Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the playlist. It's me Josh,
Speaker 1: and this episode is all about special effects. We tried
Speaker 1: to cram as much as we possibly could into this episode,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot to talk about with special effects,
Speaker 1: and there's all sorts of different kinds of special effects.
Speaker 1: Most of the stuff we think of today is all CGI,
Speaker 1: but that's built on things that people used to have
Speaker 1: to build with their own hands to make amazing movies
Speaker 1: look believable. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed this playlist. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant wearing his
Speaker 1: Stone Temple Pilot's hat, and there's Jerry over there. She's
Speaker 1: not wearing any hat. 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 hats at Auto
Speaker 2: Zone yesterday.
Speaker 1: I have a Champion spark Plug hat. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: good hats, they really do.
Speaker 2: I was getting a battery, and I was like, I
Speaker 2: want these two hats. It was a good Year Akron,
Speaker 2: 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 a 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 mine's battery powered too, but you have to
Speaker 1: plug 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: No, there's a blue one.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've got the green one to the sun Joe.
Speaker 2: No, but I have a sun Joe 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'll bet it just goes like
Speaker 1: tinkles out water.
Speaker 2: But they do make plug in lawnmowers. Like, it's not
Speaker 2: a battery. You just like have a cord that you
Speaker 2: 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 battery 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.
Speaker 1: Mo There's just that one bladed grass that sees the
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: Full. Yeah, we're both also aware that we are charging
Speaker 1: our battery powered lawnmowers with coal fired power.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we understand that.
Speaker 1: We know.
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about exhaustpiums.
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: It 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 did.
Speaker 1: Yeah wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just tiny little things that you may not even notice,
Speaker 2: to things that are almost whole cloth special effects like
Speaker 2: Skycaptain in the World of.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow yeah, or Sin City.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like both of those Yes, did.
Speaker 1: You know Sin City? Every single bit of the set
Speaker 1: was cgi.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that Skycaptain did it first, Yeah, a year
Speaker 2: before huh yep, every bit of that was. It was
Speaker 2: a 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?
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 miss Georgie Scott too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a good actor. And I don't remember who
Speaker 1: the female 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. Okay.
Speaker 2: Effects are divided, and this is by the Grab story
Speaker 2: helped us out with this. AD's a big movie guy
Speaker 2: and horror movie sci fi guy. Sure, so he probably
Speaker 2: enjoyed writing this one up. They're divided into three general categories,
Speaker 2: and this all has to do with where the effect
Speaker 2: is happening. It can be practical, which is in front
Speaker 2: of the camera, and that means it's a physical thing
Speaker 2: 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 me.
Speaker 2: In camera effects that happened inside the camera, and then
Speaker 2: post production effects. And many times you're using one or
Speaker 2: all three of these.
Speaker 1: Right right, So with like practical effects, that's things like
Speaker 1: makeup and prosthetics, like ed uses, the example of David
Speaker 1: Lynch's The Elephant Man, like the prosthetic makeup that was
Speaker 1: used to turn John Hurt or John Hurd which one
Speaker 1: hurt into Joseph Merrick. Yes, that's a special effect. An
Speaker 1: explosion on set, that's a special effect, a blood packet
Speaker 1: to make it look like somebody just got shot in
Speaker 1: the chest. A squib that's a special effect. All three
Speaker 1: of those are practical effects. They're actually happening in the
Speaker 1: physical world in front of you on set, being captured
Speaker 1: 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 that
Speaker 2: people and you see that fire shimmering on the wall.
Speaker 2: That's a practical effect too.
Speaker 1: Little things like that, 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.
Speaker 1: 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 they hide those and then that's your fire. Sure,
Speaker 2: because that's to look perfect. You can't just chance somebody
Speaker 2: 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 2: They are kind of dreamy they're so good.
Speaker 1: So in camera effects is just basically messing with the
Speaker 1: way the film is being produced inside the camera, not
Speaker 1: what's going on in reality the film is capturing, but
Speaker 1: how the 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?
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: 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 like created,
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. Ye 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. I didn't
Speaker 2: know they're there to serve them pizza rolls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, or whatever. You can put on some weight
Speaker 1: and film in something. I'll tell you that for 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, a 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 us in the podcast Night.
Speaker 2: And then we have post production effects, and that is
Speaker 2: I think that's what a lot of people think of
Speaker 2: as special effects these days, really, because that's all the
Speaker 2: CGI stuff that you will see is all happens in post.
Speaker 1: Production Okay, all right, Yes, these days I got youa like,
Speaker 1: almost all special effects happen imposts 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 trickery to begin with, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff you can do with motion picture cameras
Speaker 1: that you can't do with still photo cameras. And they
Speaker 1: 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?
Speaker 1: Did you want to? Did you see that one?
Speaker 2: It's he uses a stop trick with Mary getting beheaded,
Speaker 2: and right when the ax 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
Speaker 2: it like me.
Speaker 1: So Alfred Clark is credited with the first special effect,
Speaker 1: but a guy named George may leise did they get it? Maylee?
Speaker 2: We should go ask Casey Pegram.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he would know.
Speaker 2: I think it's uh milia, Oh nice.
Speaker 1: I think he just nailed it. At any rate, this
Speaker 1: guy is known as the father of 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 field.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: Can we say that? Sure? All right? We don't have
Speaker 1: 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 substance tution splice that became
Speaker 2: part of filmmaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because by the time the camera had started up again,
Speaker 1: the bus was replaced by a hearse. So it looked
Speaker 1: like when he went back and watched it, the bus
Speaker 1: suddenly transformed into a hearse.
Speaker 2: And he said, wait till they get a load of
Speaker 2: Bewitched seventy something years from now. So or no, I
Speaker 2: guess what was that in the fifties, sixties, sixties, all right.
Speaker 1: So you may not recognize George Meliaise, oh I got
Speaker 1: at that time, I think so name, but you probably
Speaker 1: have heard of his work like a Trip to the Moon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's very widely sighted is like one of the first
Speaker 1: actual movies. I think it was in the twenty something
Speaker 1: minute range. But it was about some explorers in the
Speaker 1: Victorian era getting into a rocket and traveling to the
Speaker 1: moon and the rocket lands and the man in the
Speaker 1: Moon's eye. Yeah, everybody's seen that. I don't care who
Speaker 1: you are. If you say you haven't, you have. This
Speaker 1: was the guy who made that. And this is a
Speaker 1: very early movie. It was from nineteen oh two, but
Speaker 1: he was doing all sorts of a maze using stuff.
Speaker 1: He was using extensive costuming, masks, all sorts of in
Speaker 1: 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 MAT 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 MAT.
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 going to
Speaker 2: talk about the most common way you might see it
Speaker 2: employed is you take a big piece of glass and
Speaker 2: you 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
Speaker 2: city 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. Maybe hard to argue that,
Speaker 1: thank you, like it was in Mary Poppins. When Mary
Speaker 1: Poppins is coming into the City of London float, that's
Speaker 1: a Matte painting. When Superman walks into the uh, where's
Speaker 1: the what's the name of the place where he's from?
Speaker 1: 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, and.
Speaker 2: I think the Fortress of Solitude are the remnants of Krypton. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm boy, Superman. People are so mad 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.
Speaker 1: But here's the.
Speaker 2: Thing, relying on that mat painter and having the glass there,
Speaker 2: and glass can break and it can you know, on
Speaker 2: set with lighting can be weird. So that's all can
Speaker 2: get a little hinky. So that's why this technique called
Speaker 2: original negative matte painting was developed by Norman Don and
Speaker 2: that 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, the actual film strip itself that
Speaker 1: you're recording onto or filming onto, that's unexposed. All that
Speaker 1: gets exposed is the part of the lens or the
Speaker 1: camera that is not covered that has say, your actor
Speaker 1: like doing the herky jerky dance, right. And then so
Speaker 1: what you do after that is you take that film
Speaker 1: that has your actor doing the herky jerky dance projected
Speaker 1: onto a screen so you see where the actor is, yes,
Speaker 1: and on the screen, you literally paint the background that
Speaker 1: you want. Then you film the whole thing a second
Speaker 1: time and now you have your actor in the set
Speaker 1: 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 slide gotcha. So it's not like the camera
Speaker 2: the film was moving through on the wall, right, because
Speaker 2: in 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 film. Okay, So you can't just stop a
Speaker 2: mooty projector.
Speaker 1: You produce like a slide of and 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 Down 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 I had 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 popular.
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 him, 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. 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.
Speaker 1: What do they gripped?
Speaker 2: Yeah, usually a grip. But I've shaken cars and trains before.
Speaker 2: It's because I'm just a body on the set, Like,
Speaker 2: get in there and shake that thing. In fact, one
Speaker 2: job I was on there was a faked subway train
Speaker 2: and the hydraulics broke early on and they're like, bring
Speaker 2: out the PA's you're gonna shake this 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? Oh?
Speaker 2: It was just a commercial director that said that our
Speaker 2: movement of the train looked to rhythmic and not believable.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this Fruit of the Loom's commercial was 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 really like an obvious background trees or
Speaker 1: rode or whatever. But maybe there's headlights coming up behind
Speaker 1: you just dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there are people with a spotlight.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's really really cool, old fashioned, but people still use
Speaker 2: that stuff. And I wish I could remember the full
Speaker 2: 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 chimmy? 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: I started bleeding out of my ear. I cannot tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I read descriptions about this and
Speaker 1: I can't quite get it. So suffice to say that
Speaker 1: that was one technique for green screen. What really kind
Speaker 1: of changed the industry is when they figured out that again,
Speaker 1: if you if you film in black, the film is
Speaker 1: not going to be exposed. So anything you go and
Speaker 1: re expose it to it will cover over that stuff
Speaker 1: like it's transparent. So for example, in The Invisible Man
Speaker 1: from I think nineteen thirty thirty thirty three, yeah, Claude
Speaker 1: Rains wore a black bodysuit and the background was black.
Speaker 1: It was a black screen, like a black green screen.
Speaker 1: But he wore clothes and everything in bandages and sunglasses
Speaker 1: and I think he smoked a cigarette or whatever. But
Speaker 1: when he took the bandages off and he took his
Speaker 1: sunglasses and closed off, there was nothing there. It was
Speaker 1: a black bodysuit and a black background. So when they
Speaker 1: filmed the background later on, all you could see was
Speaker 1: the background in the clothes and the bandages. It looked
Speaker 1: like there was nothing there because as far as the
Speaker 1: film was concerned, when they were filming it, there wasn't
Speaker 1: anything there. So the film wasn't exposed in those sections
Speaker 1: 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 er a 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 screen.
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,
Speaker 1: So what you have is a projector projecting a film
Speaker 1: on to a screen, and you have a camera recording
Speaker 1: what's being projected. Right, that's right, that's the optical printer.
Speaker 1: And you could do all sorts of stuff with that.
Speaker 1: So let's say you have a shot where you have
Speaker 1: one mat in the foreground and live actor and then
Speaker 1: another mat in the background that has a bunch of
Speaker 1: different people in it or something like that, or stormtroopers three. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got three different elements to that shot. What
Speaker 1: you would do is using the same film film each thing.
Speaker 1: So you go film that, like the actor, the live
Speaker 1: action actor, You've got that on the film, and you
Speaker 1: project that, and you take film where you're filming the
Speaker 1: mat and you project that and film that. I just
Speaker 1: totally have screwed this up. Oh my god, this is
Speaker 1: just like ohn, No, it's worse than that. Was it?
Speaker 1: False false positives? Do you remember that time where I
Speaker 1: was like, I took a pretty simple thing and just
Speaker 1: completely walk the dog with it. Yeah, okay, well I'll
Speaker 1: just do that again. Everyone. I want you to go
Speaker 1: look up optical printers, read a little bit about them,
Speaker 1: and then you'll say, oh, Josh is.
Speaker 2: Right, 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 film three separate times are all happening together in
Speaker 1: one space.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're marrying separate images together onto a single piece
Speaker 2: of film.
Speaker 1: Right. You couldn't do that with before optical printers, which
Speaker 1: is 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 DOLLI, 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 again.
Speaker 2: Over and over and a lot of times. If you're
Speaker 2: on a TV commercial, as boring as that is, you
Speaker 2: 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 in post. And
Speaker 2: that's the whole reason for emotion 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, because.
Speaker 1: It's the first one that ever came out. Anyway, when
Speaker 1: they were making this, you know, is it a Star Destroyer?
Speaker 1: The big the big daddy ships Okay, oh man, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get murdered everything. All of the ships and Star
Speaker 1: Wars were models, yes, fairly small models. Actually they were.
Speaker 2: At that base, Okay, I think it was episode four,
Speaker 2: I'm almost positive.
Speaker 1: Okay, So those models were not moving in these shots
Speaker 1: and these enormous like huge panoramic shots where like there's
Speaker 1: tie fighters flying around shooting everything and X wing Fighters
Speaker 1: shooting the tie Fighters. None of those models were moving.
Speaker 1: What happened was they figured out how to use motion
Speaker 1: controlled cameras so that the camera would go through the
Speaker 1: shot around the model and make it look like the
Speaker 1: model was moving, and plus it was moving the shot
Speaker 1: through space.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The thing is is, let's say you have five different ships.
Speaker 1: You film those five ships separately, but those five ships
Speaker 1: are all going to be in the same shot, So
Speaker 1: you have to film that same shot the exact same
Speaker 1: way five different times and then run it through an
Speaker 1: optical printer so that you can get all of them,
Speaker 1: all five shots onto the same strip of film. But
Speaker 1: that's one of the ways that motion controlled cameras were
Speaker 1: really put to good use, and it was extremely groundbreaking
Speaker 1: because not one of those ships were moving in reality
Speaker 1: when they were filming Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Can you name five Star warships.
Speaker 1: Tie Fighter, X wing Fighter.
Speaker 2: You already said one my tie fighter too.
Speaker 1: Uh uh the deuce is what the people in the
Speaker 1: no call it.
Speaker 2: The Uh you already said star destroyer. So star destroyer
Speaker 2: was right, Yeah, there's a Star Destroyer. Okay, you made
Speaker 2: a face like I just was just totally off. You
Speaker 2: can make the case that Indoor was a ship even
Speaker 2: though it was a planet.
Speaker 1: Uh. There was the the the forest Speeder, uh huh,
Speaker 1: the the pod racer, Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Doctors as that's right, he's a 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: Ollie 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 it's usually a combination of these different techniques to
Speaker 2: create one overall special effect using these different crafts. And
Speaker 2: a great example is Jurassic Park 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 up,
Speaker 2: and it comes out to be like a really believable
Speaker 2: looking scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes out as an oscar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm sure they won oscars, right, but.
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, New Hope, the first
Speaker 1: one that came out. So, but that was five years
Speaker 1: after the first oscar had been awarded for special effects.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, h really, I believe that
Speaker 1: The Abyss was the first one to win an OSCAR
Speaker 1: for special effects. Maybe or they're no, No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm way off, way off. The Abyss was the first
Speaker 1: movie to win a special effect for a CGI effect. Okay,
Speaker 1: remember the.
Speaker 2: 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 out. I thought it was. Yeah, it's a good movie.
Speaker 2: I really liked that movie.
Speaker 1: How do you not like Ed Harris? You don't like what?
Speaker 1: Did you not like it? Hair? No?
Speaker 2: I like I like him as an actor. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people might have problems with Ed Harris
Speaker 2: as a person. 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, didn'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 that, 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
Speaker 2: garbage Matt real quick, because that is a big deal.
Speaker 2: A lot of times you have wire work or you
Speaker 2: have you have things hanging from wires. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be a person. It can be like a model
Speaker 2: plane or a tie fighter or whatever. You got to
Speaker 2: get rid of those wires unless you're ed.
Speaker 1: Would you can't have fishing line, No, you're supposed to not,
Speaker 1: but yes, Or if.
Speaker 2: You're Charlie's thrown in mad Max Ferry Road, you got
Speaker 2: to get it rid of that arm. Or if you're
Speaker 2: in Forrest Gump, you got to get rid of Lieutenant
Speaker 2: Dan's legs.
Speaker 1: Man. That was amazing. That was the first time anybody's
Speaker 1: ever 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.
Speaker 2: But 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 Light 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 Diystra Flex super
Speaker 1: 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, you know, like it can be done, so
Speaker 1: it's being done everybody's doing it. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: like and it makes it less amazing, not necessarily because
Speaker 1: it looks bad. It just keeps looking better and better
Speaker 1: every time. Like if you if you look at Charlie
Speaker 1: Stern's prosthetic arm or missing army compared with Lieutenant Dan's
Speaker 1: missing legs, looks different. It does, So it's getting better.
Speaker 1: There's just too much of it, I think is the
Speaker 1: point just to be all ed harrisy 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've 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 of a thousand Faces.
Speaker 2: He was. He was very talented doing his own makeup
Speaker 2: and changing his face. That's why he's called the Man
Speaker 2: of one 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He also this dude, the stuff he did. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look back, he did King Kong, the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three King Kong. Yeah, and if you look back
Speaker 1: at this, you're like, this is this is cool? But
Speaker 1: if you research what was done to create this, you're
Speaker 1: 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'TOK realistic, No, consider the year,
Speaker 2: it looks awesome.
Speaker 1: It does. And it's about three and a half minutes
Speaker 1: long King Kong fighting the Tyrannosaurus recks. But it took
Speaker 1: seven weeks to film, Yeah, because there's twenty four frames
Speaker 1: shot per second in a film, and for every frame,
Speaker 1: they moved the models a little bit here or there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's why it took seven weeks just for that
Speaker 1: fight scene. I think it was fifty five weeks for
Speaker 1: all of the stop motion photography that was done in
Speaker 1: 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 Harry Housen continued the work of Willis O'Brien
Speaker 2: and very famously in like the fifties and sixties with
Speaker 2: movies 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. That was cool movie.
Speaker 2: That was a big movie for 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 we should shout out Millicent Patrick. This is a
Speaker 2: very interesting story. She was one of the only, well
Speaker 2: first and only women working in special effects back in
Speaker 2: the day, and she created the very famous mask of
Speaker 2: the gill Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon in
Speaker 2: the mid nineteen fifties and was unceremoniously fired.
Speaker 1: Not just fired, stricken from the credits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy named Bud Wes Moore, he assisted her
Speaker 2: and then basically had her fired rather than give her
Speaker 2: the 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 I thought, I guess he assisted her, but he
Speaker 2: was her boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but like she very clearly on her own
Speaker 1: came up with the gill man for yeah, the creature
Speaker 1: from the And this has.
Speaker 2: Only come out in the last few years. They've kind
Speaker 2: of dug up the original stuff. And yeah, sexism just
Speaker 2: basically pushed her out of the industry altogether. Yeah, 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.
Speaker 2: He created the squib.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, he's a he's a very famous makeup artist.
Speaker 1: He's really 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 that.
Speaker 2: That nuts.
Speaker 1: Wow. He really is good. He also did Death Becomes
Speaker 1: Her which is one of the all time great movies, yeah.
Speaker 2: 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 Hoffmann little big Man
Speaker 2: 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 three,
Speaker 2: star Wars Moss Isley Cantina.
Speaker 1: He made all those Yeah, did you know that about
Speaker 1: the Moss Eisley Cantina. Sure, I didn't know that. He
Speaker 1: was almost single handily respondib Yeah, 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 was when Jason comes along, right, Yes.
Speaker 1: It's Jason 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. Yeah, Fisher films like
Speaker 1: even better than I remember for Me and a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the reason Stan Winston filled in for Friday the
Speaker 1: Thirteenth Part two is because the guy who did Friday
Speaker 1: Thirteenth the first one, Tom Savini, was unavailable. He was
Speaker 1: off doing Creep Show, I believe. 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. Nice, But yeah, Savini is well known
Speaker 2: for being sort of the godfather of Gore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did Maniac Do you everous see that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was off the Rocker movie.
Speaker 2: And then these days there are companies ILM and WETA.
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, and
Speaker 2: they did, they really did. And then WETA is Peter
Speaker 2: Jackson's company, and he's the one that has really pioneered
Speaker 2: the mo cap 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 and 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: do you remember the Stained Glass Night that comes to
Speaker 1: life 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 jalice.
Speaker 1: That's in. That's in Writers of the Lost Arc, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 2: It says here it was the first ever digital composite
Speaker 2: of a full screen live action image.
Speaker 1: There's something in the language there.
Speaker 2: It was a full screen or something. This was the gotcha.
Speaker 1: This was the first CGI, but it wasn't the first
Speaker 1: CGI image. This is the first moving CGI image. The
Speaker 1: first CGI image was in Looker. Remember that movie.
Speaker 2: I totally saw Looker. Yeah, that was a big HBO movie.
Speaker 1: For me for sure. Same here. It was Looker Runaway.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, Kroll Runaway. It's Tom Selleck, yeah, and Gene
Speaker 2: Simmons 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah, written by Michael Crichton.
Speaker 2: I think that was the first full body three D human,
Speaker 2: but it did not move. It was static. And the
Speaker 2: very first computer generated effects period, funny enough, were used
Speaker 2: to replicate computer screen. So whenever you would see a
Speaker 2: computer screen in like Westworld or Aliens or Star Wars,
Speaker 2: and they were like, what is the computer going to
Speaker 2: look like? You know?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: Now, that was the first time they used computer generated
Speaker 2: imaging was 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 this de aging technique
Speaker 2: that they're getting better and better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the new Scorsese picked 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 Scorsese, so they have d aged de Naro.
Speaker 2: And then I saw this new Angle movie Gemini 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'td agent. It is
Speaker 2: a fully cgi Will Smith.
Speaker 1: Oh and it looks that really the younger.
Speaker 2: Version is yeah wow. So I was like, man, they're
Speaker 2: getting so good at the dh that's amazing. So he
Speaker 2: mowcapped his whole performance motion captured and they just used
Speaker 2: fresh prints photos.
Speaker 1: And they just basically deep fake them.
Speaker 2: Sort of have you seen the Bill Hayter deep fake
Speaker 2: that's going around now. It's pretty cool. Yeah, because he
Speaker 2: goes from Hater to Tom Cruise, to seth Rogan back
Speaker 2: to Tom Cruise. It's like kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1: It 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, which
Speaker 2: is that's a bad example. Or you can color grate
Speaker 2: 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, and.
Speaker 1: They used to have to like film it at some
Speaker 1: weird exposure, then projected at another exposure to some filter,
Speaker 1: and then re the whole thing on an optical negative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now they can just do it all with a computer, easypasy.
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. Hey. Thanks, And
Speaker 1: since I said movie Crush, it's time for 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.
Speaker 1: Members who didn't act well.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know Ken't who always gets picked on. I
Speaker 2: love that guy, I know, kung Fu. He's perfect in
Speaker 2: 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 Matrix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right. He adds a little like something light,
Speaker 2: 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.
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.
Speaker 1: I got movies on the three D.
Speaker 2: Got the well they are in three D. I guess
Speaker 2: I got movies on the brain. Hey, guys. Being a
Speaker 2: roof for my entire life, I never thought I'd have
Speaker 2: much input until now it's my time to shine. One
Speaker 2: thing that wasn't mentioned in the solar panel episode is
Speaker 2: that people really need to consider the age of their
Speaker 2: existing before installing solar panels.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good point.
Speaker 2: A new residential shingle roof should last about thirty years.
Speaker 2: But if the roof isn't nearly new, I would not
Speaker 2: suggest installing solar panels.
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 talked to
Speaker 2: had 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 if I'm afraid it doesn't
Speaker 2: always happen or customers underestimates the added reroofing cost once
Speaker 2: 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 Sinsinik.
Speaker 1: Great name first and last. Yep, love the name Owen.
Speaker 1: Stephen King's kids name them Yeah, Owen King. Thanks a lot, Owen.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that big time. That was a great email.
Speaker 1: I would have never thought about that.
Speaker 2: And he didn't even send his business in 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. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.