Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Josh. For this week's select, I've chosen
Speaker 1: our episode on Special Effects from September twenty nineteen. It's
Speaker 1: just a nice, straight ahead sysk app from Chuck the
Speaker 1: Grabster and me. If you're into movies, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a good one for you, so enjoy.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant wearing his Stone Temple Pilot's hat,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry over there. She's not wearing any hat.
Speaker 1: She's got really cool hair.
Speaker 2: It's not Stone Temple Pilots.
Speaker 1: It is too. I've seen the Stone Temple Pilots hats
Speaker 1: before and that's.
Speaker 2: What it is. STP. Because I bought two hats at
Speaker 2: AutoZone yesterday.
Speaker 1: I have a Champion spark Plug hat.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They have good hats, they really do.
Speaker 2: I was getting a battery and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: on these two hats. It was a good Year you're
Speaker 2: in Ohio Goodyear hat nice, which is where Emily's from. Sure,
Speaker 2: so I wanted that, and then I saw this STP.
Speaker 1: Hat Stone Temple Pilot.
Speaker 2: But I would get a Champion spark plug hat too.
Speaker 2: Those are that's great.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll let you borrow mine anytime you want. I
Speaker 1: just got to give it back.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever seen you in a
Speaker 2: baseball cap.
Speaker 1: It's a weird jam, is it now? What you want
Speaker 1: to see?
Speaker 2: I've seen you in shorts like twice in twelve years.
Speaker 1: I keep the legs covered.
Speaker 2: And I think one of them was when you came
Speaker 2: over to borrow my lawnmower. I remember that, Yeah, like
Speaker 2: nine years ago.
Speaker 1: Sure, I've got to mow the lawn sometimes.
Speaker 2: Now things have changed. You can buy a lawnmower. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and now we can afford lawnmowers.
Speaker 1: I can wear shorts too. I actually have one of
Speaker 1: those plugin lawnmowers.
Speaker 2: I have a battery power lawnmower. Dude, look at us,
Speaker 2: stupid liberal hippies.
Speaker 1: Well mine's battery power too, but you have to plug
Speaker 1: it in and charge it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, what kind do you have? I have
Speaker 2: the green one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're all green.
Speaker 2: Now there's a blue one.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've got the green one too.
Speaker 2: The sun Oh no, but I have a sun Joe
Speaker 2: pressure watcher.
Speaker 1: Do you really is it battery operated.
Speaker 2: No, you plug that in.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I bet it just goes like
Speaker 1: tinkles out water.
Speaker 2: But they do make a plug in lawnmowers, Like it's
Speaker 2: not a battery. You just like have a cord that
Speaker 2: you walk around.
Speaker 1: And run over with your lawnmower.
Speaker 2: I guess they're called electric sure, but yeah, I got
Speaker 2: the batterym because I have so little grass now and
Speaker 2: we may be done period with grass.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's why you're zero escaping.
Speaker 2: Well, we're definitely doing the front, but the back it
Speaker 2: just got smaller and smaller. And my last lawnmower broke,
Speaker 2: so I was paying a guy to come cut it.
Speaker 2: It's like, why am I paying this guy to cut
Speaker 2: to do a seven minute mo?
Speaker 1: There's just that one bladed grass that sees the lawnmower coming.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, But then I went and got the battery
Speaker 2: because lawnmowers are terrible for the environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I got it.
Speaker 2: They're one of the worst polluters too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're both also aware that we are charging our
Speaker 1: battery powered lawnmowers with coal fired power.
Speaker 2: Yes, we understand that.
Speaker 1: We know.
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about exhaustiums.
Speaker 1: I don't even need one. I live in a condo,
Speaker 1: but I'm so dissatisfied with the landscapers that take care
Speaker 1: of the condo that I yes, I bought a lawnmower
Speaker 1: just to do the little patch out in front of
Speaker 1: our buildings. Now, poor Momo doesn't get long grass against
Speaker 1: her junk when she's pot of you.
Speaker 2: Is a great way to start this episode.
Speaker 1: So we're talking special effects.
Speaker 2: Obviously this has been lawn talk.
Speaker 1: We're talking special effects, Chuck.
Speaker 2: Yes, movie special effects, which, uh boy, I mean we
Speaker 2: could do ten parts on this. This is kind of
Speaker 2: a big summation because movie special effects can be everything
Speaker 2: from the movie that you walk out of saying, oh,
Speaker 2: that movie had no special effects, when in fact it
Speaker 2: did yeah wrong, Yeah, just tiny little things that you
Speaker 2: may not even notice, to things that are almost whole
Speaker 2: cloth special effects like Skycaptain in the World.
Speaker 1: Of Tomorrow Yeah, or Sin City.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like both of those.
Speaker 1: Yes, did you know sin City? Every single bit of
Speaker 1: the set was CGI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that Skycaptain did it first yeah, year before
Speaker 2: huh yeah, every bit of that was. It was a
Speaker 2: green screen movie.
Speaker 1: I never saw it. Was he good?
Speaker 2: It was interesting, like the look of It was amazing
Speaker 2: and very much ahead of its time.
Speaker 1: Like real art deco.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, for sure. I call it black and white,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't. It was just this really washed out color. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it looked awesome and was not bad.
Speaker 1: Nice. I'll have to check it out.
Speaker 2: And I think the dudes that made that kind of
Speaker 2: quit making movies after that. It's very unique story.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen This has nothing to do with anything,
Speaker 1: but have you seen the Changeling? George?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, Oh my god, did you just see that? Yes?
Speaker 1: And I have to tell you, I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever gotten chills more frequently from a movie than I
Speaker 1: did with that one.
Speaker 2: Changed.
Speaker 1: It is great, genuinely, it's a genuinely scary ghost story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it is wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I missed Georgie Scott too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a good actor. And I don't remember who
Speaker 1: that the lead was in there, but she was great too.
Speaker 2: It's been a while. I haven't seen it in many,
Speaker 2: many years.
Speaker 1: So anyway, special effects, let's try this again. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get derailed like every five sets.
Speaker 2: Okay, effects are divided, and this is by the grab
Speaker 2: story helped us out with this. Ed's a big movie
Speaker 2: guy and horror movie sci fi guy. Sure, so he
Speaker 2: probably enjoyed writing this one up. They're divided into three
Speaker 2: general categories. And this all has to do with where
Speaker 2: the effect is happening. Right. It can be practical, which
Speaker 2: is in front of the camera, and that means it's
Speaker 2: a physical thing that's happening.
Speaker 1: I think that's what most people think of when they
Speaker 1: think special effects. You think, sure, okay, by most people,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Me in camera effects that happen inside the camera, and
Speaker 2: then post production effects. And many times you're using one
Speaker 2: or all three of these.
Speaker 1: Right, Right, So with like practical effects, that's things like
Speaker 1: like makeup and prosthetics, like ed uses. The example of
Speaker 1: Dave Lynch is the elephant man, like the prosthetic makeup
Speaker 1: that was used to turn John Hurt or John Hurd
Speaker 1: which one hurt into Joseph Merrick. Yes, that's a special effect.
Speaker 1: An explosion on set that's a special effect. A blood
Speaker 1: packet to make it look like somebody just got shot
Speaker 1: in the chest, a squib that's a special effect. All
Speaker 1: three of those are practical effects. They're actually happening in
Speaker 1: the physical world in front of you on set. Being
Speaker 1: captured on film. That's a practical special effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the other one I wanted to mention there
Speaker 2: that you might not think of as stuff like if
Speaker 2: there is a fire like a fireplace in a scene
Speaker 2: and then you flip the camera around to show the
Speaker 2: people and you see that fire shimmering on the wall,
Speaker 2: that's a practical effect too, Little things like that.
Speaker 1: But it's lighting. It's a lighting effect, yeah.
Speaker 2: Or it's a fire like you know, those aren't real fires. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's real fire. Somebody should put that out,
Speaker 2: but it's not like someone lights a bunch of wood.
Speaker 2: They put fake wood and they have these fire bars
Speaker 2: that it's like what you have under your grill basically, right,
Speaker 2: or like the hide those and then that's your fire. Sure,
Speaker 2: because that has to look perfect. You can't just chance
Speaker 2: somebody not being able to start a fire or looking wonky.
Speaker 2: That's why movie fires look perfect. Yeah, because they're fake.
Speaker 1: They are kind of dreamy. They're so good. So in
Speaker 1: camera effects is just basically messing with the way the
Speaker 1: film is being produced inside the camera, not what's going
Speaker 1: on in reality the film is capturing, but how the
Speaker 1: film is actually capturing this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Slow motion is a special effect in camera special effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or fast motion too, which is ten times more
Speaker 1: hilarious than fast motion if you ask me, like, where
Speaker 1: would the monsters be without fast motion? Yeah? You know?
Speaker 2: Or Benny Hill for God's sake, sure that lived and
Speaker 2: breathed on fast motion? What else can you do there?
Speaker 2: You can? And we'll see this some some of the
Speaker 2: early special effects, like stopping the film, changing something, starting
Speaker 2: it again.
Speaker 1: Right, like Bewitched appearing out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a special in camera special effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing that struck me about all this from
Speaker 1: researching this is how the basis, the foundation for special
Speaker 1: effects was laid immediately upon like motion pictures being created. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the whole industry, not even the industry before the
Speaker 1: industry existed, but basically after the invention of motion pictures,
Speaker 1: and that it stayed virtually the same until the nineties. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people refined it and got better at it, and techniques
Speaker 1: got more.
Speaker 2: The same general crafts Yeah, were used very much so,
Speaker 2: which is why craft service is called craft service. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: because of each department is their own craft.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know.
Speaker 2: They're there to serve them pizza.
Speaker 1: Roles, yeah, man or whatever you can put on some
Speaker 1: weight and film and something. I'll tell you that for
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, so stop motion animation. That is an
Speaker 2: in camera effect. You're moving a little clay figure or whatever,
Speaker 2: a doll or a King Kong of raisin one a
Speaker 2: California raisin, one frame at a time, twenty four frames
Speaker 2: per second.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? Didn't you do that with your brother
Speaker 1: with g I Joe?
Speaker 2: I did? And then years later I did a little
Speaker 2: Star Wars thing when I got a high eight video
Speaker 2: camera and spent like three days working on something that
Speaker 2: ended up being nine seconds long, and I said, I'm done.
Speaker 1: What's funny is you're going to get a seasoned desist
Speaker 1: later from Lucasfilm after talking about this in.
Speaker 2: The podcast Night and then we have post production effects,
Speaker 2: and that is I think that's what a lot of
Speaker 2: people think of as special effects these days, really, because
Speaker 2: that's all the CGI stuff that you will see is
Speaker 2: all happens in post production.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, yes these days I got youa like,
Speaker 1: almost all special effects happens in post these days, right.
Speaker 2: Well, no, they still combined some of the old crafts
Speaker 2: as well, but yeah, surely a lot of it is CGI.
Speaker 1: I mean, computers can do some amazing stuff.
Speaker 2: They can.
Speaker 1: I mean stuff that used to take months to do
Speaker 1: a computer can do in hours now and do it
Speaker 1: a million times better. Yeah, So depending on your taste,
Speaker 1: I should say that's right. So those are the big
Speaker 1: three practical in camera and post production. And like I
Speaker 1: was saying, like the basis of special effects was founded,
Speaker 1: like in the nineteenth century, there were just some people
Speaker 1: who had kind of followed in a tradition of still photography.
Speaker 1: Still photographers by that time had already figured out some
Speaker 1: cool stuff that you could do messing around with cameras,
Speaker 1: something like double exposure, where you take a picture of
Speaker 1: one thing and then take a picture of another thing
Speaker 1: with the previously exposed film, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it looks like there's a ghost looming behind you. Stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So out of the gate, when motion pictures
Speaker 1: were started to become a little widespread and people could
Speaker 1: afford them and try messing around with them, they had
Speaker 1: a basis of tri career to begin with. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff you can do with motion picture
Speaker 1: cameras that you can't do with still photo cameras. And
Speaker 1: they figured this out right away.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That first guy who's credited as the first special
Speaker 2: effect is Alfred Clark. And they don't have the year
Speaker 2: exactly right. It's either ninety three, that's eighteen ninety three, yeah,
Speaker 2: or eighteen ninety five. He made a short film called
Speaker 2: The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scott's, and he did
Speaker 2: that little stop trick, like I was saying, you shoot something,
Speaker 2: you stop the camera, you replace it, or you remove something,
Speaker 2: and then you start the camera and in real time
Speaker 2: when you go to play it back, it's seamless, right.
Speaker 2: And in his case, did you look at it? Did
Speaker 2: you want?
Speaker 1: Did you see that one?
Speaker 2: It's he uses a stop trick with Mary getting beheaded,
Speaker 2: and right when the axe is going to fall, you know,
Speaker 2: he switches her out for a dummy, then starts the
Speaker 2: camera back up and he chops the dummy's head off,
Speaker 2: and it's it looks pretty good, like you can't there's
Speaker 2: no big weird jump he did for eighteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: He did a really good job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the key to that is just making sure
Speaker 1: that no one touches the camera or even breathes on it,
Speaker 1: don't move, and then getting the dummy in the same
Speaker 1: position as the actor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in fact, as we'll talk about later with
Speaker 2: Matt Paintings, it's so crucial that the camera not move.
Speaker 2: That one technique was they used to bury the camera
Speaker 2: tripod like a couple of feet into the earth, just
Speaker 2: to make sure, like no dumb dumb pa bumps into it. Me.
Speaker 1: So, Alfred Clark is credited with the first special effect,
Speaker 1: but a guy named George may lese did they get it? Meylee?
Speaker 2: We should go ask Casey Pegram.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, he would know.
Speaker 2: I think it's uh Melie, Oh.
Speaker 1: Nice, I think he just nailed it, George Mellie. At
Speaker 1: any rate, this guy is known as the father of
Speaker 1: special effects.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was very early on doing stuff that no one
Speaker 1: else was doing. You know. Granted there were very few
Speaker 1: people working in this.
Speaker 2: Field, and none of the five people did.
Speaker 1: But he was an illusionist and he said, oh man,
Speaker 1: I can really do some amazing tricks with this camera.
Speaker 1: And he really put it to good use from a
Speaker 1: very early like I mean, turn to the last century.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he actually stumbled upon that little stop trick by
Speaker 2: accident when he was shooting a street traffic scene in
Speaker 2: Paris in eighteen ninety six. The camera jams while I
Speaker 2: think a bus was coming across frame. He's like, mad,
Speaker 2: fixes the camera. Can we say that? Sure?
Speaker 1: All right, we don't have any French people sitting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, starts the camera back up, and of
Speaker 2: course there's different things happening, And then when he went
Speaker 2: back to look at it, it's he kind of just
Speaker 2: stumbled upon this weird little substitution supplice that became part
Speaker 2: of filmmaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because by the time the camera had started up again,
Speaker 1: the bus was replaced by a first So it looked
Speaker 1: like when he went back and watched it, bus suddenly
Speaker 1: transformed into a hearse and.
Speaker 2: He said, wait till they get a load of bewitched
Speaker 2: seventy something years from now. So or no, I guess
Speaker 2: what was that in the fifties, sixties, sixties.
Speaker 1: All right, So you may not recognize George Meliaise, oh
Speaker 1: I got at that time, I think so name, but
Speaker 1: you probably have heard of his work like A Trip
Speaker 1: to the Moon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's very.
Speaker 1: Widely cited is like one of the first actual movies.
Speaker 1: I think it was in the twenty something minute range,
Speaker 1: but it was about some explorers in the Victorian era
Speaker 1: getting in a rocket and traveling to the moon and
Speaker 1: the rocket lands and the man in the moon's eye.
Speaker 1: Everybody's seen that. I don't care who you are. If
Speaker 1: you say you haven't, you have. This was the guy
Speaker 1: who made that. And this is a very early movie.
Speaker 1: It was from nineteen oh two. But he was doing
Speaker 1: all sorts of amazing stuff. He was using extensive costuming, masks,
Speaker 1: all sorts of in camera techniques.
Speaker 2: His painting on film frames.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is nineteen oh two, and like I
Speaker 1: was saying, this stuff was refined, but it was the
Speaker 1: basis of special effects for the next century to come.
Speaker 2: Should we take a quick break?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a quick break and we will
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the Matt technique right after this.
Speaker 1: I'm actually pretty psyched about this, all right, Chuck. As
Speaker 1: I said, I'm very psyched about the Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this isn't this is a little confusing the
Speaker 2: way it's laid out here, because what Ed's talking about
Speaker 2: here with Norman Don is called original negative matte painting.
Speaker 2: If you hear of a matte painting, that is a
Speaker 2: piece of glass where you have and I'm gonna talk
Speaker 2: about the most common way you might see it employed
Speaker 2: is you take a big piece of glass and you
Speaker 2: paint like a city scape on it, like really realistic,
Speaker 2: and then you put that in a scene and shoot it.
Speaker 2: So it's instead of having someone in front of a city,
Speaker 2: and this was pre blue screen and green screen technology,
Speaker 2: you would just put Kurt Russell and Escape from New
Speaker 2: York in a field and there's a matte painting of
Speaker 2: New York City behind him and it looks great. And
Speaker 2: James Cameron painted that and Escape from New York. He
Speaker 2: was a matte painter.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: That was like his first job.
Speaker 1: It's Nate. Like, if you, if you even if you
Speaker 1: do know what Chuck's talking about, go to the internet
Speaker 1: and just look up like great matte paintings.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of really wonderful ones, one you've seen before,
Speaker 1: ones you haven't. But basically, anytime you've seen a movie
Speaker 1: pre nineteen ninety three, maybe nineteen ninety where somebody walks
Speaker 1: into this enormous place or this amazingly elaborate future city
Speaker 1: or something like that, what you're actually looking at is
Speaker 1: an expertly painted painting that has been messed with in
Speaker 1: post production or using an in camera technique to make
Speaker 1: it look like it's alive or actually, you know, bustling
Speaker 1: or energetic or there. But it's really it's a painting.
Speaker 1: It's a painting that some amazing human being painted by hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should point out they still do this today.
Speaker 2: They just do it digitally and digital matte painters are
Speaker 2: super talented as well. Sure, but it's kind of neat
Speaker 2: to think about that old craft and James Cameron painting
Speaker 2: a piece of glass, yeah, and sticking that behind Kurt Russell.
Speaker 1: And I mean it was used in everything like I
Speaker 1: for my money, matt painting is the single most important
Speaker 1: and widespread special effect ever.
Speaker 2: Maybe hard to argue that, thank you.
Speaker 1: Like it was in Mary Poppins. When Mary Poppins is
Speaker 1: coming into the City of London floating, that's a matte painting.
Speaker 1: When Superman walks into the uh, where's the what's the
Speaker 1: name of the place where he's from, the Crystal Cave.
Speaker 2: Where Fortress of Solitude?
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that where he talks with with Marlon Brando
Speaker 1: his dad. Uh? Yeah, I think so, okay, that's a
Speaker 1: matte painting.
Speaker 2: And I think the Fortress of Solitude are the remnants
Speaker 2: of Krypton. Okay, I'm boy Superman. People are so mad
Speaker 2: at me right now?
Speaker 1: People still I thought everybody's on the marble train.
Speaker 2: No, people love Superman the comics.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, because I was gonna say, I mean, you've
Speaker 1: seen what they've done Superman lately, right and Batman?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, uh, that's the matte painting and what that
Speaker 2: is it's called set extension. So that basically means you're
Speaker 2: just sort of extending the real life set to make
Speaker 2: something bigger and more opulent, or maybe not more obvious,
Speaker 2: just bigger and more right, But here's the thing relying
Speaker 2: on that mat painter and having the glass there, and
Speaker 2: glass can break and it can you know, on set
Speaker 2: with lighting can be weird. So that's all can get
Speaker 2: a little hinky. So that's why this technique called original
Speaker 2: negative matt painting was developed by Norman Don and that
Speaker 2: is when nowadays he'll use what's called the mat box,
Speaker 2: which is literally like black I don't think it's cardboard
Speaker 2: these days, but whatever they make out of a cardboard
Speaker 2: thing that you put over the lens to block out
Speaker 2: whatever you want to block out. Back in the day,
Speaker 2: they would paint cardboard and hold it in front of
Speaker 2: the lens, or they would actually paint the lens. And
Speaker 2: what you're essentially doing is painting away. It was early
Speaker 2: green screen. You're painting away what you don't want in
Speaker 2: the frame or what you want in the future, and
Speaker 2: then adding that later on.
Speaker 1: Right, And because it's black or because it's covered, there's
Speaker 1: light is not hitting that part of the film, That
Speaker 1: part of the film that act actual film strip itself
Speaker 1: that you're recording onto or filming onto that's unexposed. All
Speaker 1: that gets exposed is the part of the lens or
Speaker 1: the camera that is not covered that has say, your
Speaker 1: actor like doing the herky jerky dance, right. And then
Speaker 1: so what you do after that is you take that
Speaker 1: film that has your actor doing the herky jerky dance,
Speaker 1: project it onto a screen so you see where the
Speaker 1: actor is, and on the screen you literally paint the
Speaker 1: background that you want. Then you film the whole thing
Speaker 1: a second time, and now you have your actor in
Speaker 1: the set that you originally wanted.
Speaker 2: Right. The only difference there, which is something that wasn't
Speaker 2: quite right here, is they don't like project it. They
Speaker 2: just develop a few frames of it and project it
Speaker 2: like a slidetcha. So it's not like the camera the
Speaker 2: film is moving through on the wall, right because in
Speaker 2: the article here says and then you just stop it,
Speaker 2: and what happens if you do that is the bulb
Speaker 2: burns the Okay, So you can't just stop a prety projector.
Speaker 1: You produced like a slide of him project that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you paint in the castle or the
Speaker 2: mountain or the whatever you want, and then you go
Speaker 2: back and expose it again. Yep, pretty neat.
Speaker 1: You just open your trench coat. There you go.
Speaker 2: And the big innovator with the original negative matte painting
Speaker 2: was Norman Don and he really like really led the way.
Speaker 1: But I mean again, most of the stuff that does
Speaker 1: this now is done by computers imposed. But this is
Speaker 1: like the links people were going to to make movies
Speaker 1: at the time, and you watch them today and you're like, god,
Speaker 1: it looks terrible. But if you stop and think about
Speaker 1: the effort that they were going to they were inventing, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just mind boggling that they managed to get it,
Speaker 1: you know to this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Norman Don tried to patent that technique as well,
Speaker 2: but they said no, you did not invent this, You
Speaker 2: popularized it, and you can't patent something that you made
Speaker 2: super populs.
Speaker 1: There are some other stuff too. There's like rear projection
Speaker 1: in front projection, which is basically like projecting the background
Speaker 1: and moving background onto a screen behind the actors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically you know all those hokey driving scenes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the person's great, the car is being rocked or whatever
Speaker 1: the road behind them, that's front of rear projection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people still will use that as homage, like
Speaker 2: in pulp fiction, very famously Bruce Willis or I guess not, Yeah,
Speaker 2: when Bruce Willis gets in the cab after the fight.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And if it looks old fashioned, this because QT used
Speaker 2: rear screen projection for that. And there's also a technique
Speaker 2: that's not in here that I just remembered, so I'm
Speaker 2: actually having to look up what it's called. When you're
Speaker 2: in a car scene but you're not doing a rear
Speaker 2: screen projection. So what happens here is you're sitting in
Speaker 2: a car, in a still car on the set, but
Speaker 2: they're not projecting anything behind you. What you've got is
Speaker 2: two people shaking the car at a frame. What do
Speaker 2: they grips Oh yeah, usually a grip. But I've shaken
Speaker 2: cars and trains before. It's because I'm just a body
Speaker 2: on the set, like get in there and shake that thing.
Speaker 2: In fact, one job I was on there was a
Speaker 2: faked subway train and the hydraulics broke early on and
Speaker 2: they're like, bring out the PA's you're gonna shake this
Speaker 2: train for twelve hours.
Speaker 1: Like you got rhythm, get in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, we couldn't have too much rhythm because we
Speaker 2: got yelled at for that because it looked too rhythmic.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: So we're like, I don't know what, I don't know
Speaker 2: how to do this.
Speaker 1: Who are you working for?
Speaker 2: Oh? It was just a commercial director that said that
Speaker 2: our movement of the train looked to rhythmic and not believable.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this fruit of the Looms commercial is totally unbelievable.
Speaker 2: You sit in the car, you're acting like you're driving.
Speaker 2: There's someone else shaking the car. There might be someone
Speaker 2: else off camera, like flashing a light through the car
Speaker 2: like you're going by a street light, or a headlight
Speaker 2: goes across their face, and there may be fake rain
Speaker 2: in the background. And this is sometimes like six seven,
Speaker 2: eight people working in concert to make it look like
Speaker 2: you're driving at night in the rain or something like that.
Speaker 1: Right, so there's like an obvious background trees or rode
Speaker 1: or whatever, but maybe there's headlights coming up behind you.
Speaker 2: Is dark, yeah, but there are people with a spotlight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really really cool, old fashioned, but people still use
Speaker 2: that stuff. Yeah, And I wish I could remember the
Speaker 2: full name of that technique.
Speaker 1: The shaken shimmy.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be so mad later on.
Speaker 1: What was this called the shake and shimmy?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's right.
Speaker 1: So you talked about green screen, and that's actually super
Speaker 1: old too. There's a really convoluted explanation about how originally
Speaker 1: green screen employed sodium vapor lights, yeah, which would actually
Speaker 1: mess with the yellow exposure on panchromatic film, and my
Speaker 1: brain I started bleeding out of my ear. I cannot
Speaker 1: tell you how many times I read descriptions about this
Speaker 1: and I can't quite get it. So suffice to say
Speaker 1: that that was one technique for green screen. What really
Speaker 1: kind of changed the industry is when they figured out
Speaker 1: that again, if you if you film in black, the
Speaker 1: film is not going to be exposed. So anything you
Speaker 1: go and re expose it to it will cover over
Speaker 1: that stuff so like it's transparent. So for example, in
Speaker 1: The Invisible Man from I think nineteen thirty thirteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: Ye Claude Rains wore a black bodysuit and the background
Speaker 1: was black. It was a black screen, like a black
Speaker 1: green screen. But he wore clothes and everything in bandages
Speaker 1: and sunglasses and I think he smoked a cigarette or whatever.
Speaker 1: But when he took the bandages off and he took
Speaker 1: his sunglasses and closed off, there was nothing there. It
Speaker 1: was a black bodysuit and a black background. So when
Speaker 1: they filmed the background later on, all you could see
Speaker 1: was the background in the clothes and the bandages, it
Speaker 1: looked like there was nothing there because as far as
Speaker 1: the film was concerned, when they were filming it, there
Speaker 1: wasn't anything there. So the film wasn't exposed in those
Speaker 1: sections on each frame.
Speaker 2: That's right, And that's called the Williams process. And a
Speaker 2: key part of the Williams process is the optical printer,
Speaker 2: and that is a projector that actually prints an image
Speaker 2: directly onto the film that runs through the camera while
Speaker 2: that printer and camera are synced up.
Speaker 1: Yes, so this is to me The optical printer is
Speaker 1: the second most widespread and useful special effect technique in
Speaker 1: the history of film.
Speaker 2: You just waved your hand.
Speaker 1: They suddenly had an ass gotten a arre on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hard to argue that too. But all this stuff
Speaker 2: was just precursor to what was blue screen early on
Speaker 2: Chroma key blue and then later became Chroma Key green.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why they made the switch actually, other
Speaker 2: than maybe the green less prevalent or less use I
Speaker 2: think so. Probably maybe the blue was because you know what,
Speaker 2: you don't want anything close to that color will disappear
Speaker 2: against the green.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's ever done the weather on the newscast I
Speaker 1: can tell you.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, there have been. There are blooper reels of
Speaker 2: weather people disappearing when they wear like a green jacket
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Right, it looks like the weather's going on through their body.
Speaker 1: Same thing. So I want to say one more thing
Speaker 1: about optical printers, or another little bit about it. Sure, So,
Speaker 1: what you have is a projector projecting a film on
Speaker 1: to a screen, and you have a camera recording what's
Speaker 1: being projected. Right, that's right, that's the optical printer. And
Speaker 1: you could do all sorts of stuff with that. So
Speaker 1: let's say you have a shot where you have one
Speaker 1: mat in the foreground and live actor and then another
Speaker 1: mat in the background that has a bunch of different people.
Speaker 2: In it or something like that, or stormtroopers three.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got three different elements to that shot.
Speaker 1: What you would do is using the same film film
Speaker 1: each thing. So you go film that, like the actor,
Speaker 1: the live action actor, You've got that on the film,
Speaker 1: and you project that, and you take film where you're
Speaker 1: filming the mat and you project that and film that.
Speaker 1: I just totally have screwed this up. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is just like Ohn, No, it's worse than that.
Speaker 1: Was it false false positives? Do you remember that time
Speaker 1: where I was like I took a pretty simple thing
Speaker 1: and just completely walk the dog with it. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll just do that again. Everyone. I want you
Speaker 1: to go look up optical printers, read a little bit
Speaker 1: about them, and then you'll say, oh, Josh is right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this tough stuff.
Speaker 1: It is essentially you're filming a projection and you can
Speaker 1: do that multiple times with the same film, and it
Speaker 1: adds up to where you have the shot you wanted
Speaker 1: where it makes it look like all these things that
Speaker 1: you filmed three separate times are all happening together in
Speaker 1: one space.
Speaker 2: Yes, you are marrying separate images together onto a single
Speaker 2: piece of film, right.
Speaker 1: You couldn't do that with before optical printers, which is
Speaker 1: a projector in a camera working together.
Speaker 2: That's right, Okay, I think I needed that we should
Speaker 2: mention briefly motion controlled cameras. This is a system that
Speaker 2: allows it's basically taking the person out of the equation.
Speaker 2: There is not a person pushing a dolly. There is
Speaker 2: not a person moving the camera. It is a machine
Speaker 2: that is programmed to move a camera through space very
Speaker 2: very precisely and exactly the same every single time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you can do the exact same motion over
Speaker 1: and over.
Speaker 2: Again, over and over, and a lot of times if
Speaker 2: you're on a TV commercial, as boring as that is,
Speaker 2: you will see stuff like this, for like a food shoot,
Speaker 2: because food shoots are notoriously tricky because everything's super close
Speaker 2: up and has to be perfect, and you can't be
Speaker 2: off a little bit with a camera because a lot
Speaker 2: of times you'll sub in stuff later and post. And
Speaker 2: that's the whole reason for motion control is to replicate
Speaker 2: moves with exact precision.
Speaker 1: So I was reading about industrial light and magic using
Speaker 1: this to really great effect with the first Star Wars,
Speaker 1: which is episode four, right, the New Hope. That's the
Speaker 1: first one, right right.
Speaker 2: I'm not confirming or denying anything. I'm just gonna let
Speaker 2: that stand.
Speaker 1: Episode four is the first Star Wars movie that ever
Speaker 1: came out.
Speaker 2: Correct, The Star Wars A New Hope is the first
Speaker 2: episode okay, that I ever saw in a movie theater,
Speaker 2: because it's the.
Speaker 1: First one that ever came out. Anyway, when they were
Speaker 1: making this, you know, is it a Star Destroyer, the
Speaker 1: big the big daddy ships. Okay, oh man, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get murdered. Everything. All of the ships and Star Wars
Speaker 1: were models, yes, fairly small models. Actually they were at
Speaker 1: the base, Okay, I think it was episode four, I'm
Speaker 1: almost positive. Okay, So those models were not moving in
Speaker 1: these shots and these enormous, like huge panoramic shots where
Speaker 1: like there's tie fighters flying around shooting everything and X
Speaker 1: wing fighters shooting the tie fighters. None of those models
Speaker 1: were moving. What happened was they figured out how to
Speaker 1: use motion controlled cameras so that the camera would go
Speaker 1: through the shot and around the model and make it
Speaker 1: look like the model was moving, and plus it was
Speaker 1: moving the shot through space right right. The thing is is,
Speaker 1: let's say you have five different ships. You film those
Speaker 1: five ships separately, but those five ships are all going
Speaker 1: to be in the same shot, So you have to
Speaker 1: film that same shot the exact same way five different
Speaker 1: times and then run it through an optical printer so
Speaker 1: that you can get all of them, all five shots
Speaker 1: onto the same strip of film. But that's one of
Speaker 1: the ways that motion controlled cameras were really put to
Speaker 1: good use, and it was extremely groundbreaking because not one
Speaker 1: of those ships were moving in reality when they were
Speaker 1: filming Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Can you name five Star warships tie Fighter, X, wing Fighter.
Speaker 2: You already said one, the tie Fighter, two.
Speaker 1: The deuce is what the people in the no call
Speaker 1: it s the Uh.
Speaker 2: You already said star destroyer.
Speaker 1: So star destroyer was right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a star Destroyer.
Speaker 1: Okay, you made a face like I was just totally off.
Speaker 1: You can make the case that Indoor was a ship
Speaker 1: even though it was a planet. Uh. There was the
Speaker 1: the forest Speeder, uh huh, the the pod Racer yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Doctors as that's right, he's the final ship. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you know many people. Boy, their calf muscles just
Speaker 1: popped right out of the back to their legs.
Speaker 2: Olly Fry is like hyperventilating somewhere in the office, and
Speaker 2: she doesn't know why. So, as I said earlier, it's
Speaker 2: it's usually a combination of these different techniques to create
Speaker 2: one overall special effect using these different crafts. And a
Speaker 2: great example Jurassic Park in the in the scene with
Speaker 2: the veloscer raptors in the kitchen, a great, great sequence
Speaker 2: when it was playing cat and mouse with those children. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were puppets, there were actors in costumes, there were
Speaker 2: animatronic raptor heads, and there were full cgi raptors, and
Speaker 2: you throw this all in a hat, mix it all
Speaker 2: up and it comes out to be like a really
Speaker 2: believable looking scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes out as an oscar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure they won Oscars, right.
Speaker 1: They had two of I don't know, but there's just
Speaker 1: no way.
Speaker 2: It was groundbreaking. I remember being just gobsmacked in the
Speaker 2: movie theater. Yeah, when I first saw those dinosaurs walking
Speaker 2: across the screen.
Speaker 1: And that was nineteen ninety three, I believe, for the
Speaker 1: first Jurassic Park, right, Jurassic Park A New Hope, the
Speaker 1: first one that came out. So, but that was five
Speaker 1: years after the first OSCAR had been awarded for special effects.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, really, I believe that The
Speaker 1: Abyss was the first one to win an OSCAR for
Speaker 1: special effects. Maybe or they're no, No, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: way off, way off. The Abyss was the first movie
Speaker 1: to win a special effect for a CGI effect.
Speaker 2: Okay, remember the water Sure still looks pretty good.
Speaker 1: It looks amazing. Yeah, this is nineteen eighty seven we're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: Wow was that when that came out?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I was surprised to see that too, because that
Speaker 1: holds up. I thought it was. Yeah, it's a good movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really like that movie.
Speaker 1: How do you not like Ed Harris? If you don't
Speaker 1: like what? Did you not like it? Hair? No?
Speaker 2: I like him as an actor. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people might have problems with Ed Harris as a person.
Speaker 2: He's notoriously cantankerous.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that, I believe it.
Speaker 2: Sure he looks like he could yell somebody down, doesn't he?
Speaker 1: Sure, but he also keeps a cool head when he's
Speaker 1: an actor as a seventies or sixties NASA guy.
Speaker 2: Hey, I love Ed Harris. All right, let's take another break, okay,
Speaker 2: and we're going to come back and talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about Star Wars episode whatever right after this. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're back, and we should talk. We should mention the garbage, Matt,
Speaker 2: real quick, because that is a big deal. A lot
Speaker 2: of times you have wire work or you have you
Speaker 2: have things hanging from wires. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: a person. It can be like a model plane or
Speaker 2: a tie fighter or whatever. You got to get rid
Speaker 2: of those wires unless you're ed would you can't have
Speaker 2: fish in line.
Speaker 1: No, you're supposed to not, but yes, Or if.
Speaker 2: You're Charlie's thrown and mad Max Ferry, you got to
Speaker 2: get rid of that arm. Or if you're in Forrest Gump,
Speaker 2: you got to get rid of Lieutenant Dan's legs. Man.
Speaker 1: That was amazing. That was the first time anybody's ever
Speaker 1: done really something like that throughout.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have my problems with that movie for sure,
Speaker 2: and one of them is I think he way over it.
Speaker 2: He was like a Kidney candy store and way over
Speaker 2: did the like. And now Forrest is in the White
Speaker 2: House and using archival footage and sticking Forest in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that whole half hour dialogue he has with Peter
Speaker 1: Cushing's ghost. It was uncanny, but.
Speaker 2: I get it. I get why these filmmakers get excited,
Speaker 2: these really technical wizards. Well, you get a new technique
Speaker 2: and they just hammer it.
Speaker 1: The guy from Industrial LIGHTE and Magic when they made
Speaker 1: the first Star Wars call it what you will. His
Speaker 1: name was I think John Dykstra, and this motion controlled
Speaker 1: camera assembly that they created was called distra flex. It
Speaker 1: was super groundbreaking and they really did amazing stuff with it. Well,
Speaker 1: he's like a legend in this industry now, and I
Speaker 1: saw an interview with him recently and he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm so tired of seeing just whole cities leveled and
Speaker 1: like just the most amazing stuff you can possibly think
Speaker 1: of being done just because we can do it. He
Speaker 1: put it really really well. I think it's an embarrassment
Speaker 1: of riches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, total like it.
Speaker 1: Can be done, So it's being done, everybody's doing it.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, like and it makes it less amazing,
Speaker 1: not necessarily because it looks bad. It just keeps looking
Speaker 1: better and better every time. Like if you if you
Speaker 1: look at Charlie Stern's prosthetic arm or missing arm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: compared with Lieutenant Dan's missing legs looks radically different. It does.
Speaker 1: So it's getting better. There's just too much of it,
Speaker 1: I think is the point just to be all ed
Speaker 1: heresy on this now.
Speaker 2: I have long predicted a return to practical effects, really,
Speaker 2: and it's starting to happen a little bit more and more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see starting with indie filmmakers, Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: which is funny because finally computer generated effects have trickled
Speaker 1: down enough. Yeah, like you or I could just walk
Speaker 1: out of the studio and probably get on any one
Speaker 1: of those backs out there and use stuff that ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago when we lost five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to set up a rig like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's how some young filmmakers have gotten noticed
Speaker 2: is by making these short films with like zero money
Speaker 2: on their computer that get a lot of action on
Speaker 2: YouTube because it looks so amazing, and the studio will
Speaker 2: be like, sign that person up. Yeah, I can't remember
Speaker 2: the guy's name, but that's happened a couple of times
Speaker 2: in recent years. Ed Harris, we should talk about a
Speaker 2: few of the groundbreaking people over the years. Oh, yes,
Speaker 2: we'll go through these a little quicker than what we
Speaker 2: have in front of us, I think, But we should
Speaker 2: mention Lon Cheney. Sure, one of the original superstars of
Speaker 2: film in the Silent era, the man with faces. He was.
Speaker 2: He was very talented doing his own makeup and changing
Speaker 2: his face. That's why he's called the Man of a
Speaker 2: thousand Faces.
Speaker 1: Right, He's like, here's nine hundred and ninety seven.
Speaker 2: What about Willis O'Brien.
Speaker 1: He was one of the pioneers of stop motion photography. Again,
Speaker 1: if you're a California Racins fan, you have a lot
Speaker 1: to thank Willis O'Brien for. He also this, dude, the
Speaker 1: stuff he did. I mean, if you look back, he
Speaker 1: did King Kong, the nineteen thirty three King Kong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you look back at this, you're like, this
Speaker 1: is this is cool. But if you research what was
Speaker 1: done to create this, you're just blown away by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, many processes coming together to create that nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty three version of King Kong. And that fight looks
Speaker 2: good still. I mean, it doesn't look realistic, but consider
Speaker 2: the year it looks awesome.
Speaker 1: It does, and it's about three three and a half
Speaker 1: minutes long. King Kong fighting the Tyrannosaurs recks. But it
Speaker 1: took seven weeks the film. Yeah, because there's twenty four
Speaker 1: frames shot per second in a film, that's right, and
Speaker 1: for every frame they moved the models a little bit
Speaker 1: here or there. Yeah, so that's why it took seven
Speaker 1: weeks just for that fight scene. I think it was
Speaker 1: fifty five weeks for all of the stop motion photography
Speaker 1: that was done in that movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker 1: It really is impressive, especially when you realize the trouble
Speaker 1: they went to when you go back and watch it,
Speaker 1: like this is pretty nuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ray Harryhausen continued the work of Willis O'Brien and
Speaker 2: very famously in like the fifties and sixties with movies
Speaker 2: like Jason and the Argonauts.
Speaker 1: And Clash of the Titans. Yeah, I remember Medusa, Sure,
Speaker 1: Scary Lady.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that had to be toward the end of his career,
Speaker 2: I guess because that was in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like eighty one maybe remember The Minute
Speaker 1: Tar two Man.
Speaker 2: That was cool movie. That was a big movie for
Speaker 2: me as a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was like when La Law came along,
Speaker 1: I was like, I know that guy. That's right, there's
Speaker 1: the Titans guy.
Speaker 2: We should shout out Millicent Patrick. This is a very
Speaker 2: interesting story. She was one of the only, well first
Speaker 2: and only women working in special effects back in the day.
Speaker 2: And she created the very famous mask of the gill
Speaker 2: Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon in the mid
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties and was unceremoniously fired.
Speaker 1: Not just fired, stricken from the credits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy named Bud Wesmore he assisted her and
Speaker 2: then basically had her fired rather than give her the
Speaker 2: credit for the mask, which he would take credit for.
Speaker 1: Because I think he was the supervisor in charge of
Speaker 1: effects or costume or something.
Speaker 2: Oh thought, I guess he assisted her, but he was
Speaker 2: her boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but like she very clearly on her own
Speaker 1: came up with the gil Man for yeah, the creature
Speaker 1: from the.
Speaker 2: And this has only come out in the last few years.
Speaker 2: They've kind of dug up the original stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 2: sexism just basically pushed her out of the industry altogether. Yeah,
Speaker 2: very sad.
Speaker 1: She's starting to get her due now though, which is good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is very good.
Speaker 1: There's Dick Smith was amazing. He created the squib Oh really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a very famous makeup artist. He's really
Speaker 1: good at making people look aged.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He made forty seven year old Marlon Brando look
Speaker 2: much over five than the Godfather. Oh yeah, yeah he
Speaker 2: was only he was a year younger than me. Brando.
Speaker 1: I never thought about it.
Speaker 2: That nuts.
Speaker 1: Wow, he really is good. He also did Death Becoms Her,
Speaker 1: which is one of the all time great movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah for sure. And The Exorcist yep, and.
Speaker 1: Scanners and have you ever seen Ghost Story from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one? Oh yeah, yeah, very scary movie. The old
Speaker 1: dudes he did, he did that.
Speaker 2: What else? Very famously aged Dustin Hoffman a little big
Speaker 2: man by many many years.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: And then in the last like twenty five thirty years,
Speaker 2: Rick Baker and stan Winston.
Speaker 1: Stan Winston's He's got my vote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean these two guys were both just creative
Speaker 2: leaders in the industry and trailblazers in the industry, and
Speaker 2: as Ed says in here, like mentored a generation of
Speaker 2: special effects employees, employees, creators, artists.
Speaker 1: Sure, all three of those Lord gig workers.
Speaker 2: Rick Baker American Werewolf in London in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: which still holds up. The thriller video in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: three Star Wars, Moss Isley Cantina. He made all those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you know that about the Moss Eisley Cantina. Sure,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. He was almost single handily respondib Yeah,
Speaker 1: for all of them.
Speaker 2: And then stan Winston, you got to talk about movies
Speaker 2: like The Thing and Predator and Terminator and they both
Speaker 2: have set up you know, foundations and schools and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Stan Winston also did the makeup for what I think
Speaker 1: is maybe the best slash film of all time, Friday
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth Part two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, two is when Jason comes along, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's before he got his mask. He gets his
Speaker 1: mask in three. I think the Fria thirteenth franchise is
Speaker 1: as good as it gets for horror movies.
Speaker 2: I dropped off at a certain point. Did you see
Speaker 2: all those?
Speaker 1: No? No, I still haven't seen all of them, but
Speaker 1: even just putting like the first five or six up, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's like watching him again as an adult.
Speaker 1: I'm like, these are really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Splisher films like even better than I remember for me
Speaker 1: and a kid. Yeah, And the reason stan Winston filled
Speaker 1: in for Friday the Thirteenth Part two is because the
Speaker 1: guy who did Friday thirteenth, the first one. Tom Savini
Speaker 1: was unavailable. He was off doing Creep Show, I believe.
Speaker 1: But Tom Savini's another legend.
Speaker 2: I think they're redoing Creep Show, are they? Okay? I'd
Speaker 2: watched that different stories? Oh even better, I think, if
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Savini is well known for being sort of
Speaker 2: the godfather of Gore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did Maniac Did you ever see that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was off the Rocker movie.
Speaker 2: And then these days there are companies I and Wetta,
Speaker 2: ILM Industrial Light and Magic is Lucas's company, and they're
Speaker 2: cool because they invented this stuff because Lucas needed stuff
Speaker 2: to be done that couldn't be done right, and he
Speaker 2: was like, go figure out how to do it.
Speaker 1: And they did, they really did.
Speaker 2: And then WETA is Peter Jackson's company. Oh okay, and
Speaker 2: he's the one that has really pioneered the mo cap,
Speaker 2: the motion capture techniques.
Speaker 1: Where a person's wearing like a suit and the suit
Speaker 1: has a bunch of different kind of like almost ping
Speaker 1: pong balls all over it. Yeah, at like joints and
Speaker 1: crucial places where the body moves and the actor stunt
Speaker 1: person or dance or whoever wearing the suit goes through
Speaker 1: the motions and.
Speaker 2: Then they're just going through the motions.
Speaker 1: Sure, and that those motions that what's captured is fed
Speaker 1: into a computer and the computer generates a character doing
Speaker 1: all those same motions, creating the performance. But it's a
Speaker 1: computer generated character. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think he was the first, but the Gollum
Speaker 2: character in those Lord of the Rings movies was really
Speaker 2: one of the first, really terrific looking fully CGI character.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I found, from what I could tell, the first
Speaker 1: full CGI character ever in a movie. You want to guess,
Speaker 1: you'll never guess.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's touted as Indiana Jones in The
Speaker 2: Last Crusade. Wrong, really, what is it going to be?
Speaker 1: It's another Spielberg movie. Okay, it's young Sherlock Holmes. Well
Speaker 1: you remember the Stained Glass Night that comes to life
Speaker 1: and tries to slash one of them with his sword.
Speaker 1: First full CGI character in a movie, Well, why, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but that's what I could find, and that
Speaker 1: one's from nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: Well, it says maybe there's it's in the nitpicky language
Speaker 2: because in the Last Crusade when Walter Donovan's face melts
Speaker 2: and turns to dust when he drinks from the chalice.
Speaker 1: That's in Writers of the Lost Arc, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Oh No, you're right, You're right lastad okay, Yeah, says here.
Speaker 2: It was the first ever digital composite of a full
Speaker 2: screen live action image.
Speaker 1: There's something in the language there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was a full screen or something.
Speaker 1: This was the gotcha. This was the first CGI, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't the first CGI image. This is the first
Speaker 1: moving CGI image. Is the first CGI image was in Looker?
Speaker 1: Remember that movie.
Speaker 2: I totally saw Looker. Yeah, that was a big HBO
Speaker 2: movie for.
Speaker 1: Me for sure. Same here it was Looker Runaway.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, Kroll Runaway. It's Tom Selleck yeah.
Speaker 1: And Gene Simmons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the bad Guy's right. That's all Kroll a
Speaker 2: lot too. Oh yeah. Looker had Albert Finnie, right, if
Speaker 2: I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: Albert Finnie and Susan Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Susan Day Yeah.
Speaker 1: Written by Michael Crichton.
Speaker 2: I think that was the first full body three D
Speaker 2: human but it did not move. It was static. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the very first computer generated effects period, funny enough,
Speaker 2: were used to replicate computer screens, so whenever where you
Speaker 2: would see a computer screen in like Westworld or Aliens
Speaker 2: or Star Wars, and they're like, what is the computer
Speaker 2: going to look like? You know? Not now that that
Speaker 2: was the first time they used computer generated imaging was
Speaker 2: to yeah, make a fake computer screen.
Speaker 1: And the first full CGI scene ever done was in
Speaker 1: The Wrath of Khan, which I believe came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. But there's a genesis like Earth being
Speaker 1: you know, like cooling and turning into the Earth, and
Speaker 1: there's this amazing shots around it. That's all CGI. And
Speaker 1: that was the first one, and Tron I thought for
Speaker 1: sure Tron would have been among the first. Apparently most
Speaker 1: of that was animated by humans, not computers. That's right,
Speaker 1: The like all the glowing lines, all that stuff animated,
Speaker 1: which makes it nuts that they were able to create that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now the big thing is is the aging technique
Speaker 2: that they're getting better and better?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really are.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the new Scorsese pick the Irishman I think
Speaker 2: d ages and it has taken a long time to
Speaker 2: get out because it's the d aging didn't look good
Speaker 2: enough for Scorsez, so they have d aged de Naro.
Speaker 2: And then I saw this new Angle movie Jemini Man,
Speaker 2: where Will Smith of now he plays an assassin and
Speaker 2: he has to go kill his younger self Looper. Uh yeah,
Speaker 2: sort of like Looper, I guess. But this Gemini Man
Speaker 2: script has been in development for like twenty five years
Speaker 2: with various people attached, but they could never do.
Speaker 1: It because of the technology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, huh, it's finally here. But here's the thing I
Speaker 2: didn't know. Like, I've seen this trailer and I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: that the aging looks great. They didn't d age him.
Speaker 2: It is a fully CGI Will Smith. Oh, and it
Speaker 2: looks that really the younger version is yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So I was like, man, they're getting so good at
Speaker 2: the d that's amazing. So he mowcapped his whole performance
Speaker 2: motion captured and they just used fresh Prince photos.
Speaker 1: And they just basically deep faked them sort of Prince.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the Bill Hayder deep fake that's going
Speaker 2: around now. It's pretty cool. Yeah, because he goes from
Speaker 2: Hater to Tom Cruise to seth Rogan back to Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2: It's like kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1: It's really well done.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, like we said, they use CGI
Speaker 2: for so many movies little mistakes that can be corrected,
Speaker 2: little things that it's just much cheaper to add digitally
Speaker 2: later on. It could be a movie that, like I said,
Speaker 2: looks like it has no CGI whatsoever, and it's cheaper
Speaker 2: to put a plate of food in the background digitally
Speaker 2: than cook the food and put it on set, right,
Speaker 2: which is that's a bad example. Or you can color
Speaker 2: grate a movie you completely change, like the movie Oh Brother,
Speaker 2: where Art Thou has that yellow hue for everything. All
Speaker 2: that stuff is green. You know, they're in the Deep
Speaker 2: South in the summertime.
Speaker 1: And they used to have to like film it at
Speaker 1: some weird exposure and then project it at another exposure
Speaker 1: to some filter and then the optical the negative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now they can just do it all with a computer,
Speaker 1: easy peasy.
Speaker 2: It's great. Anything else, I'm kind of looking around, but
Speaker 2: this is like one eighth of this topic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully it made you appreciate movies more. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: specifically me, I know you love the movies. Sure, if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about movies, go listen to
Speaker 1: Chuck's podcast movie Crush. You'll love it.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 1: Thanks, And since I said movie Crush, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail.
Speaker 2: And actually, since you said movie crush, we're about to
Speaker 2: release an episode on The Matrix. Oh, I hadn't seen
Speaker 2: that movie. It's been twenty years since it came out.
Speaker 1: You've never seen The Matrix.
Speaker 2: No, I hadn't seen it in a long time. Gotcha,
Speaker 2: But I didn't realize this is the twenty year anniversary.
Speaker 2: Watched it last night. Still totally holds up, really looks great. Fun. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well acted by most of the cast members who didn't
Speaker 2: act well. Oh, you know Ken. It always gets picked on.
Speaker 2: I love that guy, I know, kung Fu. He's perfect
Speaker 2: in that role. Though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great. I can't imagine anybody else and it'd
Speaker 1: be too just too serious. I think, like, imagine Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise in that in the major Yeah.
Speaker 2: You're right. He adds a little like something light, doesn't he.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes it a little more every man, almost
Speaker 1: a little more believable in a weird way, I think.
Speaker 2: So do you see those John Wick movies.
Speaker 1: I've seen some of it. It's just like a little
Speaker 1: too video gamy for me. Yeah, but I mean it's fine.
Speaker 1: I respect that people like it.
Speaker 2: Sure, here we go. Okay, it's about three D. Three D.
Speaker 2: It's about solar panels. I got movies on the three D.
Speaker 2: You got the well they are in three D. I
Speaker 2: guess oat, I got movies on the brain. Hey, guys.
Speaker 2: Being a roof for my entire life, I never thought
Speaker 2: I'd have much input until now it's my time to shine.
Speaker 2: One thing that wasn't mentioned in the solar panel episode
Speaker 2: is that people really need to consider the age of
Speaker 2: their existing roof before installing solar pains.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good point.
Speaker 2: A new residential shingle roof should last about thirty years,
Speaker 2: but at the roof isn't nearly new. I would not
Speaker 2: suggest installing solar paanpeanels.
Speaker 1: And definitely don't install it if the roof the roof
Speaker 1: is on fire.
Speaker 2: Once the panels are installed, roof repairs or replacement is
Speaker 2: very difficult and much more expensive. If the life of
Speaker 2: the roof ends before the solar panels die, you can
Speaker 2: easily add fifty to seventy five percent or more to
Speaker 2: the cost of the reroofing due to the added labor
Speaker 2: costs to remove and reinstall the panels. Yeah, don't you
Speaker 2: think about that? So you should align it ideally with
Speaker 2: your new roof. Sure, I do mostly commercial roofing can't
Speaker 2: tell you the number of customers. So I talk to
Speaker 2: add solar panels on an old roof and are now
Speaker 2: paying through the nose for repairs or replacement. Reputable solar
Speaker 2: panel specialists should have this roof conversation with a potential
Speaker 2: customer before installing the panels. I'm afraid it doesn't always happen,
Speaker 2: or customers underestimate the added reroofing costs once they're installed.
Speaker 1: Man, this is a great PSA.
Speaker 2: It is thanks again for what you guys do. I'm
Speaker 2: in my truck a lot driving to different job sites
Speaker 2: and it's always easier on Tuesday through Thursday. I want
Speaker 2: to have a new stuff you should know and that
Speaker 2: is from Owen Sinsinig.
Speaker 1: Great name, first day and last yep, love the name Owen,
Speaker 1: Stephen King's kids name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Owen King.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Owen. We appreciate that big time. That
Speaker 1: was a great email. I would have never thought about that, and.
Speaker 2: He didn't even send his business and to be plugged.
Speaker 2: So just google his name and roofing and if he
Speaker 2: happens to live near you, use him.
Speaker 1: That's how dedicated this guy is.
Speaker 2: He sounds honest.
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to be a cool person like Owen,
Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us. You can go
Speaker 1: on to stuff you Should Know dot com and check
Speaker 1: out our social links. You can also send us an
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.