---
title: 'When Special Effects Changed Cinema Forever'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=3_d3gt8JryQ'
video_id: '3_d3gt8JryQ'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1917
---

# When Special Effects Changed Cinema Forever

> Source: [When Special Effects Changed Cinema Forever](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3_d3gt8JryQ)

## Summary

This video traces the evolution of movie special effects from the silent film era to modern CGI and deepfake technology. It highlights key techniques like forced perspective, stop-motion animation, blue/green screen, and motion capture, showcasing how they revolutionized filmmaking.

### Key Points

- **Forced Perspective in Silent Films** [[0:31]] — Early technique using relative distance to make objects appear closer or farther; used in 'Princess Nicotine' (1909) and 'Safety Last' (1920s).
- **Chaplin's Glass Painting Trick** [[1:33]] — In 'Modern Times' (1936), a painted glass placed in front of the camera created the illusion of a dangerous drop while Chaplin skated blindfolded.
- **Buster Keaton's Unwired Stunts** [[2:07]] — Keaton performed dangerous jumps without wires; a failed 13.5-foot jump in 'Three Ages' (1932) was kept in the film for comedic effect.
- **King Kong's Stop-Motion Animation** [[2:57]] — Willis O'Brien used stop-motion models with aluminum skeletons and rubber muscles; live-action footage was projected frame-by-frame onto miniature sets to blend creatures with humans.
- **The Invisible Man's Vanishing Act** [[4:11]] — Claude Rains was shot separately in black velvet, then mattes were used to combine background, clothing, and invisible figure into one shot.
- **Ray Harryhausen's Dynamation** [[5:33]] — Harryhausen's technique used matte glass to split shots into background and foreground, allowing stop-motion creatures to interact with live-action actors through contact points.
- **Blue Screen to Green Screen** [[7:44]] — Blue screen (chroma key) was first used in 'The Thief of Bagdad' (1940); green screen became standard in the 1990s due to camera sensor sensitivity.
- **Parting the Red Sea in 'The Ten Commandments'** [[10:01]] — Cecil B. DeMille filmed a trench with 300,000 gallons of water and played it in reverse; water footage was composited with separately shot actors.
- **Vertigo's Computer-Controlled Spiral** [[11:04]] — Saul Bass used an M5 gun director (mechanical computer) to create Lissajou spirals, technically the first computer animation in cinema.
- **Yellow Screen for 'Mary Poppins'** [[12:33]] — Petro Vlahos developed a sodium vapor yellow screen that isolated specific wavelength (589 nm), eliminating halo effects and capturing fine details like hair and mesh.
- **First CGI: 'A Computer Animated Hand'** [[14:52]] — Ed Catmull and Fred Parke created the first computer-animated film in 1972; CGI first used in feature film 'Westworld' (1973), scanning frames line by line.
- **Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)** [[16:02]] — George Lucas founded ILM for 'Star Wars' (1977); they used computer-controlled motion cameras and later pioneered LED screens and quad-optical printers.
- **'Tron' and 15 Minutes of CGI** [[17:36]] — The 1982 film featured unprecedented CGI, with actors filmed against black backgrounds and animators adding digital scenes frame by frame; was snubbed for Oscar because computer animation was considered 'cheating'.
- **First Fully CGI Character: Stained Glass Knight** [[19:51]] — In 'Young Sherlock Holmes' (1985), a stained glass knight was the first entirely computer-animated character, animated by future Pixar chief John Lasseter.
- **CGI Water Pseudopod in 'The Abyss'** [[20:11]] — James Cameron's 1989 film used CGI to create a water creature that mimicked actors' faces; faces were scanned with a Cyberware scanner.
- **Green Screen Dominance in the 1990s** [[20:42]] — Digital cameras made green screen standard; used extensively in 'The Matrix' and other blockbusters.
- **T-1000 Liquid Metal in 'Terminator 2'** [[21:29]] — James Cameron used a grid painted on actor Robert Patrick to rotoscope his movements, creating the shapeshifting T-1000; renderers worked 24-hour shifts.
- **CGI Dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park'** [[22:20]] — Originally planned as stop-motion, Spielberg switched to CGI after seeing ILM test footage; practical animatronics still used for 9 minutes of screen time.
- **Pixar's 'Toy Story' Revolution** [[23:01]] — Ed Catmull built software Menv for the first feature-length CGI film; allowed animators to isolate motion frames and let computer complete sequences.
- **Motion Capture Animation** [[23:52]] — Mo-cap uses reflective markers tracked by infrared cameras; early attempts like 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within' (2001) were mixed, but 'Lord of the Rings' Gollum (2002) set a benchmark.
- **James Cameron's 'Avatar' Mo-Cap Innovation** [[25:56]] — Cameron used head-mounted cameras to capture facial performances live; rendered Na'vi aliens in real-time on stage, allowing instant visual feedback.
- **Photorealism in 'The Jungle Book' (2016)** [[26:38]] — Jon Favreau's remake used over 800 CGI shots; animal movements studied, and puppets used as stand-ins for actor interactions.
- **De-Aging Technology** [[27:51]] — ILM's de-aging in 'The Irishman' (2019) used a special camera rig and Flux software; YouTube artist Shamook later created a deepfake version, leading to his hiring by ILM.
- **Blending Practical and CGI in the 2020s** [[29:43]] — Films like 'Top Gun: Maverick' and 'The Mandalorian' use StageCraft (wraparound digital screens) to achieve natural lighting and backgrounds, moving away from green screen.

### Conclusion

The journey from forced perspective to AI-powered deepfakes shows that movie magic continuously evolves, yet filmmakers increasingly blend practical and digital effects for more immersive and realistic cinema.

## Transcript

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