's a basic a technique
that uses relative distance
[0:57] to make objects appear
farther away, closer, larger,
[1:00] or smaller than they actually are.
[1:03] Jump forward to the 1920s and
people are still using it.
[1:06] Check out this classic
scene from "Safety Last",
[1:09] with silent comic actor Harold Lloyd.
[1:12] How do you think this stunt
was done? Green screen?
[1:15] That'd require CGI, or
computer-generated imagery,
[1:20] and digital computers
weren't around in those days.
[1:23] In reality, the crew built
a set on top of a building
[1:26] and rigged the camera to
make it look like Lloyd
[1:28] was dangling perilously above the street.
[1:31] Ingenious.
[1:33] Now, Charlie Chaplin was
the icon of this era.
[1:37] Check out this scene from
the 1936 film "Modern Times",
[1:41] where he skates around
the landing of a mall
[1:44] with a blindfold on.
[1:46] Now don't worry, he
wasn't ever going to fall.
[1:48] The crew painted that
image of the lower floor
[1:51] on a piece of glass
[1:53] and placed it in front of the camera,
[1:55] so it only looks like
there's a great drop.
[1:58] Now that's a shift in perspective.
[2:01] As comedic as Lloyd and Chaplin were,
[2:04] they didn't compare to Buster Keaton.
[2:07] Despite being a funnyman, his
stunts put Tom Cruise to shame
[2:11] because unlike Mister Mission Impossible,
[2:14] Buster never used wires.
[2:17] When shooting his 1932
comedy "Three Ages",
[2:20] Keaton was supposed to jump
from one building to another
[2:23] without support wires.
[2:25] The jump was 13.5 feet,
[2:27] so unsurprisingly, Keaton missed the mark.
[2:31] If he had made it,
[2:32] he would've broken the
world's long jump record.
[2:36] Thankfully, there was a safety net
[2:37] underneath the camera line.
[2:39] However, this failure was a
success with the film crew,
[2:42] who found it so funny
[2:44] that Keaton decided to
incorporate it into the story.
[2:47] Just remember, kids,
[2:48] nothing's funnier than a near-fatal fail.
[2:51] Wait, that's a terrible moral.
[2:55] Fearsome 30s.
[2:57] You know what I love
about movies? Monsters.
[3:00] And back in the 1930s,
[3:01] the world met the biggest
of them all: King Kong.
[3:05] The great ape first appeared in 1933,
[3:08] brought to life by the
stop-motion animation
[3:11] of Willis O'Brien.
[3:12] Kong himself was created
using stop-motion models,
[3:16] with aluminum skeletons
and rubber muscles,
[3:19] which they moved slightly frame by frame
[3:21] to make it seem as if the
model was moving in real time.
[3:25] To make it appear that Kong
[3:27] and the other creatures of Skull Island
[3:28] were interacting with real humans though,
[3:31] O'Brien projected live action
footage one frame at a time
[3:36] onto a miniature set from behind.
[3:38] Doing this meant the animators
[3:39] could blend the live action
footage with the creatures
[3:43] one frame at a time,
[3:45] making it seem like real actors and beasts
[3:47] were inhabiting the same space.
[3:50] When Kong needed to touch the humans,
[3:52] they used a 20-foot-tall head.
[3:54] Makes the modern-day Kong look cute.
[3:57] And a giant hand big enough to
cradle leading lady Fay Wray.
[4:02] If you look closely here,
you can see the line
[4:04] where live action footage meets animation.
[4:07] Kong wasn't the only movie monster
[4:09] to get his big break in the '30s, however.
[4:11] In the world of sci-fi horror,
[4:13] there was "The Invisible Man".
[4:16] The biggest trick here
[4:17] was getting lead actor
Claude Rains to vanish.
[4:21] When he needed to look invisible,
[4:22] they shot things without him,
[4:24] carefully timing the action
[4:26] to happen without him in the shot.
[4:28] Once this was complete,
[4:30] the same set would be entirely
draped in black velvet,
[4:34] with Rains covered in
black from head to toe.
[4:37] Over this, the actor would wear
[4:39] any clothes needed for the shot.
[4:41] From the footage of the
unsupported clothes,
[4:44] they created two high-contrast
duplicates known as mattes.
[4:48] One matte blocked out the background,
[4:50] while the other blocked out
[4:51] the partially clothed invisible man.
[4:54] Then, all four pieces of film,
[4:56] the background, the clothes,
and their respective mattes,
[5:00] were blended into a single shot.
[5:02] And that wasn't all.
[5:03] To capture the invisible
man's iconic footsteps,
[5:07] a custom wooden platform
[5:08] was built with foot-shaped
blocks cut out of them.
[5:12] When covered with artificial snow,
[5:14] the blocks would be released one by one,
[5:16] creating the illusion
[5:17] that someone was walking unseen
over the snow in the shot.
[5:21] These methods were tedious and expensive,
[5:24] but the results had to ironically
be seen to be believed.
[5:31] Word About Ray.
[5:33] From the '50s right up to the early '80s,
[5:36] Ray Harryhausen was the
undisputed king of monsters.
[5:40] To breathe life into his creatures,
[5:42] the animator developed a
technique called Dynamation.
[5:46] It worked like this.
[5:48] Harryhausen would use a
specially modified projector
[5:51] that he could advance one frame at a time.
[5:54] In front of that was the
animation stand, model,
[5:57] and 35-millimeter camera.
[6:00] To position the creature
[6:01] between the background and the foreground,
[6:03] the animator would slip
a sheet of matte glass
[6:06] between the model on the
animation table and the camera,
[6:09] essentially creating two
versions of the same take.
[6:13] For the first shot,
[6:14] he'd paint the glass black
to block out the background,
[6:17] allowing only the model and rear projector
[6:20] to be seen on camera.
[6:22] Frame by frame, he then
animated the creature
[6:25] behind the blackened-out foreground.
[6:28] For the second shot, the
opposite would happen.
[6:30] The background would be blacked out
[6:32] and the creature would be
sandwiched between two layers,
[6:35] placing the monster in the real world.
[6:38] When a live action actor needed
to interact with a creature,
[6:42] Harryhausen used contact points,
[6:44] where a live action fragment
[6:46] would be replaced with stop motion.
[6:48] Obviously, when filming,
[6:50] Sinbad's sword wasn't striking anything.
[6:53] So, in his studio,
Harryhausen added a section
[6:56] of Sinbad's sword to the skeleton's,
[6:58] making it appear that
the characters' blades
[7:00] were hitting each other.
[7:02] The switch was so quick that
most viewers don't notice it.
[7:06] Whilst Harryhausen's
creatures were fantastic,
[7:09] the frames he used to
show them were unexciting,
[7:12] mostly medium or long shots.
[7:14] The animator regretted
[7:15] not having more interesting
camerawork in his films,
[7:19] but time and budget constraints
[7:20] forced him to keep things simple.
[7:23] While stop motion monsters
[7:24] have disappeared from the big screen,
[7:26] the techniques Harryhausen pioneered
[7:29] influenced special effects wizards
[7:31] at houses like Industrial Light & Magic,
[7:34] not to mention the dinosaurs
in "Jurassic Park".
[7:37] Forget dinosaurs, Harryhausen
is the real legend.
[7:42] Green Dreams.
[7:44] You're probably familiar
with green screen,
[7:47] you know, an actor steps in front of one,
[7:50] the background is swapped out
[7:51] to make it look like
they're somewhere else.
[7:53] How exactly this effect
came about, however,
[7:56] is less well known.
[7:58] Back in the 1940s when this
technology was being explored,
[8:02] the screen wasn't green at all, but blue.
[8:06] The blue screen,
[8:07] or chroma key process as
it's more accurately known,
[8:10] was first utilized in
the 1940 fantasy film
[8:14] "The Thief of Bagdad",
[8:16] a fantasy picture set in
a magical Arabic land,
[8:19] which later inspired the
Disney hit "Aladdin".
[8:22] The blue screen was used
[8:24] to bring all sorts of
wondrous sights to life,
[8:27] including a gigantic, insidious jinn,
[8:30] and a spirit from Arabic
and Muslim mythology.
[8:33] The clever inventor of the blue
screen was Lawrence Butler.
[8:37] He figured out that by placing a subject
[8:39] in front of a specific color like blue,
[8:42] he could later remove
that color from each frame
[8:45] to separate subject from background.
[8:48] The isolated subjects
[8:49] would then be placed on top
of a pre-shot background,
[8:52] known as a plate, to
create a single image.
[8:55] He chose blue as it seems to be the color
[8:58] furthest from human skin tones,
[9:00] unless you're Will Smith's version
[9:02] of the genie in "Aladdin".
[9:04] However, if the lighting for
the scene wasn't perfect,
[9:07] you'd end up with a weird glowing halo
[9:09] around characters and objects.
[9:12] Just look at that flying carpet,
[9:13] you can see where the two shots
have been spliced together.
[9:17] While it may not be perfect to us,
[9:18] it was a major breakthrough
[9:20] for filmmakers over 80 years ago,
[9:22] and the film won an Academy Award
[9:24] for best special effects that same year.
[9:27] Hmm, I wonder how those audiences
[9:29] would have reacted to Will Smith's genie?
[9:33] Faithful 50s.
[9:35] Back in the 1950s,
[9:37] Western audiences were
fanatic for biblical epics,
[9:41] and the most biblically epic of them all
[9:43] was 1956's "The Ten Commandments".
[9:47] Wanting to beat his earlier
1920 version of the same story,
[9:51] director Cecil B. DeMille
[9:53] employed the latest in special effects,
[9:56] particularly in the iconic scene
[9:58] where Moses parts the Red Sea.
[10:01] For this effect,
[10:02] DeMille filmed a trench
at Paramount Studios
[10:05] being pumped with 300,000 gallons of water
[10:09] and then played it in reverse.
[10:11] To make it look like the
sea walls were parting,
[10:14] they shot sideways footage
of the water cascading down.
[10:18] The filming of Moses and his
followers was shot separately
[10:21] to make up the foreground plate.
[10:24] The water shots were
slapped on top of this.
[10:26] To create the clouds,
[10:28] they poured gray paint into a
glass tank filled with water,
[10:32] resulting in the illusion of a dark storm.
[10:35] The finished scene showed off
DeMille's spectacular powers,
[10:39] even Moses only parted the Red Sea once.
[10:43] However, much like "The Thief of Bagdad",
[10:46] the film is plagued with
imperfect blue screen effects.
[10:50] A while later in 1958,
[10:53] master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock
[10:55] was working on his classic "Vertigo",
[10:58] and wanted a striking opening sequence.
[11:01] So he said, "I better call Saul."
[11:04] This Saul in question
was designer Saul Bass,
[11:08] who decided the opening
credits needed spirals,
[11:12] and lots of them.
[11:14] Spirals are a recurring
motif throughout the film,
[11:17] and Bass insisted that these shapes
[11:19] be based on Lissajou spirals,
[11:21] mathematically calculated
patterns so complex
[11:24] they couldn't be accurately drawn freehand
[11:27] and needed the motion of a pendulum
[11:29] on a moving animation stand.
[11:31] At the time, no animation
stand could continuously rotate
[11:35] without the wires getting twisted up.
[11:38] The crew decided to
use an M5 gun director.
[11:42] This is a mechanical computer
[11:43] used for aiming weapons at moving targets.
[11:47] These things can move non-stop
[11:49] and match the swing of a pendulum.
[11:51] So, the crew set up a
platform, laid everything out,
[11:55] and suspended a pendulum from the ceiling.
[11:58] This pendulum had a pen attached to it
[12:00] and was connected
[12:01] to a 24-foot-high
pressurized paint container.
[12:05] As the gun director rotated,
[12:07] the pendulum would swing back and forth,
[12:10] applying paint to the cels,
[12:12] and creating the spiral drawings
[12:14] you see in the opening of "Vertigo".
[12:16] This means the opening is technically
[12:19] the first example of
computer animation in cinema
[12:23] because hey, it was animation
created by a computer.
[12:28] Huh.
[12:31] Blue to Yellow.
[12:33] As the '60s swung in,
[12:35] an engineer called Petro Vlahos
[12:38] got sick of the odd, leftover
glow from blue screens.
[12:42] He wanted a much cleaner result,
[12:44] so he turned to the best
color there is: yellow.
[12:48] He developed this special screen
[12:50] for the Walt Disney company,
[12:51] which was used in one of
their most beloved films,
[12:54] "Mary Poppins", released in 1964.
[12:58] The process was used to
transport the characters
[13:01] to an animated wonderland.
[13:03] To achieve the effect,
[13:05] the actors would stand in
front of a white screen
[13:07] lit by a yellow hue from
sodium vapor lights,
[13:11] the same lights we see
in older street lamps.
[13:13] Sodium gas produces light
[13:15] at a very exact
wavelength, 589 nanometers,
[13:20] whereas blue screen
ranges from 435 to 500.
[13:25] Vlahos created a unique prism
[13:27] that isolated this specific
hue from other colors,
[13:31] narrowing the wavelength range.
[13:33] By shrinking the range,
[13:35] it made it easier to focus on a subject
[13:38] and capture fine details such as hair,
[13:40] smoke, motion blur, and shadows.
[13:43] You can see how the process
[13:44] managed to keep the fine mesh
detail of Mary's veil intact
[13:49] without any trace of a halo,
[13:51] which would have been
unthinkable on blue screen.
[13:55] It was better than blue
screen in other ways, too.
[13:58] Things on screen didn't
have to be lit perfectly,
[14:01] and there was no limitation
[14:02] to the colors of props or costumes.
[14:05] Dick Van Dyke could
twiddle his blue bow tie
[14:07] without worrying about it
[14:09] being absorbed into the background,
[14:11] a common problem with blue screen.
[14:14] It seems like yellow screen
[14:15] was practically perfect in
every way, except it wasn't.
[14:20] Despite multiple attempts to replicate it,
[14:22] Vlahos could only create
one working prism,
[14:26] which meant there was only one
[14:27] sodium vapor camera in the world.
[14:30] Not great for a company
[14:31] with a long list of projects
they want to develop.
[14:35] The tech would go on to be
used for almost 40 years
[14:38] in films like "The Birds" in 1963,
[14:42] and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" in 1971.
[14:45] Pretty good track record
for one camera, huh?
[14:49] Spaced out 70s.
[14:52] In 1972 at the University of Utah,
[14:55] students Ed Catmull and Fred Parke
[14:58] studied the emerging science
of computer graphics.
[15:01] Using Catmull's left hand as a model,
[15:04] the pair created "A
Computer Animated Hand".
[15:07] This experimental short
[15:09] would become the first
computer-animated film ever.
[15:13] Okay, it's not exactly
[15:14] the most thrilling movie you'll ever see,
[15:16] but it might be the most important.
[15:18] The first use of CGI in a feature film
[15:22] was in 1973's sci-fi "Westworld".
[15:26] Computer effects were used
[15:27] for the pixelated point of view shots
[15:29] of the villainous robot gunslinger.
[15:32] To accomplish this,
[15:33] a computer scanned footage frame by frame
[15:35] and converted it into
numerical information.
[15:39] When shooting the scene,
[15:41] actors wore light clothing and makeup
[15:43] against a dark background,
[15:45] which was then contrasted in post.
[15:47] Each frame took a minute to scan,
[15:49] resulting in eight hours of rendering
[15:52] for a mere 10-second sequence.
[15:55] Then in 1977, a little
movie called "Star Wars"
[16:00] flew onto our screens.
[16:02] To handle the huge number
of special effects,
[16:05] director George Lucas
[16:06] needed to establish his
own effects company,
[16:09] Industrial Light &
Magic, or ILM for short.
[16:13] While Lucas's company nailed
traditional techniques
[16:16] like model construction
and matte paintings,
[16:19] they also used cutting edge techniques
[16:21] like computer-controlled motion cameras.
[16:24] To add some realism to
the film's dogfights,
[16:27] effects wizard John Dykstra
tried shooting the scenes
[16:30] like a cameraman in space,
[16:32] with off-centered frames
and uneven movements.
[16:36] Lucas would go on to toy with "Star Wars"
[16:38] in the special edition releases,
[16:40] applying CGI to the film
[16:42] like you might apply a
sledgehammer to drywall.
[16:45] Take the 1997 special edition,
[16:47] where Lucas retroactively introduced
[16:49] a deleted scene between Han
Solo and Jabba the Hutt,
[16:54] except in the 1977 version,
[16:56] Jabba wasn't a disgusting
slug monster, he's a Scotsman.
[17:01] Lucas originally shot the
scene with the intention
[17:03] of replacing the Jabba actor
with a stop-motion creature,
[17:07] something big and hairy,
[17:09] but was restricted by time and budget.
[17:12] The re-release gave Lucas the opportunity
[17:14] to slap a CGI Jabba over the actor,
[17:17] though this scene has been criticized for,
[17:20] well, being bad and pointless.
[17:24] Regardless, since the
debut of "Star Wars",
[17:27] ILM has gone on to be
[17:28] one of the biggest special
effects companies in the galaxy.
[17:34] CGI'd to Life.
[17:36] Back in the 1980s, a dude
called Steven Lisberger
[17:41] was playing a game of Pong.
[17:43] Clearly seeing the narrative potential
[17:45] of two paddles and a ball,
[17:47] he decided to make a film
inspired by the game,
[17:49] which became "Tron".
[17:52] This 1982 sci-fi was a
game-changer for VFX,
[17:57] featuring an unprecedented
15 minutes of CGI.
[18:01] - Blue bikes, run these
guys into your jet walls.
[18:04] - Copy, blue leader.
- Copy, blue leader.
[18:06] - This is gold one to gold two and three.
[18:08] Split up. Take 'em one on one.
[18:10] - [Narrator] "Tron" is a
mixture of live action,
[18:12] traditional animation, and CGI.
[18:15] Actors were filmed
[18:16] against an entirely
blank, black background.
[18:19] Animators then went over this footage,
[18:21] adding CGI scenes on graph paper
[18:24] to match the positions and
angles for every frame.
[18:28] Computer engineers then entered
[18:30] all the required numbers by hand,
[18:33] but wouldn't see the final results
[18:35] until the images were
printed on 35-millimeter film
[18:39] and shown in a test theater.
[18:41] Sadly, "Tron" was not the
big hit Lisberger hoped.
[18:45] They were even snubbed for the
best special effects Oscar,
[18:48] since computer animation
was considered cheating.
[18:52] Instead, the award went to
"E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial",
[18:56] with puppets being more their speed.
[18:58] Despite the loss,
[19:00] the film developed a cult
following over the years.
[19:03] They even made a sequel
three decades later,
[19:05] which also didn't light the world on fire.
[19:09] Maybe Pong just isn't very cinematic?
[19:12] Further advances in effects came from ILM,
[19:15] who developed the first LED
screen as we know them today,
[19:19] which was used for the
1980 "Star Wars" sequel
[19:22] "The Empire Strikes Back".
[19:24] ILM's quad-optical printer,
[19:26] which combined images from various reels,
[19:29] was ideal for miniatures,
[19:31] as well as adaptable to both
white and green backgrounds.
[19:35] The innovative filmmaking
[19:36] earned Empire an Academy Award in 1980.
[19:40] Man, "Star Wars" hogs all the good tech.
[19:43] Another unexpected stride in CGI
[19:47] came with "Young Sherlock Holmes" in 1985.
[19:51] It's a fun watch, and also
earned the Guinness World record
[19:54] for the first entirely
computer-animated character
[19:57] in a film.
[19:59] A knight made of stained glass
[20:01] digitized and animated by future
Pixar chief John Lasseter.
[20:07] This wasn't the only CGI pie
that ILM had their finger in.
[20:11] James Cameron's 1989 film
"The Abyss" had involved
[20:15] a mysterious creature made
of water, the pseudopod,
[20:19] which mimicked the characters' faces.
[20:22] To accomplish this,
[20:23] actors Ed Harris and Mary
Elizabeth Mastrantonio
[20:27] had their faces scanned
by a Cyberware scanner,
[20:31] to map the shape of their faces.
[20:33] It'd be hard to do that with my face,
[20:35] too round and featureless.
[20:39] Go-Go 90s.
[20:42] If the '80s marked the film industry
[20:44] dipping their toe in the water of CGI,
[20:47] then the '90s were a big belly flop in.
[20:50] This era embedded computer
graphics in movies
[20:53] like never before,
[20:55] which is when green
screen took center stage.
[20:58] When digital cameras came around,
[21:00] blue screens were
switched to green screens
[21:03] because camera sensors are
more sensitive to green light.
[21:07] Most blockbusters, like the "Matrix",
[21:09] were utilizing the green
screen instead of blue screen
[21:12] by the end of the decade,
[21:14] though blue screens are still used today
[21:16] depending on which colors
are present in the shot.
[21:20] Inspired by the success of
his effects in "The Abyss",
[21:23] James Cameron decided
to crank up the effects
[21:25] in his next feature, "Terminator 2".
[21:29] For this 1991 sequel,
Cameron wanted a villain
[21:32] that could match Arnie
from the first film.
[21:35] Eager to experiment with
CGI, he created the T-1000,
[21:40] a shapeshifting android
made of liquid metal.
[21:43] To capture T-1000 actor
[21:45] Robert Patrick's movements accurately,
[21:48] animators painted a four by four inch grid
[21:51] all over his body.
[21:53] They filmed Patrick walking and running,
[21:56] using the grid to rotoscope his body
[21:58] and determine how his muscles moved.
[22:01] Pressure was on to get this
film out by the 4th of July,
[22:04] so digital renderers worked 24-hour shifts
[22:08] and had to catch naps on
the floor of the film lab.
[22:11] While Cameron's team was
looking towards a sci-fi future,
[22:15] director Steven Spielberg
[22:17] was headed to the past
with "Jurassic Park".
[22:20] To bring his now-famous
dinosaurs back from extinction,
[22:23] the 1993 film was originally
going to use go-motion,
[22:27] a form of stop-motion,
[22:29] not entirely unlike Harryhausen's style.
[22:32] However, ILM test footage of a CG dinosaur
[22:36] wowed Spielberg so much
[22:39] that he swapped out his
stop-motion beasts for CGI ones.
[22:43] Saying that, Spielberg
still had enough faith
[22:45] in practical effects
[22:47] to use good old animatronics
[22:49] for nine minutes of dinosaur screen time,
[22:51] compared to six minutes of ILM's CGI.
[22:55] A few miles away from ILM HQ,
[22:58] a young Pixar Studios was breaking ground
[23:01] with the first feature-length
[23:02] computer-animated film, "Toy Story".
[23:06] It's fair to say that
the classic 1995 film
[23:09] had a tricky production.
[23:11] Those toys went through a few ugly stages
[23:14] to get to be the characters we know today.
[23:16] Ed Catmull, yep, the hand guy,
[23:19] built the studio a new
animation software: Menv.
[23:24] This allowed animators to
isolate specific motion frames,
[23:27] like the bend of an elbow,
[23:29] and then leave it to the computer
[23:31] to complete the whole animation sequence.
[23:34] This method sidestepped
the tedious process
[23:36] of frame-by-frame animation
you see in Disney cartoons.
[23:40] Interesting, though the less
I see of the test animation,
[23:44] the better.
[23:45] I don't want to look at
Buzz's death face anymore.
[23:50] Captivating Motion.
[23:52] The 2000s saw the rise of a
groundbreaking technology,
[23:57] motion capture animation,
or mo-cap for short.
[24:01] This is the process that involves an actor
[24:03] covering themselves in ping pong balls,
[24:06] which are actually reflective markers.
[24:09] These are tracked by infrared cameras
[24:11] during an actor's performance,
[24:13] so their movements are recorded, captured,
[24:15] and transferred to a computer.
[24:17] There, it's applied to a 3D
model to perform those actions.
[24:22] Early attempts to use this tech
[24:23] in movies like 2000's "Sinbad:
Beyond the Veil of Mists"
[24:28] and 2001's "Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within" were mixed.
[24:35] One film that would've been
an early pioneer was "Shrek".
[24:39] Yes, the famous big, green ogre
[24:42] was originally meant to be
a mix of mo-cap animation
[24:45] for the characters
[24:46] and miniature models for the backgrounds.
[24:49] Only one clip of this footage
[24:51] and a few screenshots of the
animation process remains today
[24:55] and it, err, doesn't feel good.
[24:59] The film was completely reworked
[25:00] and became a smash success in 2001.
[25:04] That isn't to say there weren't
[25:06] a few technical glitches along the way.
[25:10] Mo-cap really hit its stride
with 2002's "The Two Towers"
[25:15] and "Return of the King"
the following year,
[25:17] when the world met Gollum,
or Smeagol to his friends.
[25:21] To create the iconically
disturbed character,
[25:24] director Peter Jackson
[25:26] shot scenes with actor Andy Serkis twice.
[25:29] Once with Serkis performing on location
[25:32] and then again months later,
[25:33] where Serkis would
recreate his performance
[25:35] in a motion capture studio.
[25:37] Here, the actor wore a specialized suit
[25:40] that tracked his movements
to a digital Gollum puppet.
[25:43] The result was like nothing
audiences had seen before,
[25:47] and now mo-cap is everywhere,
from "Iron Man" to "Cats".
[25:52] Not to be outdone in the
field of technical wizardry,
[25:56] James Cameron took mo-cap
[25:57] to the next level in his
2009 sci-fi epic "Avatar".
[26:02] Cameron shot the mo-capped actors
[26:04] performing on a stage, dubbed the Vault.
[26:08] Little boom cameras were
placed on top of their heads
[26:11] to capture the nuance of the
actors' facial performances,
[26:15] so that all aspects of their emotions
[26:17] would translate past
the technical barrier.
[26:20] Using live rendering,
[26:21] Cameron was able to see
an entirely digital world
[26:25] with the actors transformed
into Na'vi aliens,
[26:28] so he didn't have to wonder
[26:30] about how the CGI would look
in the end, which was nice.
[26:36] Techy Tennies.
[26:38] Ah, the 2010s.
[26:40] Not the most thrilling year for CGI.
[26:42] After all, it was the
start of Disney's era
[26:46] of live action remakes.
[26:48] While I'm not a fan of
these flicks clearly,
[26:51] I can't say they don't push
the effects boundaries.
[26:55] The first film to reach
new highs in photorealism
[26:58] was 2016's "Jungle Book"
remake from Jon Favreau.
[27:03] Weta Digital and Moving Picture Company
[27:06] went all out transforming an LA warehouse
[27:09] into a lush forest,
[27:10] using over 800 shots for
its spectacular visuals.
[27:14] Animal movements were studied
[27:16] to bring the creatures to life.
[27:18] To give Neel Sethi, who played Mowgli,
[27:20] something to act next to,
[27:22] Jim Henson's puppets
were used as stand-ins.
[27:25] These were later swapped
out with computer effects
[27:28] in the finished film.
[27:29] Even body parts of the young actor
[27:31] were occasionally replaced
by a digital double
[27:34] to make it seem like he
was really interacting
[27:36] with the CG animals.
[27:38] The success of this saw Favreau
[27:40] make the "Lion King" in 2019,
[27:43] but well, the less said
about that, the better.
[27:47] The 2010s weren't just about
Disney regurgitations, though.
[27:51] Starting with "X-Men: Last Stand",
[27:54] audiences have seen de-aging technology
[27:56] become increasingly used in films,
[27:59] allowing filmmakers to restore
[28:01] how actors once looked in iconic roles
[28:04] and create films spanning a lifetime
[28:06] without needing to change the actor out
[28:08] for someone older or younger.
[28:11] Look at 2019's "Gemini Man",
[28:13] which CG'd a whole new Will
Smith to life using mo-cap.
[28:18] Few films have taken de-aging
[28:20] as far as Scorsese's 2019
film "The Irishman", however.
[28:25] The team, led by, you guessed it, ILM,
[28:28] designed a fancy new camera rig
[28:31] that would allow director Martin Scorsese
[28:33] to shoot as he normally would,
[28:35] while simultaneously
capturing all the data needed
[28:38] to de-age the actors.
[28:40] ILM whipped out their
brand-spanking new software Flux,
[28:45] that merged data with the camera images
[28:47] to make masks out of each actor's face,
[28:50] basically, a young head on old shoulders.
[28:54] Let's be real, though,
[28:55] this film isn't always that convincing.
[28:57] To me, this shot of a de-aged De Niro
[29:00] looks like something out of a video game.
[29:03] Another thing about the 2010's
is how we, the audience,
[29:07] have access to computer technology
[29:09] closer to what Hollywood's working with
[29:11] now than ever before.
[29:13] YouTube artist Shamook
[29:15] even made their own
version of "The Irishman"
[29:17] using a deep fake to
replace De Niro's face
[29:20] with his younger self, which
is incredibly impressive.
[29:24] A deepfake algorithm understands
[29:26] the attributes of a person's face
[29:28] and manipulates the features
[29:30] while keeping the original
video's general style and look.
[29:34] Personally, I'm on the fence.
[29:36] Which do you think looks
best? Let me know down below.
[29:40] 2020 Foresight.
[29:43] Despite all these incredible
[29:45] computer animation advancements,
[29:47] sometimes I get tired of
seeing nothing but CGI
[29:50] whenever I go to the movies,
[29:51] and I'm not alone.
[29:53] However, there's been a shift
[29:54] in this decade's biggest blockbuster hits
[29:57] like "Top Gun: Maverick",
[29:59] "Everything Everywhere All
at Once", and "Barbie",
[30:02] where filmmakers have made efforts
[30:04] to blend practical and special
effects more seamlessly.
[30:08] "Star Wars" spin-off "The Mandalorian"
[30:10] has taken a step away
from the green screen,
[30:13] and incorporated
wraparound digital screens
[30:16] called StageCraft.
[30:18] I know "The Mandalorian"
first streamed in 2019,
[30:21] but it was in November.
[30:23] Sue me.
[30:24] Anyway, StageCraft creates
photorealistic 3D backgrounds
[30:29] that move in sync with the camera.
[30:31] If the camera swings
around and changes angles,
[30:34] the background shifts in
precisely the same way,
[30:38] maintaining the illusion.
[30:39] You see, the problem with green screens
[30:41] is that it projects a lot
of green light on the actors
[30:44] that needs to be fixed in post,
[30:47] leading to flat, unrealistic lighting.
[30:49] With StageCraft, light comes
from the background colors,
[30:53] making the footage a little more natural.
[30:56] Filmmakers can adjust settings constantly,
[30:58] like exposure, color, animation playback,
[31:01] and fill lighting.
[31:03] While more films might incorporate
[31:04] a blend of practical and
CGI effects in the future,
[31:08] the industry also might chase AI tech.
[31:11] Remember "The Irishman" deepfake?
[31:14] Shamook, that face-swapping YouTube artist
[31:16] who created "The Irishman" video,
[31:18] has recently been hired by ILM.
[31:21] In an industry where actors
[31:22] are increasingly replaced
by AI technology,
[31:25] like this clip from Disney's
2023 film "Prom Pact",
[31:29] man, that's tragic.
[31:31] It's going to be
interesting and terrifying
[31:34] to see how far it goes.
[31:37] What shape do you think practical effects
[31:39] will take in the future?
[31:40] Did any here really blow your mind?
[31:42] Let me know in the comments below
[31:44] and let me know if you
want to see more videos
[31:46] on filmmaking in the future.
[31:47] In the meantime, be sure to like, share,
[31:49] and subscribe for more amazing content.