WEBVTT - Special Effects: A Short History 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.760 Hello, Stuff you should know. Listeners, if you want to 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.160 come see us live, You've only got a couple of 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:07.520 more cities this year that still have tickets, and that 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:09.480 is Orlando and New Orleans. 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:12.040 Yep. We'll be in Orlando on October ninth at the 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.400 Plaza Live, and we'll be in New Orleans at the 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.639 Civic Theater the following night, October tenth. And friends, like 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.160 Chuck said, you better go get your tickets. Go to 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.880 s y sklive dot com for info and ticket links 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.160 and everything you need to come see us. 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.680 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradios 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:33.640 How Stuff Works. 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.240 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.400 Charles W Chuck Bryant wearing his Stone Temple Pilot's hat, 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.400 and there's Jerry over there. She's not wearing any hat. 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.280 She's got really cool hair. 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.159 It's not Stone Temple Pilots. 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.400 It is too. I've seen the Stone Temple Pilots hats 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:56.200 before and that's. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.600 What it is. STP. Because I bought two hats at 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:01.600 Auto Zone yesterday. 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:04.800 I have a Champion spark Plug hat. Yeah, they have 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:06.080 good hats, they really do. 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:07.400 I was getting a battery, and I was like, I 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:09.640 want these two hats. It was a good Year Akron, 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.240 Ohio Goodyear hat nice, which is where Emily's from. Sure, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.360 so I wanted that. And then I saw this stp 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.199 hat Stone Temple Pilot. But I would get a Champion 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.720 spark plug hat too. Those are That's great. 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.280 Okay, I'll let you borrow mine anytime you want. I 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:24.280 just got to give it back. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.400 If I've ever seen you in a baseball cap. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.480 It's a weird jam, is it, now? What you want 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:29.920 to see? 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.600 I've seen you in shorts like twice in twelve years. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:34.679 I keep the legs covered. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.080 And I think one of them was when you came 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.720 over to borrow my lawnmower. I remember that, Yeah, like 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:41.560 nine years ago. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:43.640 Sure, I've got a mo the lawn sometimes. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:48.840 Now things have changed. You can buy a lawnmower. Yeah, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.360 and we now we can afford lawmowers. 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.440 I can wear shorts too. I actually have one of 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:53.800 those plugin lawnmowers. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.000 I have a battery power lawmower. Dude, look at us, 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.160 stupid liberal hippies. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.000 Well mine's mine's battery powered, but you have to plug 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:01.840 it in and charge it. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.240 Oh yeah, yeah, what kind do you have I have 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:04.960 the green one. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:06.520 Yeah, I think they're all green. 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:07.840 No, there's a blue one. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:09.880 Oh, I've got the green one to the sun Joe. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:12.440 No, but I have a sun Joe pressure washer. 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:14.239 Do you really is it battery operated? 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:15.720 No? You plug that in? 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.200 I was gonna say, but it just goes like tinkles 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:18.760 out water. 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.360 But they do make plug in lawnmowers, Like, it's not 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.880 a battery. You just like have a cord that you. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.680 Walk around and run over with your lawnmower. 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.400 I guess they're called electric. Sure, but yeah, I got 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.160 the batter room because I have so little grass now 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.240 and we may be done period with grass. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:37.160 Oh yeah, that's why you're zero escaping. 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.040 Well, we're definitely doing the front, but the back it 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.839 just got smaller and smaller. And my last lawnmower broke, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.400 so I was paying a guy to come cut it. 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:47.640 It's like, why am I paying this guy to cut 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:49.320 to do a seven minute. 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.440 Mo There's just that one blade of grass that sees 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:53.480 the lawnmower coming. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.600 Like yeah, But then I went and got the batteryom 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:57.760 because lawnmowers are terrible for the environment. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:02:59.120 Yeah, that's why I got it. 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:00.400 They're one of the worst los. 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.679 Yeah, we're both also aware that we are charging our 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.359 battery powered lawnmowers with coal fired power. 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:09.760 Yes, and we understand that. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:10.040 We know. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:11.440 I'm just talking about exhaustpiums. 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:13.560 I don't even need one. I live in a condo, 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:17.400 but I'm so dissatisfied with the landscapers that take care 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.040 of the condo that I yes, I bought a lawnmower 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.040 just to do the little patch out in front of 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.480 our buildings. Now, poor Momo doesn't get long grass against 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:28.760 her junk when she's pot of you. 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:32.200 Is a great way to start this episode. 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:33.880 So we're talking special effects. 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:35.480 Obviously, this has been lawn talk. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:38.880 We're talking special effects, Chuck. 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.840 Yes, movie special effects, which, uh boy, I mean we 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.480 could do ten parts on this. This is kind of 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.280 a big summation because movie special effects can be everything 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.320 from the movie that you walk out of saying, oh 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.880 that movie had no special effects, when in fact it did. 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:56.720 Yeah wrong. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.280 Yeah, just tiny little things that you may not even notice, dude, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.080 Things that are almost whole cloth special effects like Skycaptain 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:04.680 in the World. 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:06.080 Of Tomorrow, Yeah, or Sin City. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:07.640 Yeah. I like both of those. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.240 Yes. Did you know since city every single bit of 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:11.720 the set was cgi. 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.160 Yeah, and that Sky Captain did it first, yeah, a 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.320 year before huh yeah, every bit of that was. It 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:18.600 was a green screen movie. 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:20.320 I never saw. It was a good. Uh. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:22.640 It was interesting. Like the look of it was amazing 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:24.720 and very much ahead of its time. 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:25.520 Like real art deco. 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.120 Right. Yeah, for sure. I colored black and white, but 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.360 it wasn't. It was just this really washed out color. Yeah, 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:32.960 but it looked awesome and. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.400 Was not bad. Nice. I'll have to check it out. 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:36.960 And I think the dudes that made that kind of 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.240 quit making movies after that. It's very unique story. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.119 Have you ever seen This has nothing to do with anything, 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:43.359 but have you seen the Changeling? 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.960 Yeah? Sure, Oh my god, did you just see that? 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.760 Yes? And I have to tell you, I don't think 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:55.000 I've ever gotten chills more frequently from a movie than 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:55.800 I did with that one. 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:56.120 Changed. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.359 It is great, genuinely, it's a genuinely scary ghost story. Yeah, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:02.760 Like it is wonderful. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:04.280 Yeah. I miss Georgie Scott too. 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.719 Yeah, he's a good actor. And I don't remember who 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.479 the female lead was in there, but she was great too. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:13.839 It's been a while. I haven't seen it in many 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:14.400 many years. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.640 So anyway, special effects, let's try this again. Yeah, we're 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.320 gonna get derailed like every five sets. Okay. 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.120 Effects are divided, and this is by the grab story 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.680 helped us out with this. AD's a big movie guy 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.239 and horror movie sci fi guy, so he probably enjoyed 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.560 writing this one up. They're divided into three general categories. 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.080 And this all has to do with where the effect 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.720 is happening. It can be practical, which is in front 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:42.719 of the camera, and that means it's a physical thing 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:43.640 that's happening. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:45.479 I think that's what most people think of when they 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.839 think special effects. You think sure, okay, by most people, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:49.360 I mean me. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.400 In camera effects that happened inside the camera, and then 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.960 post production effects. And many times you're using one or 0:05:58.000 --> 0:05:58.920 all three of these. 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:05.560 Right, So with like practical effects, that's things like makeup 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.120 and prosthetics, like ed uses the example of David Lynch's 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.360 The Elephant Man, like the prosthetic makeup that was used 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:20.120 to turn John Hurt or John Hurd which one hurt 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:26.760 into Joseph Merrick. Yes, that's a special effect. An explosion 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.240 on set, that's a special effect. A blood packet to 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.000 make it look like somebody just got shot in the 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.359 chest a squib. That's a special effect. All three of 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.440 those are practical effects. They're actually happening in the physical 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.720 world in front of you on set, being captured on film. 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:44.640 That's a practical special effect. Yeah. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.359 And the other one I wanted to mention there that 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.480 you might not think of as stuff like if there 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:53.640 is a fire like a fireplace in a scene and 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:55.920 then you flip the camera around to show the people 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.000 and you see that fire shimmering on the wall. That's 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.159 a practical effect too. Little things like that. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.240 But it's lighting. It's a lighting effect, yeah. 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.040 Or it's a fire like you know, those aren't real fires. Yeah, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:07.040 I mean it's real fire. 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:08.560 Somebody should put that out. 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.840 But it's not like someone lights a bunch of wood. 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.840 They put fake wood and they have these fire bars 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.280 that it's like what you have under your grill basically, right, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.760 or they hide those and then that's your fire. 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:22.679 Sure, because it has to look perfect. 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.600 You can't just chance somebody not being able to start 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.280 a fire or looking wonky. That's why movie fires look perfect. Yeah, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:30.000 because they're fake. 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.000 They are kind of dreamy. They're so good. So in 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:38.400 camera effects is just basically messing with the way the 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:42.960 film is being produced inside the camera, not what's going 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.960 on in reality the film is capturing, but how the 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.080 film is actually capturing this stuff. 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.320 Yeah, slow motion is a special effect in camera special effect. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.160 Yeah, or fast motion too, which is ten times more 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.800 hilarious than fast motion if you ask me, like, where 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.200 would the Monsters be without fast motion? Yeah? 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.440 Or Benny Hill for God's sake, Sure that lived and 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.640 breathed on fast motion? What else can you do there? 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.040 You can? And we'll see this some some of the 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:15.040 early special effects, like stopping the film, changing something, starting 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:15.680 it again. 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.200 Like Bewitched appearing out of nowhere. 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.880 Yeah, that's a special in camera special effect. 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.600 Yeah. One thing that struck me about all this from 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:28.480 researching this is how the basis the foundation for special 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:35.040 effects was laid immediately upon like motion pictures being created. Yeah, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.960 like the whole industry, not even the industry before the 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.560 industry existed, but basically after the invention of motion pictures, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:47.080 and that it stayed virtually the same until the nineties. Uh. Yeah, 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.760 people refined it and got better at it, and techniques 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.120 got more the same. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.160 General crafts yeah, were used very much so, which is 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.440 why craft service is called craft service? Oh yeah, because 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.480 of each department is their own craft. I didn't know 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:05.080 they're there to serve them pizza rolls, yeah, man, or whatever. 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.280 You can put on some weight and film and something. 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:08.480 I'll tell you that for you can. 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.800 Oh my god, so stop motion animation. That is an 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:16.160 in camera effect. You're moving a little clay figure or whatever, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.880 a doll or a King Kong of raisin, one a 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.319 California raisin, one frame at a time, twenty four frames 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:22.840 per second. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.839 Can you imagine? Didn't you do that with your brother 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:26.200 with g I Joe? I did? 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.160 And then years later I did a little Star Wars 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.400 thing when I got a high eight video camera and 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.679 spent like three days working on something that ended up 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.000 being nine seconds long, and I said, I'm done. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.440 What's funny is you're going to get a seasoned desist 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:42.719 later from Lucasfilm after talking about this in the. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.800 Podcast Night and then we have post production effects, and 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.760 that is I think that's what a lot of people 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.640 think of as special effects these days, really, because that's 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.320 all the CGI stuff that you will see is all 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:55.439 happens in post production. 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.360 Okay, all right, yes, these days I got youa like, 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.480 almost all special effects happen impost these days. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.200 Right, Well, no, they still combined some of the old 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.600 crafts as well. But yeah, surely a lot of it 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:07.120 is CGI. 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.520 I mean, computers can do some amazing stuff. 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:09.960 They can. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.839 I mean, stuff that used to take months to do 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.760 a computer can do in hours now and do it 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.840 a million times better. Yeah, so depending on your taste, 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.640 I should say, that's right. So those are the big 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:28.080 three practical in camera and post production. And like I 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:33.280 was saying, like the basis of special effects was founded, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.360 like in the nineteenth century, there were just some people 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.280 who had kind of followed in a tradition of still photography. 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.160 Still photographers by that time had already figured out some 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.240 cool stuff that you could do messing around with cameras, 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.160 something like double exposure, where you take a picture of 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:52.839 one thing and then take a picture of another thing 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.840 with the previously exposed film, and all of a sudden, 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.760 it looks like there's a ghost looming behind you. Stuff 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.000 like that. So out of the gate, when motion pictures 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.199 were beat started to become a little widespread and people 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.800 could afford them and try messing around with them. They 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.760 had a basis of trickery to begin with. But there's 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.160 a lot of stuff you can do with motion picture 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.200 cameras that you can't do with still photo cameras. And 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.040 they figured this out right away. 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.880 Yeah. That first guy who's credited as the first special 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.280 effect is Alfred Clark. And they don't have the year 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.280 exactly right. It's either ninety three, that's eighteen ninety three, yeah, 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.240 or eighteen ninety five. He made a short film called 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.160 The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scott's, and he did 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.480 that little stop trick, like I was saying, you shoot something, 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.440 you stop the camera, you replace it, or you remove something, 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.000 and then you start the camera and in real time 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.400 when you go to play it back, it's seamless, right. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:51.120 And in his case, did you look at it? 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:52.760 Did you want to? Did you see that one? 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.520 It's he uses a stop trick with Mary getting beheaded, 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.640 and right when the acts fought is going to fall, 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:02.880 you know, he switches her out for a dummy, then 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:04.880 starts the camera back up and he chops the dummy's 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.720 head off, and it's it looks pretty good, like you 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.880 can't there's no big weird jump. He did for eighteen 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:12.400 ninety three did a really good job. 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.440 Yeah, and the key to that is just making sure 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.839 that no one touches the camera or even breathes on it, 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.640 don't move, and then getting the dummy in the same 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:22.439 position as the actor. 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:24.600 Yeah. And in fact, as we'll talk about later with 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.600 Matt Paintings, it's so crucial that the camera not move 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.440 that one technique was they used to bury the camera 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.240 tripod like a couple of feet into the earth, just 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.600 to make sure, like, no dumb dumb pa bumps into it. 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:40.880 Not me. So. 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.960 Alfred Clark is credited with the first special effect, but 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.120 a guy named George may Leise did they get it? 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:50.480 May Lee? 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:52.720 We should go ask Casey Pegram. 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:53.920 Oh yeah, he would know. 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:55.959 I think it's uh Milliere. 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:02.319 Oh nice, I think he just nailed it. Georgier. At 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.760 any rate, this guy is known as the father of 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:05.600 special effects. 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:06.080 Yeah. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:10.319 He was very early on doing stuff that no one 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.360 else was doing. You know. Granted there were very few 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.040 people working in this. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.000 Field, and none of the five people did. 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.600 But he was an illusionist and he said, oh man, 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.160 I can really do some amazing tricks with this camera. 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.560 And he really put it to good use from a 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.160 very early like I mean turned to the last century. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.520 Yeah, he actually stumbled upon that little stop trick by accident. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.800 When he was shooting a street traffic scene in Paris 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.360 in eighteen ninety six. The camera jams while I think 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:44.079 a bus was coming across frame. He's like, mad, fixes 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:45.840 the camera. Can we say that? 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:46.280 Sure? 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:46.720 All right? 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:48.680 We don't have any French people sitting? 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.880 Yeah, that's true, starts the camera back up, and of 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.480 course there's different things happening, and then when he went 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.760 back to look at it, it's he kind of just 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.360 stumbled upon this weird little substitution splice that became part 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:01.920 of filmmaking. 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.160 Yeah, because by the time the camera had started up again, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.480 the bus was replaced by a hearse. So it looked 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.760 like when he went back and watched it, the bus 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.839 suddenly transformed into a hearse And. 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:13.760 He said, wait till they get a load of bewitched 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.600 seventy something years from now. So or no, I guess 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.359 what was that in the fifties, sixties, sixties. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.280 All right, So you may not recognize George Meliais, Oh 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.600 I got at that time, I think so name, but 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.800 you probably have heard of his work, like A Trip 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.520 to the Moon. Yeah, what's very widely sighted. Is like 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.760 one of the first actual movies. I think it was 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.080 in the twenty something minute range. But it was about 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.320 some explorers in the Victorian era getting in a rocket 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.720 and traveling to the moon and the rocket lands and 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.520 the man in the Moon's eye. Everybody's seen that. I 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.160 don't care who you are. If you say you haven't, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.560 you have. This was the guy who made that. And 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.040 this is a very early movie. It was from nineteen 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.040 oh two, but he was doing all sorts of a 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:05.720 man stuff. He was using extensive costuming, masks, all sorts 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:07.800 of in camera techniques. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:08.800 His painting on film frames. 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.640 Yeah, and this is nineteen oh two, and like I 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.480 was saying, this stuff was refined, but it was the 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.560 basis of special effects for the next century to come. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:21.480 Should we take a quick break? I think so, all right, 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:23.720 let's take a quick break and we will talk a 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.600 little bit about the MAT technique right after this. 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:54.520 I'm actually pretty psyched about this, all right, Chuck, As 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.240 I said, I'm very psyched about the MAT. 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.480 Yeah. So this isn't This is a little confusing the 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.640 way it's laid out here, because what Ed's talking about 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.400 here with Norman Down is called original negative matte painting. 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.200 If you hear of a matte painting, that is a 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.200 piece of glass where you have and I'm going to 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.240 talk about the most common way you might see it 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.440 employed is you take a big piece of glass and 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.000 you paint like a city scape on it, like really realistic, 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.040 and then you put that in a scene and shoot it. 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.200 So it's instead of having someone in front of a 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.400 city and this was pre blue screen and green screen technology, 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.640 you would just put Kurt Russell and Escape from New 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.600 York in a field and there's a matte painting of 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.080 New York City behind him and it looks great. And 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.080 James Cameron painted that and Escape from New York. He 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:51.720 was a matte painter. 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:52.720 Oh, I didn't know that. 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:54.000 That was like his first job. 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.000 It's nat like if you, if you even if you 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:58.960 do know what Chuck's talking about, go to the internet 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.040 and just look up like matte paintings. 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:01.680 It's amazing. 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.040 There's a lot of really wonderful ones, one you've seen before, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.560 ones you haven't. But basically, anytime you've seen a movie 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:15.399 pre nineteen ninety three, maybe nineteen ninety where somebody walks 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:19.560 into this enormous place or this amazingly elaborate future city 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.240 or something like that. What you're actually looking at is 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:26.159 an expertly painted painting that has been messed with in 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.280 post production or using an in camera technique to make 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.080 it look like it's alive or actually, you know, bustling 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.520 or energetic or there. But it's really it's a painting. 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.920 It's a painting that some amazing human being painted by hand. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.359 Yeah, and we should point out they still do this today, 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.520 they just do it digitally and digital matte painters are 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.080 super talented as well. Sure, but it's kind of neat 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.399 to think about that old craft and James Cameron painting 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.080 a piece of glass, yeah, and sticking that behind Kurt Russell. 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.480 And I mean it was used in everything like I 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:03.320 for my money, matt painting is the single most important 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.199 and widespread special effect ever. Maybe hard to argue that, 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.600 thank you, Like it was in Mary Poppins. When Mary 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:13.919 Poppins is coming into the City of London floating, that's 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.600 a matte painting. When Superman walks into the where's the 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:20.919 what's the name of the place where he's from, the 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:22.360 Crystal Cave. 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.760 Where Fortress of Solitude? 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.479 Yeah, is that where he talks with with Marlon Brando, 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.399 his dad. Uh yeah, I think so, okay, that's a 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:33.520 matte painting, and. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.560 I think the Fortress of Solitude are the remnants of Krypton. Okay, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.080 I'm boy, Superman. People are so mad at me right now. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:41.960 People still I thought everybody's on the marble train. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.720 No, people love Superman the comics. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.640 Oh okay, because I was gonna say, I mean, you've 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.920 seen what they've done Superman lately, right and Batman? 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.679 Yeah? So, uh, that's the matte painting. And what that 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.440 is it's called set extension. So that basically means you're 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.080 just sort of extending the life set to make something 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.560 bigger and more opulent, or maybe not more obvious, just 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.840 bigger and more. But here's the thing, relying on that 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.600 mate painter and having the glass there, and glass can 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.879 break and it can you know, on set with lighting 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.200 can be weird. So that's all can get a little hinky. 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.720 So that's why this technique called original negative matt painting 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:29.040 was developed by Norman Don and that is when nowadays 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.440 he'll use what's called the mat box, which is literally 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.000 like black I don't think it's cardboard these days, but 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.639 whatever they make out of a cardboard thing that you 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.000 put over the lens to block out whatever you want 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.800 to block out. Back in the day, they would paint 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.000 cardboard and hold it in front of the lens, or 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.800 they would actually paint the lens. And what you're essentially 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.640 doing is painting away. It was early green screen. You're 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.719 painting away what you don't want in the frame or 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.679 what you want in the future, and then adding that 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:01.199 later on. 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.120 Right, And because it's black or because it's covered, there's 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.080 light is not hitting that part of the film. That 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.399 part of the film, the actual film strip itself that 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:16.600 you're recording onto or filming onto, that's unexposed. All that 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.600 gets exposed is the part of the lens or the 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.120 camera that is not covered that has say, your actor 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.520 like doing the herky jerky dance, right. And then so 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:28.800 what you do after that is you take that film 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.240 that has your actor doing the herky jerky dance projected 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.040 onto a screen so you see where the actor is, yes, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.719 and on the screen, you literally paint the background that 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.520 you want. Then you film the whole thing a second time, 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.159 and now you have your actor in the set that 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:47.720 you originally wanted. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.640 Right, The only difference there, which is something that wasn't 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.240 quite right here, is they don't like project it. They 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.280 just develop a few frames of it and project it 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.840 like a slidetch. So it's not like the camera the 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.879 film is moving through on the wall, right, because in 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.040 the article here says and then you just stop it, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.879 and what happens if you do that is the bulb 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.679 burns the film. Okay, so you can't just stop a 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:13.399 pretty projector. 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:14.919 You produced like a slide of him project that. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:16.720 Yeah, and then you paint in the castle or the 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.600 mountain or the whatever you want, and then you go 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.560 back and expose it again. Yep, pretty neat. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.119 You just open your trench coat. There you go. 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.399 And the big innovator with the original negative matte painting 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:35.520 was Norman don and he really like really led the way. 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.640 But I mean again, most of the stuff that does 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.800 this now is done by computers imposed. But this is 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.480 like the links people were going to to make movies 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:47.920 at the time, and you watch them today and you're like, god, 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.720 it looks terrible. But if you stop and think about 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.280 the effort that they were going to they were inventing this, yeah, 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.600 it's just mind boggling. That they managed to get it, 0:21:57.920 --> 0:21:58.960 you know to this point. 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.919 Yeah, Norman Don tried to patent that technique as well, 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.120 but they said, no, you did not invent this, You 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.000 popularized it, and you can't patent something that you made 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:09.720 super popular. 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.240 There are some other stuff too. There's like rear projection 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.040 in front projection, which is basically like projecting the background 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:21.000 and moving background onto a screen behind the actors. Yeah, 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.800 basically you know all those hokey driving scenes. Yeah, yeah, 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.240 the person's great, the car is being rocked or whatever 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:28.680 the road behind them, that's front of rear projection. 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:32.600 Yeah, and people still will use that as homage, like 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.840 in pulp fiction, very famously Bruce Willis or I guess not, Yeah, 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:38.840 when Bruce Willis gets in the cab after the fight. 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:39.640 Yeah. 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:42.760 And if it looks old fashioned, this because QT used 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.440 rear screen projection for that. And there's also a technique 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:49.160 that's not in here that I just remembered, so I'm 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.600 actually having to look up what it's called. When you're 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.960 in a car scene but you're not doing a rear 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:59.600 screen projection. So what happens here is you're sitting in 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:01.359 a car in a still car on the set but 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.359 they're not projecting anything behind you. What you've got is 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:07.399 two people shaking the car at a frame. 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:09.080 What do you make grips? 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.280 Yeah, usually a grip, but I've shaken cars and trains before. 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.080 It's because I'm just a body on the set, like 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:17.399 get in there and shake that thing. In fact, one 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:19.200 job I was on there was a faked subway train 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.400 and the hydraulics broke early on and they're like, bring 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:24.719 out the PA's you're gonna shake this train for twelve hours. 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:26.840 Like you got rhythm, get in there. 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:29.040 Yeah. Oh, we couldn't have too much rhythm because we 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.880 got yelled at for that because it looked too rhythmic. 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:35.320 So we're like, I don't know what, I don't know 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:35.879 how to do this. 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:37.680 Who are you working for? Oh? 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:40.399 It was just a commercial director that said that our 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.639 movement of the train looked to rhythmic and not believable. 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:47.840 So anyway, this Fruit of the Loom's commercial was totally unbelievable. 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:50.720 You sit in the car, you're acting like you're driving. 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.120 There's someone else shaking the car. There might be someone 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:59.120 else off camera, like flashing a light through the car 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:01.719 like you're going by a street light. Or a headlight 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:04.360 goes across their face, and there may be fake rain 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:07.120 in the background. And this is sometimes like six seven 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.159 eight people working in concert to make it look like 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:12.000 you're driving at night in the rain or something like that. 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:15.040 Right, so there's really an obvious background trees or rode 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:17.440 or whatever, but maybe there's headlights coming up behind you. 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.600 Is dark, yeah, but there are people with a spotlight. 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:20.960 Yeah. 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.919 It's really really cool, old fashioned, but people still use 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.960 that stuff. And I wish I could remember the full 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:28.880 name of that technique. 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:32.320 The shaken shimmy. 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:34.840 I'm gonna be so mad later on. 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:36.720 What was this called the shake and shimmy? 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:37.640 Okay, that's right. 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:41.840 So you talked about green screen, and that's actually super 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:47.120 old too. There's a really convoluted explanation about how originally 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:53.360 green screen employed sodium vapor lights, yeah, which would actually 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:59.680 mess with the yellow exposure on pan chromatic film, and 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:02.320 my brain I started bleeding out of my ear. I 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:04.960 cannot tell you how many times I read descriptions about 0:25:04.960 --> 0:25:08.399 this and I can't quite get it. So suffice to 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:11.679 say that that was one technique for green screen. What 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:15.639 really kind of changed the industry is when they figured 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:19.960 out that again, if you if you film in black, 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:25.680 the film is not going to be exposed, so anything 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:29.200 you go and re expose it to it will cover 0:25:29.280 --> 0:25:32.600 over that stuff like it's transparent. So for example, in 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:36.320 The Invisible Man from I think nineteen thirty thirty three, yeah, 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:41.960 Claude Rains wore a black bodysuit and the background was black. 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:44.399 It was a black screen, like a black green screen. 0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:49.199 But he wore clothes and everything in bandages and sunglasses 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:51.399 and I think he smoked a cigarette or whatever. But 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:54.000 when he took the bandages off and we took his 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:57.240 sunglasses and closed off, there was nothing there. It was 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.760 a black bodysuit and a black background. So when they 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:05.399 filmed the background later on, all you could see was 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:08.240 the background in the clothes and the bandages. It looked 0:26:08.280 --> 0:26:10.560 like there was nothing there because as far as the 0:26:10.640 --> 0:26:13.240 film was concerned, when they were filming it, there wasn't 0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:16.160 anything there. So the film wasn't exposed in those sections 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:16.879 on each frame. 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:19.800 That's right, and that's called the Williams process. And a 0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:22.440 key part of the Williams process is the optical printer, 0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:25.480 and that is a projector that actually prints an image 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:28.560 directly onto the film that runs through the camera while 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:30.120 that printer and camera are synced up. 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:32.920 Yes, so this is to me the optical printer is 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:38.919 the second most widespread and useful special effect technique in 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:39.840 the history of film. 0:26:40.440 --> 0:26:43.400 You just waved your hand. 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:44.760 I suddenly had an ass gotten a ver aon. 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:48.080 Yeah. Hard to argue that too. But all this stuff 0:26:48.119 --> 0:26:50.479 was just precursor to what was blue screen early on 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:54.320 Chroma Key blue and then later became Chroma Key green. 0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:57.760 I'm not sure why they made the switch actually, other 0:26:57.800 --> 0:27:01.359 than maybe the green or less use. I think so. 0:27:01.560 --> 0:27:04.399 Probably maybe the blue was because you know what, you 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:09.119 don't want anything close to that color will disappear against 0:27:09.119 --> 0:27:09.840 the green screen. 0:27:10.080 --> 0:27:13.000 Anyone who's ever done the weather on the newscast can 0:27:13.040 --> 0:27:13.360 tell you. 0:27:13.359 --> 0:27:15.679 That, Yeah, there have been. There are blueper reels of 0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:18.480 weather people disappearing when they wear like a green jacket 0:27:18.560 --> 0:27:18.879 or something. 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:21.560 Right, it looks like the weather's going on through their body. 0:27:22.160 --> 0:27:24.719 Same thing. So I want to say one more thing 0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:28.000 about optical printers, or another little bit about it. Sure, So, 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:31.239 what you have is a projector projecting a film on 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:36.320 to a screen, and you have a camera recording what's 0:27:36.320 --> 0:27:39.399 being projected. Right, that's right. That's the optical printer, and 0:27:39.440 --> 0:27:41.359 you could do all sorts of stuff with that. So 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:43.920 let's say you have a shot where you have one 0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:47.600 mat in the foreground and live actor and then another 0:27:47.640 --> 0:27:50.320 mat in the background that has a bunch of different 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:53.399 people in it or something like that, or stormtroopers three. Okay, 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:56.360 so you got three different elements to that shot. What 0:27:56.400 --> 0:27:59.800 you would do is using the same film film each. 0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:03.840 So you go film that, like the actor, the live 0:28:03.880 --> 0:28:06.240 action actor, you've got that on the film, and you 0:28:06.320 --> 0:28:10.119 project that, and you take film where you're filming the 0:28:10.200 --> 0:28:14.520 mat and you project that and film that. I just 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:17.119 totally have screwed this up. Oh my god, this is 0:28:17.240 --> 0:28:22.360 just like ohn, No, it's worse than that. Was it 0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:27.639 false false positives? Do you remember that time where I 0:28:27.760 --> 0:28:29.560 was like I took a pretty simple thing and just 0:28:29.680 --> 0:28:33.920 completely walk the dog with it. Yeah, okay, well I'll 0:28:34.000 --> 0:28:36.159 just do that again. Everyone. I want you to go 0:28:36.200 --> 0:28:38.480 look up optical printers, read a little bit about them, 0:28:38.640 --> 0:28:40.160 and then you'll say, oh, Josh. 0:28:40.040 --> 0:28:42.680 Is yeah this tough stuff. 0:28:43.640 --> 0:28:46.720 It is essentially you're filming a projection and you can 0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:49.600 do that multiple times with the same film, and it 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:52.680 adds up to where you have the shot you wanted, 0:28:52.680 --> 0:28:54.600 where it makes it look like all these things that 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:58.239 you film three separate times are all happening together in 0:28:58.320 --> 0:28:59.040 one space. 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:02.520 Yes, you're mayor bringing separate images together onto a single 0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:03.120 piece of film. 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:06.280 Right. You couldn't do that with before optical printers, which 0:29:06.320 --> 0:29:09.200 is a projector in a camera working together. 0:29:09.960 --> 0:29:14.400 That's right, Okay, I think I needed that We should 0:29:14.400 --> 0:29:18.840 mention briefly motion controlled cameras. This is a system that 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:23.880 allows it's basically taking the person out of the equation. 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:26.280 There is not a person pushing a dolly. There is 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:28.840 not a person moving the camera. It is a machine 0:29:28.840 --> 0:29:33.800 that is programmed to move a camera through space very 0:29:33.920 --> 0:29:36.720 very precisely and exactly the same every single time. 0:29:36.800 --> 0:29:39.160 Yeah, so you can do the exact same motion over 0:29:39.200 --> 0:29:39.560 and over. 0:29:39.480 --> 0:29:41.480 Again, over and over, and a lot of times if 0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:43.720 you're on a TV commercial, as boring as that is, 0:29:43.800 --> 0:29:46.560 you will see stuff like this, for like a food shoot, 0:29:47.560 --> 0:29:51.240 because food shoots are notoriously tricky because everything's super close 0:29:51.320 --> 0:29:53.840 up and has to be perfect and you can't be 0:29:53.920 --> 0:29:55.320 off a little bit with a camera because a lot 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:57.880 of times you'll sub in stuff later and post and 0:29:57.920 --> 0:30:00.920 that's The whole reason for a moment control is to 0:30:01.440 --> 0:30:04.760 replicate moves with exact precision. 0:30:05.120 --> 0:30:08.920 So I was reading about industrial light and magic using 0:30:08.960 --> 0:30:11.840 this to really great effect with the first Star Wars, 0:30:12.200 --> 0:30:15.320 which is episode four, right, the New Hope. That's the 0:30:15.320 --> 0:30:17.720 first one, right right. 0:30:18.000 --> 0:30:20.200 I'm not confirming or denying anything. I'm just gonna let 0:30:20.200 --> 0:30:20.560 that stand. 0:30:20.640 --> 0:30:23.520 Episode four is the first Star Wars movie that ever 0:30:23.600 --> 0:30:24.360 came out. 0:30:24.680 --> 0:30:28.480 Correct, The Star Wars A New Hope is the first 0:30:28.560 --> 0:30:31.280 episode okay, that I ever saw in a movie theater. 0:30:31.320 --> 0:30:33.520 Because it's the first one that ever came out. Anyway. 0:30:33.520 --> 0:30:35.880 When they were making this, you know, is it a 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:41.000 Star Destroyer, the big the big daddy ships Okay, oh man, 0:30:41.000 --> 0:30:45.520 we're gonna get murdered everything. All of the ships and 0:30:45.560 --> 0:30:48.760 Star Wars were models, yes, fairly small models. Actually they 0:30:48.760 --> 0:30:50.760 were at that part base Okay, I think it was 0:30:50.800 --> 0:30:55.280 episode four, I'm almost positive. Okay, So those models were 0:30:55.280 --> 0:30:58.360 not moving in these shots and these enormous like huge 0:30:58.600 --> 0:31:02.880 panoramic shots where like there's Tie fighters flying around shooting 0:31:02.960 --> 0:31:06.840 everything and X Wing fighters shooting the tie fighters. None 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:10.440 of those models were moving. What happened was they figured 0:31:10.440 --> 0:31:13.520 out how to use motion controlled cameras so that the 0:31:14.200 --> 0:31:18.040 camera would go through the shot and around the model 0:31:18.360 --> 0:31:21.000 and make it look like the model was moving, and 0:31:21.040 --> 0:31:24.960 plus it was moving the shot through space. Right. The 0:31:25.040 --> 0:31:27.720 thing is is, let's say you have five different ships. 0:31:28.560 --> 0:31:32.040 You film those five ships separately, but those five ships 0:31:32.080 --> 0:31:34.120 are all going to be in the same shot. So 0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:37.840 you have to film that same shot the exact same 0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:40.800 way five different times and then run it through an 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:43.600 optical printer so that you can get all of them, 0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:46.840 all five shots onto the same strip of film. But 0:31:47.040 --> 0:31:52.080 that's one of the ways that motion controlled cameras were 0:31:52.120 --> 0:31:54.960 really put to good use, and it was extremely groundbreaking 0:31:55.480 --> 0:31:58.800 because not one of those ships were moving in reality 0:31:58.840 --> 0:32:00.480 when they were filming Star Wars Wars. 0:32:00.680 --> 0:32:01.880 Can you name five Star. 0:32:01.760 --> 0:32:04.840 Warships Tie Fighter, X, wing Fighter. 0:32:06.200 --> 0:32:08.240 You already said one my tie fighter too. 0:32:09.000 --> 0:32:12.280 Uh huh. The deuce is what the people in the 0:32:12.320 --> 0:32:12.920 no call. 0:32:12.760 --> 0:32:17.720 It s the Uh you already said star destroyer. So 0:32:17.760 --> 0:32:20.520 star destroyer was right, Yeah, there's a star destroyer. Okay, 0:32:20.560 --> 0:32:22.640 you made a face like I was just totally off. 0:32:23.840 --> 0:32:26.600 You could make the case that Indoor was a ship 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:27.680 even though it was a planet. 0:32:28.640 --> 0:32:33.880 Uh, there was the the the forest Speeder uh huh, 0:32:33.920 --> 0:32:41.800 the the pod racer. Yeah, and doctors. 0:32:41.800 --> 0:32:44.360 Ayas that's right, he's a final ship. 0:32:44.480 --> 0:32:50.840 Yeah. Uh do you have many people? Boy, their calf 0:32:50.920 --> 0:32:53.240 muscles just popped right out of the back to their leg. 0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:55.720 Olly Fry is like hyperventilating somewhere in the office and 0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:59.920 she doesn't know why. So, as I said earlier, it's 0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:04.240 it's usually a combination of these different techniques to create 0:33:04.280 --> 0:33:08.840 one overall special effect using these different crafts. And a 0:33:08.880 --> 0:33:13.440 great example is Jurassic Park in the scene with the 0:33:13.520 --> 0:33:17.400 Veloci raptors in the kitchen, that great, great sequence when 0:33:17.440 --> 0:33:20.520 it was playing cat and mouse with those children. There 0:33:20.520 --> 0:33:25.360 were puppets, there were actors in costumes, there were animatronic 0:33:25.480 --> 0:33:29.880 raptor heads, and there were full cgi raptors and you 0:33:30.680 --> 0:33:32.840 throw this all in a hat, mix it all up, 0:33:33.000 --> 0:33:35.160 and it comes out to be like a really believable 0:33:35.200 --> 0:33:35.880 looking scene. 0:33:36.000 --> 0:33:37.640 Yeah, it comes out as an oscar. 0:33:40.000 --> 0:33:42.120 Yeah. I'm sure they won Oscars, right. 0:33:43.040 --> 0:33:45.560 They had two of I don't know, but there's just 0:33:45.640 --> 0:33:46.240 no way. 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:51.440 It was groundbreaking. I remember being just gobsmacked in the 0:33:51.480 --> 0:33:54.320 movie theater. Yeah, when I first saw those dinosaurs walking 0:33:54.320 --> 0:33:55.320 across the screen. 0:33:55.120 --> 0:33:56.960 And that was nineteen ninety three. I believe for the 0:33:56.960 --> 0:34:00.760 first Jurassic Park, right, Jurassic Park, A new hope, the 0:34:00.760 --> 0:34:05.080 first one that came out. So, but that was five 0:34:05.160 --> 0:34:08.440 years after the first OSCAR had been awarded for special effects. 0:34:08.480 --> 0:34:11.000 As far as I know, uh, really, I believe that 0:34:11.440 --> 0:34:14.840 The Abyss was the first one to win an OSCAR 0:34:14.920 --> 0:34:18.520 for special effects. Maybe or they're no, No, I'm sorry, 0:34:18.600 --> 0:34:22.160 I'm way off, way off. The Abyss was the first 0:34:22.880 --> 0:34:26.120 movie to win a special effect for a CGI effect. 0:34:26.320 --> 0:34:30.000 Okay, remember the water Sure still looks pretty good. 0:34:30.120 --> 0:34:33.040 It looks amazing. Yeah, this is nineteen eighty seven we're 0:34:33.080 --> 0:34:33.680 talking about. 0:34:33.760 --> 0:34:34.879 Wow was that when that came out? 0:34:35.000 --> 0:34:36.920 Yeah? I was surprised to see that too, because that 0:34:37.000 --> 0:34:39.400 holds up. I thought it was. Yeah, it's a good movie. 0:34:39.239 --> 0:34:40.720 I really like that movie. 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:45.200 How do you not like Ed Harris? You don't like what? 0:34:45.239 --> 0:34:46.360 Did you not like it? Hair? No? 0:34:46.480 --> 0:34:48.080 I like him as an actor. I think a lot 0:34:48.160 --> 0:34:50.520 of people might have problems with Ed Harris as a person. 0:34:50.560 --> 0:34:52.360 He's notoriously cantankerous. 0:34:52.960 --> 0:34:55.319 I've never heard that. I believe it. 0:34:55.400 --> 0:34:58.719 Sure, he looks like he could yell somebody down, didn't he? 0:34:58.840 --> 0:35:02.040 Sure? But he also keeps a cool head when he's 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:05.040 an actor as a seventies or sixties NASA guy. 0:35:05.239 --> 0:35:08.560 Hey, I love it, Harris. All right, let's take another break, okay, 0:35:08.719 --> 0:35:11.480 and we're going to come back and talk a little 0:35:11.480 --> 0:35:41.280 bit about Star Wars episode whatever right after this. Okay, 0:35:41.360 --> 0:35:43.600 we're back, and we should talk. We should mention the 0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:47.799 garbage Matt, real quick, because that is a big deal. 0:35:47.840 --> 0:35:49.920 A lot of times you have wire work or you 0:35:49.960 --> 0:35:55.360 have you have things hanging from wires. It doesn't have 0:35:55.400 --> 0:35:57.920 to be a person. It can be like a model 0:35:57.960 --> 0:36:00.759 plane or a tie fighter or whatever. You got to 0:36:00.760 --> 0:36:03.719 get rid of those wires unless you're ed. Would you 0:36:03.719 --> 0:36:04.920 can't have fishing line. 0:36:05.200 --> 0:36:07.799 No, you're supposed to not, but yes. 0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:09.680 Or if you're Charlie's thrown in mad Max Ferry Road, 0:36:09.719 --> 0:36:12.319 you got to get rid of that arm. Or if 0:36:12.360 --> 0:36:13.920 you're in Forrest Gump, you got to get rid of 0:36:14.000 --> 0:36:16.120 Lieutenant Dan's legs. Man. 0:36:16.200 --> 0:36:19.040 That was amazing. That was the first time anybody's ever 0:36:19.080 --> 0:36:21.080 done really something like that throughout. 0:36:21.719 --> 0:36:24.800 Yeah. I have my problems with that movie for sure, 0:36:24.920 --> 0:36:27.719 and one of them is I think he way over it. 0:36:27.760 --> 0:36:29.800 He was like a kidney candy store and way overdid 0:36:29.840 --> 0:36:32.640 the like and now Forrest is in the White House 0:36:32.640 --> 0:36:35.640 and using archival footage and sticking Forest in it. 0:36:36.000 --> 0:36:38.959 Yeah, that whole half hour dialogue he has with Peter 0:36:39.080 --> 0:36:44.280 Cushing's ghost, it was uncanny. 0:36:45.520 --> 0:36:48.240 But I get it. I get why these filmmakers get excited, 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:51.240 these really technical wizards. Well, you get a new technique 0:36:51.239 --> 0:36:52.160 and they just hammer it. 0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:55.319 The guy from Industrial and Magic when they made the 0:36:55.360 --> 0:36:59.560 first Star Wars call it what you will. His name 0:36:59.640 --> 0:37:05.160 was John Dykstra, and this motion controlled camera assembly that 0:37:05.200 --> 0:37:09.080 they created was called Diystra Flex super Groundbreaking, and they 0:37:09.160 --> 0:37:11.480 really did amazing stuff with it. Well, he's like a 0:37:11.600 --> 0:37:14.640 legend in this industry now. And I saw an interview 0:37:14.640 --> 0:37:17.120 with him recently and he was like, I'm so tired 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:21.480 of seeing just whole cities leveled and like just the 0:37:21.480 --> 0:37:25.760 most amazing stuff you can possibly think of being done 0:37:25.880 --> 0:37:29.400 just because we can do it. He put it really, 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:33.319 really well. I think it's an embarrassment of riches. You know, 0:37:34.000 --> 0:37:36.440 like it can be done, so it's being done, everybody's 0:37:36.480 --> 0:37:39.800 doing it. It's just you know, like and it makes 0:37:39.840 --> 0:37:43.440 it less amazing, not necessarily because it looks bad. It 0:37:43.480 --> 0:37:46.040 just keeps looking better and better every time. Like if 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:50.360 you if you look at Charlie's Theren's prosthetic arm or 0:37:50.440 --> 0:37:53.600 missing army compared with Lieutenant Dan's missing. 0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:54.960 Legs looks radically different. 0:37:55.160 --> 0:37:58.319 It does. So it's getting better. There's just too much 0:37:58.320 --> 0:38:01.200 of it, I think is the point to just to 0:38:01.200 --> 0:38:02.640 be all Ed harrisy on this. 0:38:02.920 --> 0:38:06.319 No, I have long predicted a return to practical effects, really, 0:38:06.320 --> 0:38:08.120 and it's starting to happen a little bit more and more. 0:38:08.280 --> 0:38:11.319 Yeah, I could see starting with indie filmmakers, Yeah, for sure, 0:38:11.400 --> 0:38:17.680 which is funny because finally computer generated effects have trickled 0:38:17.680 --> 0:38:20.160 down enough. Yeah, like you or I could just walk 0:38:20.200 --> 0:38:22.640 out of the studio and probably get on any one 0:38:22.640 --> 0:38:25.759 of those macs out there and use stuff that ten 0:38:25.800 --> 0:38:28.840 to fifteen years ago, when we've lost five hundred thousand 0:38:28.840 --> 0:38:30.680 dollars to set up a rig like that. 0:38:30.920 --> 0:38:33.520 Yeah. And that's how some young filmmakers have gotten noticed 0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:37.360 is by making these short films with like zero money 0:38:37.440 --> 0:38:40.279 on their computer that get a lot of action on 0:38:40.320 --> 0:38:43.200 YouTube because it looks so amazing, and the studio will 0:38:43.200 --> 0:38:45.920 be like, sign that person up. Yeah, I can't remember 0:38:45.920 --> 0:38:48.160 the guy's name, but that's happened a couple of times 0:38:48.200 --> 0:38:53.319 in recent years to Ed Harris. We should talk about 0:38:53.360 --> 0:38:56.880 a few of the groundbreaking people over the years. Oh yes, 0:38:58.200 --> 0:38:59.759 we'll go through these a little quicker than what we 0:38:59.800 --> 0:39:02.080 have in front of us, I think, But we should 0:39:02.120 --> 0:39:07.440 mention Lon Cheney. Sure, one of the original superstars of 0:39:07.520 --> 0:39:10.280 film in the Silent era, the Man of a Thousand Faces. 0:39:10.960 --> 0:39:14.280 He was. He was very talented doing his own makeup 0:39:14.320 --> 0:39:17.000 and changing his face. That's why he's called the Man 0:39:17.000 --> 0:39:18.160 of a Thousand Faces. 0:39:18.719 --> 0:39:22.040 Right, He's like, here's nine hundred and ninety seven. 0:39:22.440 --> 0:39:23.640 What about Willis O'Brien. 0:39:24.080 --> 0:39:27.720 He was one of the pioneers of stop motion photography. Again, 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:30.720 if you're a California Racins fan, you have a lot 0:39:30.760 --> 0:39:32.239 to thank Willis O'Brien for. 0:39:32.440 --> 0:39:32.840 Yeah. 0:39:32.880 --> 0:39:36.359 He also this dude, the stuff he did. I mean, 0:39:36.400 --> 0:39:38.320 if you look back, he did King Kong, the nineteen 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:40.560 thirty three King Kong. Yeah, and if you look back 0:39:40.600 --> 0:39:44.719 at this, you're like, this is this is cool? But 0:39:44.800 --> 0:39:48.359 if you research what was done to create this, you're 0:39:48.480 --> 0:39:49.799 just blown away by it. 0:39:50.000 --> 0:39:55.120 Yeah. Again, many processes coming together to create that nineteen 0:39:55.160 --> 0:39:58.000 thirty three version of King Kong, and that fight looks 0:39:58.040 --> 0:40:01.279 good still, I mean it doesn't realistic, but consider the 0:40:01.360 --> 0:40:02.160 year it looks awesome. 0:40:02.280 --> 0:40:04.799 It does, and it's about three and a half minutes long, 0:40:04.880 --> 0:40:09.320 King Kong fighting the Tyrannosaurus Rex. But it took seven 0:40:09.360 --> 0:40:13.480 weeks to film. Yeah, because there's twenty four frames shot 0:40:13.600 --> 0:40:18.279 per second in a film, and for every frame, they 0:40:18.680 --> 0:40:22.480 moved the models a little bit here or there. Yeah, 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:25.520 so that's why it took seven weeks just for that 0:40:25.560 --> 0:40:27.759 fight scene. I think it was fifty five weeks for 0:40:27.880 --> 0:40:30.799 all of the stop motion photography that was done in 0:40:30.840 --> 0:40:31.320 that movie. 0:40:31.800 --> 0:40:33.280 Yeah, that's impressive. 0:40:33.400 --> 0:40:35.840 It really is impressive, especially when you realize the trouble 0:40:35.880 --> 0:40:37.400 they went to when you go back and watch it, 0:40:37.520 --> 0:40:38.720 like this is pretty nuts. 0:40:38.920 --> 0:40:42.400 Yeah. Ray Harry Housen continued the work of Willis O'Brien 0:40:43.040 --> 0:40:45.360 and very famously in like the fifties and sixties with 0:40:45.440 --> 0:40:47.600 movies like Jason and the Argonauts. 0:40:47.080 --> 0:40:49.840 And Clash of the Titans. Yeah, I remember Medusa Sure, 0:40:50.120 --> 0:40:51.000 Scary Lady. 0:40:51.160 --> 0:40:52.839 Yeah, that had to be toward the end of his career, 0:40:52.840 --> 0:40:54.040 I guess, because that was in the eighties. 0:40:54.200 --> 0:40:57.359 Yeah, I think like eighty one maybe remember The Minute 0:40:57.360 --> 0:40:59.480 Tar two Man. That was cool movie. 0:40:59.560 --> 0:41:01.399 That was a bit big movie for me as a kid. 0:41:01.600 --> 0:41:04.319 Yeah, and I was like when La Law came along, 0:41:04.360 --> 0:41:07.080 I was like, I know that guy. That's right, there's 0:41:07.120 --> 0:41:08.319 the Titans guy. 0:41:09.880 --> 0:41:12.920 We we should shout out Millicent Patrick. This is a 0:41:12.960 --> 0:41:16.719 very interesting story. She was one of the only, well 0:41:16.800 --> 0:41:19.480 first and only women working in special effects back in 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:23.080 the day. And she created the very famous mask of 0:41:23.280 --> 0:41:26.239 the gill Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon in 0:41:26.320 --> 0:41:31.560 the mid nineteen fifties and was unceremoniously fired, not. 0:41:31.640 --> 0:41:33.760 Just fired, stricken from the credits. 0:41:34.000 --> 0:41:36.520 Yeah, this guy named Bud Wes Moore. He assisted her 0:41:37.120 --> 0:41:40.279 and then basically had her fired rather than give her 0:41:40.320 --> 0:41:42.920 the credit for the mask, which he would take credit for. 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:45.040 Because I think he was the supervisor in charge of 0:41:45.080 --> 0:41:46.719 effects or costume or something. 0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:49.000 Oh I thought, I guess he assisted her, but he 0:41:49.120 --> 0:41:49.720 was her boss. 0:41:50.000 --> 0:41:53.399 Yeah, okay, But like she very clearly on her own 0:41:53.480 --> 0:41:56.000 came up with the gill Man for yeah, the creature 0:41:56.000 --> 0:41:56.200 from the. 0:41:56.320 --> 0:41:58.840 And this has only come out in the last few years. 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:03.080 They've kind of dug up the original stuff. And yeah, 0:42:03.120 --> 0:42:07.360 sexism just basically pushed her out of the industry altogether. Yeah, 0:42:07.440 --> 0:42:07.919 very sad. 0:42:08.120 --> 0:42:10.279 She's starting to get her due now though, which is good. 0:42:10.480 --> 0:42:11.359 Yeah, that is very good. 0:42:12.480 --> 0:42:14.880 There's Dick Smith is amazing. 0:42:15.120 --> 0:42:16.080 He created the squib. 0:42:16.840 --> 0:42:20.040 Oh really, yeah, he's a he's a very famous makeup artist. 0:42:20.040 --> 0:42:22.040 He's really good at making people look aged. 0:42:22.719 --> 0:42:26.239 Yeah. He made forty seven year old Marlon Brando look 0:42:26.680 --> 0:42:30.400 much over five than The Godfather. Oh yeah, yeah, he 0:42:30.440 --> 0:42:32.480 was only he was a year younger than me. Brando. 0:42:33.040 --> 0:42:33.960 I never thought about that. 0:42:33.960 --> 0:42:34.399 That nuts. 0:42:34.400 --> 0:42:36.960 Wow, he really is good. He also did Death Becomes Her, 0:42:37.000 --> 0:42:38.759 which is one of the all time great. 0:42:38.520 --> 0:42:43.000 Movies, yeah, for sure. And The Exorcists yep, and Scanners. 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:45.759 And have you ever seen Ghost Story from nineteen eighty one? 0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:49.120 Oh yeah, yeah, very scary movie. The old dudes he did, 0:42:49.360 --> 0:42:49.759 he did that? 0:42:50.840 --> 0:42:53.960 What else? Very famously aged Dustin Hoffman a little big 0:42:53.960 --> 0:42:55.920 man by many many years. 0:42:56.120 --> 0:42:56.400 Sure. 0:42:56.960 --> 0:43:02.040 And then in the last like twenty five thirty years, 0:43:03.160 --> 0:43:05.200 Rick Baker and stan Winston. 0:43:05.280 --> 0:43:07.680 Stan Winston's He's got my vote. 0:43:07.800 --> 0:43:12.440 Yeah, I mean these two guys were both just creative 0:43:12.520 --> 0:43:17.040 leaders in the industry and trailblazers in the industry, and 0:43:17.520 --> 0:43:20.879 as Ed says in here, like mentored a generation of 0:43:21.080 --> 0:43:25.560 special effects employees, employees, creators, artists. 0:43:25.800 --> 0:43:29.280 Sure, all three of those lord gig workers. 0:43:30.040 --> 0:43:33.080 Rick Baker, American Werewolf in London in nineteen eighty one, 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:36.719 which still holds up. The thriller video in nineteen eighty three, 0:43:36.840 --> 0:43:40.360 star Wars Moss Isley Cantina. He made all those. 0:43:40.440 --> 0:43:43.440 Yeah, did you know that about the Moss Eisley Cantina. Sure, 0:43:43.600 --> 0:43:47.279 I didn't know that. He was almost single handily responsible. Yeah, 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:47.839 for all of them. 0:43:47.880 --> 0:43:50.080 And then Stan Winston. You got to talk about movies 0:43:50.120 --> 0:43:53.200 like The Thing and Predator and Terminator and they both 0:43:53.239 --> 0:43:55.640 have set up, you know, foundations and schools and things 0:43:55.680 --> 0:43:55.920 like that. 0:43:56.280 --> 0:44:00.759 Stan Winston also did the makeup for what I think 0:44:00.880 --> 0:44:03.960 is maybe the best slash film of all time, Friday 0:44:03.960 --> 0:44:04.919 the Thirteenth Part two. 0:44:05.920 --> 0:44:09.080 Yeah, two is when Jason comes along, right, Yes. 0:44:08.920 --> 0:44:11.560 It's Jason before he got his mask. He gets his 0:44:11.640 --> 0:44:14.200 mask in three. I think the Fire the Thirteenth franchise 0:44:14.280 --> 0:44:15.880 is as good as it gets for horror movies. 0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:18.000 I dropped off at a certain point. Did you see 0:44:18.040 --> 0:44:18.520 all those? 0:44:18.800 --> 0:44:20.640 No? No, I still haven't seen all of them, but 0:44:20.760 --> 0:44:24.960 even just putting like the first five or six up, Yeah, 0:44:25.040 --> 0:44:27.600 I think it's like watching him again as an adult. 0:44:27.600 --> 0:44:30.520 I'm like, these are really good, Yeah, scarcier films, like 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:34.200 even better than I remember for Me and a Kid. Yeah, 0:44:34.239 --> 0:44:36.880 And the reason Stan Winston filled in for Friday the 0:44:36.920 --> 0:44:39.200 Thirteenth Part two is because the guy who did Frida 0:44:39.320 --> 0:44:43.040 Thirteenth the first one, Tom Savini, was unavailable. He was 0:44:43.040 --> 0:44:46.600 off doing creep Show, I believe. But Tom Savini's another legend. 0:44:46.800 --> 0:44:49.000 I think they're redoing creep Show, are they? 0:44:49.600 --> 0:44:50.080 Okay? 0:44:50.120 --> 0:44:53.080 I'd watched that different stories? Oh even better, I think 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:56.160 if I'm not mistaken. Nice, But yeah, Savini is well 0:44:56.200 --> 0:44:59.600 known for being sort of the godfather of Gore. 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:01.920 Yeah, he did Maniac Do you ever see that? 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:02.399 Yeah? 0:45:02.560 --> 0:45:05.680 That was off the Rocker movie. 0:45:06.320 --> 0:45:11.000 And then these days there are companies ILM and WETA. 0:45:11.440 --> 0:45:15.319 ILM Industrial Light and Magic is Lucas's company, and they're 0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:21.200 cool because they invented this stuff because Lucas needed stuff 0:45:21.200 --> 0:45:23.440 to be done that couldn't be done and he was like, 0:45:23.560 --> 0:45:25.719 go figure out how to do it, and they did, 0:45:25.840 --> 0:45:29.799 they really did. And then WETA is Peter Jackson's company, 0:45:29.840 --> 0:45:32.440 and he's the one that has really pioneered the mo 0:45:32.600 --> 0:45:34.720 cap the motion capture techniques. 0:45:35.160 --> 0:45:37.920 Where a person's wearing like a suit and the suit 0:45:37.960 --> 0:45:40.480 has a bunch of different kind of like almost ping 0:45:40.560 --> 0:45:43.640 pong balls. All over it. Yeah, at like joints and 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:47.680 crucial places where the body moves and the actor, stunt 0:45:47.719 --> 0:45:50.839 person or dance or whoever wearing the suit goes through 0:45:50.840 --> 0:45:52.239 the motions, and. 0:45:52.160 --> 0:45:54.080 Then they're just going through the motions. 0:45:54.120 --> 0:45:57.759 Sure, and that those motions that what's captured is fed 0:45:57.800 --> 0:46:00.680 into a computer and the computer generates a care doing 0:46:00.719 --> 0:46:03.120 all those same motions, creating the performance. But it's a 0:46:03.160 --> 0:46:05.040 computer generated character. Yeah. 0:46:05.080 --> 0:46:07.560 I don't think he was the first, but the Gollum 0:46:07.680 --> 0:46:11.160 character in those Lord of the Rings movies was really 0:46:11.160 --> 0:46:15.680 one of the first, really terrific looking fully CGI character. 0:46:16.040 --> 0:46:19.280 Yeah, I found, from what I could tell, the first 0:46:19.840 --> 0:46:23.600 full CGI character ever in a movie. You want to guess, 0:46:23.680 --> 0:46:24.839 you'll never guess. 0:46:25.360 --> 0:46:27.560 Well, I mean it's touted as Indiana Jones in The 0:46:27.640 --> 0:46:31.680 Last Crusade. Wrong, really, what is it going to be? 0:46:31.760 --> 0:46:36.480 It's another Spielberg movie. Okay, it's young Sherlock Holmes. Well 0:46:36.560 --> 0:46:38.759 you remember the Stained Glass Night that comes to life 0:46:38.800 --> 0:46:41.560 and tries to slash one of them with his sword. 0:46:41.719 --> 0:46:41.959 Huh. 0:46:42.440 --> 0:46:44.960 First full CGI character in a movie? 0:46:45.080 --> 0:46:45.279 Well? 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:49.120 Why, I don't know, but that's what I could find, 0:46:49.160 --> 0:46:50.640 and that one's from nineteen eighty five. 0:46:51.520 --> 0:46:56.239 Well, it says maybe there's it's in the nitpicky language 0:46:56.280 --> 0:47:01.440 because in the Last Crusade when Walter Donovan's face melts 0:47:01.600 --> 0:47:04.040 and turns to dust when he drinks from the jalice. 0:47:04.040 --> 0:47:07.239 That's in. That's in writers of the Lost Arc, isn't it? 0:47:07.360 --> 0:47:08.160 Oh No, you're right, you're right. 0:47:09.440 --> 0:47:12.400 It says here it was the first ever digital composite 0:47:12.800 --> 0:47:14.719 of a full screen live action image. 0:47:15.800 --> 0:47:17.239 There's something in the language there. 0:47:17.280 --> 0:47:20.080 Yeah, it was a full screen or something. This was 0:47:20.160 --> 0:47:20.960 the gotcha. 0:47:21.080 --> 0:47:25.200 This was the first CGI, but it wasn't the first 0:47:25.560 --> 0:47:29.360 CGI image. This is the first moving CGI image. The 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:33.000 first CGI image was in Looker. Remember that movie. 0:47:33.120 --> 0:47:36.719 I totally saw Looker. Yeah, that was a big HBO movie. 0:47:36.440 --> 0:47:39.360 For me for sure. Same here it was Looker Runaway. 0:47:39.560 --> 0:47:42.959 Uh huh Krall Runaway. It's Tom Selleck, yeah, and Gene 0:47:42.960 --> 0:47:45.759 Simmons yea in the band. That's right, that's all Kroll 0:47:45.840 --> 0:47:49.279 a lot too. Oh yeah, lookerhead Albert Finnie, right, if 0:47:49.280 --> 0:47:50.359 I remember correctly. 0:47:50.040 --> 0:47:53.480 Albert Finnie and Susan Day. Yeah, Susan Day, yeah right, 0:47:53.560 --> 0:47:54.760 written by Michael Crichton. 0:47:54.760 --> 0:47:56.759 I think that was the first full body three D 0:47:56.960 --> 0:48:00.600 human but it did not move. It was static. Yeah, 0:48:00.640 --> 0:48:05.240 and the very first computer generated effects period, funny enough, 0:48:05.960 --> 0:48:09.919 were used to replicate computer screens. So whenever you would 0:48:09.920 --> 0:48:13.200 see a computer screen in like Westworld or Aliens or 0:48:13.239 --> 0:48:15.800 Star Wars, and they were like, what is the computer 0:48:16.120 --> 0:48:19.560 going to look like? You know? Not? Now, that was 0:48:19.640 --> 0:48:22.520 the first time they used computer generated imaging was to yeah, 0:48:22.880 --> 0:48:24.360 make a fake computer screen. 0:48:24.719 --> 0:48:29.080 And the first full CGI scene ever done was in 0:48:29.080 --> 0:48:31.480 The Wrath of Khan, which I believe came out in 0:48:31.560 --> 0:48:35.360 nineteen eighty two. But there's a genesis like Earth being 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:38.400 you know, like cooling and turning into the Earth, and 0:48:38.400 --> 0:48:41.880 there's this amazing shots around it. That's all CGI. And 0:48:41.920 --> 0:48:45.719 that was the first one, and Tron I thought for 0:48:45.760 --> 0:48:49.040 sure Tron would have been among the first. Apparently most 0:48:49.040 --> 0:48:52.640 of that was animated by humans, not computers. That's right, 0:48:53.040 --> 0:48:56.520 The like all the glowing lines, all that stuff animated, 0:48:56.760 --> 0:48:59.440 which makes it nuts that they were able to create that. 0:48:59.719 --> 0:49:03.719 Yeah. Now the big thing is is de aging technique 0:49:03.719 --> 0:49:05.040 that they're getting better and better. 0:49:05.239 --> 0:49:06.040 Yeah, they really are. 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:09.719 Yeah. So the new Scorsese picked the Irishman I think 0:49:09.800 --> 0:49:12.120 d ages and it has taken a long time to 0:49:12.160 --> 0:49:14.319 get out because it's the d aging didn't look good 0:49:14.400 --> 0:49:18.120 enough for Scorsese, so they have d aged de Naro. 0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:21.839 And then I saw this new Angle movie, Gemini Man, 0:49:22.440 --> 0:49:26.560 where Will Smith of now he plays an assassin and 0:49:26.600 --> 0:49:31.480 he has to go kill his younger self Looper. Uh yeah, 0:49:31.560 --> 0:49:34.080 sort of like Looper, I guess. But this Gemini Man 0:49:34.120 --> 0:49:36.120 script has been in development for like twenty five years 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:38.160 with various people attached, but they could never do. 0:49:38.160 --> 0:49:39.400 It because of the technology. 0:49:39.719 --> 0:49:42.279 Yeah, huh, it's finally here. But here's the thing I 0:49:42.280 --> 0:49:45.080 didn't know. Like, I've seen this trailer and I'm like, man, 0:49:45.120 --> 0:49:47.600 that the aging looks great. They didn't d agent. It 0:49:47.719 --> 0:49:50.879 is a fully cgi Will Smith. Oh, and it looks 0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:53.600 that really the younger version is yeah wow. So I 0:49:53.600 --> 0:49:54.640 was like, man, they're getting. 0:49:54.400 --> 0:49:56.440 So good at the d that's amazing. 0:49:56.520 --> 0:49:59.680 So he mowapped his whole performance motion captured yea, and 0:49:59.719 --> 0:50:03.120 they just used fresh prints photos and. 0:50:03.400 --> 0:50:05.960 They just basically deep fake them sort of. 0:50:07.280 --> 0:50:09.000 Have you seen the Bill Hayter deep fake that's going 0:50:09.000 --> 0:50:13.200 around now. It's pretty cool, yeah, because he goes from 0:50:13.280 --> 0:50:17.640 Hater to Tom Cruise to seth Rogan back to Tom Cruise. 0:50:17.640 --> 0:50:18.960 It's like kind of all over the place. 0:50:19.239 --> 0:50:20.920 It's really really well done. 0:50:21.719 --> 0:50:23.840 And then you know, like we said, they use CGI 0:50:24.239 --> 0:50:27.560 for so many movies, little mistakes that can be corrected, 0:50:28.000 --> 0:50:30.200 little things that it's just much cheaper to add digitally 0:50:30.280 --> 0:50:33.759 later on. It could be a movie that, like I said, 0:50:33.840 --> 0:50:37.000 looks like it has no CGI whatsoever, and it's cheaper 0:50:37.000 --> 0:50:39.680 to put a plate of food in the background digitally 0:50:39.760 --> 0:50:43.239 than cook the food and put it on set, which 0:50:43.280 --> 0:50:46.279 is that's a bad example. Or you can color grate 0:50:46.320 --> 0:50:49.000 a movie you completely change, like the movie Oh Brother, 0:50:49.040 --> 0:50:53.000 where Art Thou has that yellow hue for everything, all 0:50:53.000 --> 0:50:54.759 that stuff is green. You know, they're in the Deep 0:50:54.800 --> 0:50:56.319 South in the summertime. 0:50:56.120 --> 0:50:58.600 And they used to have to like film it at 0:50:58.640 --> 0:51:02.040 some weird exposure and then projected at another exposure to 0:51:02.120 --> 0:51:04.960 some filter and then record the whole thing on an 0:51:05.000 --> 0:51:08.560 optical negative. Yeah, now they can just do it all 0:51:08.600 --> 0:51:10.200 with a computer, easypasy. 0:51:10.320 --> 0:51:14.279 It's great. Anything else. I'm kind of looking around, but 0:51:15.040 --> 0:51:18.360 this is like one eighth of this topic. 0:51:18.520 --> 0:51:22.360 Yeah, hopefully it made you appreciate movies more. Yeah, you 0:51:22.400 --> 0:51:26.640 specifically me, I know you love the movies. 0:51:26.880 --> 0:51:27.200 Sure. 0:51:27.960 --> 0:51:30.080 If you want to know more about movies, go listen 0:51:30.120 --> 0:51:32.680 to Chuck's podcast Movie Crush you'll love it. Hey. Thanks, 0:51:33.280 --> 0:51:35.879 And since I said movie crush, it's time for listener mail. 0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:40.600 And actually, since you said movie crush, we're about to 0:51:40.640 --> 0:51:43.160 release an episode on The Matrix. Oh, I hadn't seen 0:51:43.160 --> 0:51:45.319 that movie. It's been twenty years since it came out. 0:51:45.440 --> 0:51:46.680 You've never seen The Matrix. 0:51:46.719 --> 0:51:48.920 No, I hadn't seen it in a long time. Gotcha, 0:51:49.160 --> 0:51:51.440 But I didn't realize this is the twenty year anniversary. 0:51:51.480 --> 0:51:56.759 Watched it last night. Still totally holds up, really looks great. Fun. Yeah, 0:51:57.680 --> 0:51:59.520 well acted by most of the cast. 0:51:59.360 --> 0:52:02.920 Members who didn't act well, Oh. 0:52:02.840 --> 0:52:05.239 You know, can't it always gets picked on. I love 0:52:05.280 --> 0:52:10.319 that guy, I know, Kung Fu. He's perfect in that role. 0:52:10.360 --> 0:52:12.920 Though. Yeah, he's great. I can't imagine anybody else and 0:52:12.960 --> 0:52:16.360 it'd be too just too serious. I think, like imagine 0:52:16.400 --> 0:52:17.960 Tom Cruise in that in the Matrix. 0:52:18.040 --> 0:52:21.880 Yeah, you're right. He adds a little like something light, doesn't. 0:52:21.640 --> 0:52:23.440 He Yeah, it makes it a little more every man, 0:52:23.480 --> 0:52:25.480 almost a little more believable in a weird way. 0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:27.800 So do you see those John Wick movies. 0:52:29.200 --> 0:52:31.200 I've seen some of it. It's just like a little 0:52:31.239 --> 0:52:34.520 too video gamy for me. Yeah, but I mean it's fine. 0:52:35.080 --> 0:52:36.520 I respect that people like it. 0:52:36.640 --> 0:52:40.480 Sure, here we go. Okay, this is about three D 0:52:41.640 --> 0:52:44.360 three D. It's about solar panels. I got movies on 0:52:44.400 --> 0:52:46.160 the three D. You got the well they are in 0:52:46.160 --> 0:52:49.080 three D. I guess I got movies on the brain. Hey, guys. 0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:51.120 Being a roofer my entire life, I never thought I'd 0:52:51.160 --> 0:52:53.760 have much input until now it's my time to shine. 0:52:54.520 --> 0:52:57.080 One thing that wasn't mentioned in the solar panel episode 0:52:57.120 --> 0:52:59.400 is that people really need to consider the age of 0:52:59.440 --> 0:53:01.600 their existing roof before installing solar panels. 0:53:01.600 --> 0:53:02.439 Oh, that's a good point. 0:53:02.719 --> 0:53:05.480 A new residential shingle roof should last about thirty years. 0:53:06.000 --> 0:53:08.080 But if the roof isn't nearly new, I would not 0:53:08.200 --> 0:53:10.320 suggest installing solar panels. 0:53:10.000 --> 0:53:13.759 And definitely don't install it if the roof the roof 0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:14.520 is on fire. 0:53:14.960 --> 0:53:18.279 Once the panels are installed, roof repairs or replacement is 0:53:18.480 --> 0:53:21.480 very difficult and much more expensive. If the life of 0:53:21.520 --> 0:53:24.879 the roof ends before the solar panels die, you can 0:53:24.920 --> 0:53:27.960 easily add fifty to seventy five percent or more to 0:53:28.000 --> 0:53:31.000 the cost of the reroofing due to the added labor 0:53:31.080 --> 0:53:34.399 costs to remove and reinstall the panels. Yeah, I didn't 0:53:34.400 --> 0:53:37.279 think about that, so you should align it ideally with 0:53:37.560 --> 0:53:41.200 your new roof. Sure, I do mostly commercial roofing. Can't 0:53:41.239 --> 0:53:42.800 tell you the number of customers so I talked to 0:53:42.920 --> 0:53:45.480 had solar panels on an old roof and are now 0:53:45.520 --> 0:53:49.800 paying through the nose for repairs or replacement. Reputable solar 0:53:49.800 --> 0:53:54.040 panel specialists should have this roof conversation with a potential 0:53:54.040 --> 0:53:57.240 customer before installing the panels. If I'm afraid it doesn't 0:53:57.280 --> 0:54:02.239 always happen or customers underestimate the added reroofing costs once 0:54:02.280 --> 0:54:03.000 they're installed. 0:54:03.320 --> 0:54:05.080 Man, this is a great PSA. 0:54:05.360 --> 0:54:07.239 It is thanks again for what you guys do. I'm 0:54:07.239 --> 0:54:09.600 in my truck a lot driving to different job sites 0:54:09.920 --> 0:54:13.200 and it's always easier on Tuesday through Thursday. I want 0:54:13.200 --> 0:54:15.160 to have a new stuff you should know and that 0:54:15.280 --> 0:54:18.000 is from Owen Sinsinik. 0:54:18.719 --> 0:54:22.840 Great name first and last. Yep, love the name Owen. 0:54:23.680 --> 0:54:27.399 Stephen King's kids name one of them. Yeah, Owen King, 0:54:27.880 --> 0:54:30.360 thanks a lot, Owen. We appreciate that big time. That 0:54:30.520 --> 0:54:33.680 was a great email. I would have never thought about that, and. 0:54:33.640 --> 0:54:36.000 He didn't even send his business and to be plugged. 0:54:36.080 --> 0:54:38.400 So just google his name and roofing and if he 0:54:38.480 --> 0:54:40.560 happens to live near you use him. 0:54:40.680 --> 0:54:42.440 That's how dedicated this guy is. 0:54:42.480 --> 0:54:43.200 He sounds honest. 0:54:43.760 --> 0:54:46.080 Well, if you want to be a cool person like Owen, 0:54:46.160 --> 0:54:47.440 you can get in touch with us. You can go 0:54:47.480 --> 0:54:49.200 on to stuff you Should Know dot com and check 0:54:49.200 --> 0:54:51.520 out our social links. You can also send us an 0:54:51.560 --> 0:54:57.640 email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:54:57.800 --> 0:55:00.720 Stuff you Should Know is a production of Iheartradios. Stuff Works. 0:55:00.960 --> 0:55:04.719 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:55:04.800 --> 0:55:06.480 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.