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Discover 15 fascinating stories of how filmmakers turned potential disasters into genius. From a malfunctioning shark in 'Jaws' to an overweight Marlon Brando in 'Apocalypse Now', see how creative problem-solving led to iconic moments in film and television history.
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00:00Filmmaking sure isn't easy at the best and most fortuitous of times, but when you're dealing with $200 million tentpoles
00:06that involve literally dozens of departments and hundreds of crafts folk that all need to be coordinated, it's inevitable that
00:12mistakes will be made.
00:14But a strong sign of a talented filmmaker is one who can think on their feet and pivot to fix
00:18a nagging issue, be it during shooting or once the film enters post-production.
00:23So, with that in mind, Marlon Brando was filmed in shadow to hide his weight, Apocalypse Now.
00:28But the already immensely problematic shoot was further complicated when Brando arrived to the set in less than ideal condition.
00:35Brando was roughly 40 pounds overweight, giving him a stocky build that was far away from the thin Kurtz envisioned
00:41in both the script and Heart of Darkness.
00:44Furthermore, Brando hadn't even read the script, so he didn't know his lines and argued with the director about the
00:49arc and the name of his character.
00:50Finally, they came to a compromise. To conceal his undulating gut, Brando would be dressed in slimming black clothes, shot
00:57primarily in shadow and filmed largely from the waist up, while a body double would be used to make him
01:02look taller.
01:03And to be honest, as disastrous as this sounds, it actually gave Kurtz a greater sense of mystery and intrigue,
01:08and no doubt contributed to the film's third act being as brilliantly surreal as it was.
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02:24A visible crew member became Bob, Twin Peaks.
02:27There are countless examples of TV shows cleverly papering over major mistakes.
02:32And then there's David Lynch deciding he liked to blunder so much he actually incorporated it into Twin Peaks' main
02:38storyline.
02:39I mean, why not?
02:40While shooting a scene featuring Sarah Palmer, the face of a set dresser by the name of Frank Silver was
02:45accidentally visible in the mirror behind her.
02:48Lynch loved the eerie visual so much that he decided to just keep it.
02:52And better still, he gave Silver the role of what would eventually become the series' primary antagonist.
02:57The interdimensional entity known as Bob.
03:00Bob's legacy ended up enduring even past Silver's untimely death in 1995, with the character returning for Lynch's 2017 revival.
03:10And to think it was all because of a simple mistake.
03:12If Silver had just been standing somewhere else, perhaps Twin Peaks wouldn't be what it is today.
03:16Porgs were created after Puffins wouldn't leave the set, Star Wars The Last Jedi.
03:22The bug-eyed bird-like creatures known as Porgs seemed like they were always part of the plan for Star
03:26Wars by Disney in order to create some sort of massive cash grab in the form of merchandise and toys.
03:32But that turns out not to be the case, as the Porgs weren't actually conceived until shooting had started, and
03:37upon arrival at the Irish island of Skellig Michael to film the scene set on Luke's home planet, they discovered
03:43that the island was covered with Puffins who quickly disrupted production.
03:46Moreover, Skellig Michael is a nature reserve, meaning that the animals cannot be moved, even temporarily.
03:52And so, rather than ask for VFX teams to painstakingly remove the Puffins from hundreds of shots, they just decided
03:58to simply incorporate an indigenous bird species into the final film.
04:01You'd never guess it from the final film, and for the mere shot of Chewie snacking on a Porg, the
04:06hassle was all totally worth it.
04:08Kelsey Grammer's flub turned into an ad-lib joke, Fraser.
04:11Fraser is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, no question.
04:15And though that is largely a result of the tack-sharp writing, what would the show be without the no
04:21-perfect performances of Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce?
04:24While shooting a scene for the season 11 episode, A Man, A Plan and A Gal, Julia, Grammer flubbed one
04:30of his lines, referring to himself as the old, fault-finding, floor-fleeing, Fraser.
04:35But Pierce saved the take without missing a damn beat by smugly replying, You said, Flazer, to the explosive laughter
04:43of the live studio audience, before the two then launched into a squabbling match as the scene ended.
04:48It was wonderful stuff. Between Grammer's botched line underlining just how flustered Fraser was here, and Niall's perfectly in-character
04:55retort, this was a most fortuitous gaffe that translated into easy TV hilarity.
05:01The malfunctioning shark prop was ditched for the sake of suspense, Jaws.
05:05Steven Spielberg's Jaws isn't just the quintessential Hollywood blockbuster, it's a tightly wound suspense masterpiece that remains virtually unrivaled over
05:1240 years later.
05:13But things almost turned out very differently, and only due to a series of production setbacks did the film become
05:19what it is today.
05:20Originally, the shark was supposed to have a far more pervasive presence throughout the film, but the time-consuming maintenance
05:26and routine malfunctioning of the three shark props prompted Spielberg to change tack mid-shooting.
05:31With the sharks having to be drained of salt water and repainted every night, Spielberg had finally had enough.
05:36He later said,
05:48Spielberg opted instead to focus on both the human element and the art of implication, splicing together only scarce glimpses
05:54of the shark for most of the film, and it was all the better for it, creating a blueprint that
05:59Hollywood has been following for almost half a century through the exploration of the fear of the unknown.
06:04The hilarious explanation for the infamous uncut pizza, Breaking Bad.
06:09One of Breaking Bad's most memorable moments isn't a shocking character death or a jaw-dropping plot twist, but a
06:15scene early in Season 3 where, after Skylar won't let Walter into their home, he angrily hurls the pizza he's
06:22holding into the air, causing it to land on the roof.
06:25Almost immediately after the episode aired, fans began discussing just how bizarre and hilarious the scene was, noting how odd
06:32it was that the pizza came unsliced, because who in their life has ever ordered a pizza that looked like
06:37that?
06:38Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan eventually chimed in on the discussion, confirming that the pizza was left fully formed for
06:44entirely practical reasons, despite it making no sense whatsoever.
06:48He said, we had a long discussion before we shot the pizza on the roof scene about whether or not
06:53the pizza should be sliced, because as all you physicists know, a thrown sliced pizza would come apart due to
07:00centrifugal force, or angular momentum, or something like that.
07:03And yet, you're right, no self-respecting pizza parlour sells an unsliced pizza, but Gilligan brilliantly paid this off in
07:10the fourth season, when Jessie, Badger and Skinny Pete receive a pizza order, and of course, the pizzas are unsliced.
07:17Badger suggests that the pizza company does this to save money, and pass the savings on to the customer, even
07:23trying to calculate the man-hours saved in doing so.
07:26Through a haze of weed smoke, naturally, Gilligan added of the explanation, we figured we needed to explain it, or
07:32else face our audience's righteous wrath.
07:35Rule one of screenwriting, folks. If you make a mistake, just make a joke out of it and you're all
07:38good. That's what I've been doing on videos for years.
07:40And season four's inconsistencies were caused by a gas leak community.
07:45Beloved community showrunner Dan Harmon was fired by NBC at the end of the show's third season, resulting in David
07:52Gerasio and Moses Port being drafted in to write what would become an incredibly divisive fourth season.
07:59Season four received heavily mixed responses from critics and fans alike, noting character changes that seemed inconsistent with their established
08:09personalities,
08:10and a more conventional sitcom-like narrative with increasingly outlandish plotlines that were often left unresolved.
08:18Harmon himself said of the season,
08:19It's very much like an impression, and an unflattering one.
08:22NBC replaced us with two guys who didn't know what they were getting into, and then I think they tried
08:26their best.
08:27But thankfully, NBC saw sense and rehired Harmon for the fifth season.
08:32Rather than simply trying to pick up the tattered pieces of season four,
08:35he decided to reset the table by hilariously having the characters comment on a gas leak that occurred on the
08:41campus,
08:42and caused all the off-base events of that prior season.
08:45Now, it obviously didn't erase everything that happened, but it was at least a smart way to acknowledge the divisive
08:50events,
08:51while providing an in-universe explanation for all the dodgy writing, too.
08:55Thankfully, community returned to form for its final two seasons with Harmon,
08:59and now fans typically regard season four as just a curious blip.
09:03Everyone just moved on with their lives.
09:04Different takes were literally spliced together.
09:07Star Wars Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith
09:09George Lucas' reliance on digital filmmaking techniques in the Star Wars prequels
09:14was largely reviled by his fans, and with damn good reason.
09:17But it did also allow Lucas a huge amount of versatility when it came to tinkering with scenes in post
09:23-production.
09:23Shooting almost every scene against a green screen allowed him to effectively insert any digital backdrop he wanted,
09:29and if Lucas realised the scene wasn't quite working in post,
09:32he could employ some cutting-edge wizardry to generate the drama he desired
09:35by literally splicing together different takes with subtle transitions.
09:39And by subtle, we mean blur wipes.
09:42He does love a good blur wipe.
09:44But for example, did you know that when Anakin is talking to Palpatine
09:47that these are two completely different takes?
09:49Well, maybe now you do, because the tech was still a little bit rough around the edges at the time,
09:54but still, at the time, audiences had absolutely no idea that these were two different takes.
09:59Pike's missing rag bars were added with CGI, Star Trek Discovery.
10:03And the crew of Star Trek Discovery were forced to fix an issue in post-production.
10:08As while shooting early scenes for Season 2,
10:11they forgot to include the cuffed rank bars on Captain Pike's iconic yellow uniform.
10:16Discovery's costume department was so accustomed to placing the ranks of the USS Discovery's crew members
10:22on their insignia badges, that they forgot the Enterprise's crew historically has cuffed rank bars.
10:27What are they like?
10:28After the marketing department picked up on it, the only viable option was to add the flair with CGI.
10:34The irony that a show so utterly slathered in costly visual effects
10:38had to add something so minor digitally is undeniable.
10:42Though at least the end result is entirely indistinguishable from the real thing.
10:46Oh, and if you are a lover of all things Star Trek,
10:48then go and check out Trek Culture right now, my friend,
10:50because you are going to have a good time.
10:51Thank you as well for checking out this list today,
10:53and if you are enjoying what you're watching, then hit that subscribe button down below,
10:56and you will get more of these WhatCulture videos in your life.
10:59Hell of a deal if you ask me.
11:00Charlie's poor spelling became a running gag, Numbers.
11:05Hit crime drama series Numbers revolves around FBI agent Don Epps
11:10and his maths genius brother, Charlie, who solve crimes together.
11:14Just because you're a whiz with Numbers, it does not mean you're totally on the ball with words,
11:18as evidenced by Charlie blatantly misspelling the word anomaly as anomole
11:23when writing it on a map in the show's pilot episode.
11:26Many fans picked up on this mistake and had a lot of fun mocking both Charlie and the crew,
11:31prompting the show's writers to make Charlie's poor spelling a running gag over the course of the show.
11:37Memorably, the season one finale featured an exchange between Don and Charlie
11:41about whether or not Charlie knows how to spell anomaly.
11:44And later in the show's life, references were also made to him being a horrible speller.
11:49Poor Charlie.
11:50Leonardo DiCaprio cut his hand and just kept acting.
11:54At this point, this scene has become something of a legendary tale in the creating of Django Unchained.
12:00The moment that Leonardo DiCaprio displayed just how much he wanted to win an Oscar
12:04when he smashed his hand down on a table so hard that he destroyed a glass and his hand in
12:09equal measure.
12:10And while in most circumstances this would necessitate a director to yell cut,
12:13ever the pro, Leo simply kept performing the rest of the lengthy take while bearing his bloodied hand to the
12:19camera.
12:20Quentin Tarantino was so impressed that rather than simply erase the gaff from the movie,
12:24he kept it in and even allowed DiCaprio to build upon it by wiping his bloody hand over the face
12:29of Django's wife.
12:31But of course, DiCaprio had his hand bandaged up first and the blood smeared on Kerry Washington's face
12:36was absolutely fake, contrary to popular belief.
12:39Nevertheless, a brilliantly savage movie moment was born out of a painful flub.
12:44Netflix released a fixed version of a complained about scene, Orange is the New Black.
12:49And now for a most minor mistake that picked up an unexpected ton of traction on social media,
12:55and consequently received the most peculiarly brilliant response from the show itself.
12:59In a season 5 episode of Orange is the New Black, Flakka and Maritza are filming a beauty tutorial vlog,
13:06where Maritza explains that in prison she uses typical household spices to contour her face,
13:13rather than the usual fancy department store products.
13:16Maritza name drops three spices, cinnamon, cumin and sazon goya.
13:20But it's extremely obvious that she's actually pointing at sazon adobo, a totally different spice.
13:25Social media was naturally up in arms as ever,
13:28and less than two months later Netflix responded by posting a re-shot version of the scene
13:33to Twitter with the correct spice in place.
13:36And a not-so-subtle wink at the audience from Flakka and Maritza.
13:39Considering that Netflix absolutely did not need to do this,
13:42this was a pretty neat way to make it up to those enraised fans seriously get a real problem,
13:47while also taking smart advantage of social media.
13:50Clumsy Extra was kept in for dramatic reasons.
13:53MASH
13:53The season 3 finale of MASH concluded with the death of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake,
13:59as announced by a traumatised Radar O'Reilly to the assembled OR surgeons.
14:04As Radar leaves the room, the camera pans across the surgeons in an unbroken take,
14:09as they're either frozen in shock and fighting back tears,
14:12or simply trying to focus on the patients they're operating on.
14:15But at the end of the shot, the noise of someone dropping a surgical item,
14:19rumoured to be a scalpel or a tray, can be heard.
14:22This was a genuine accident, presumably by an extra,
14:26and not written in the script, folks,
14:28but it was still kept in the episode due to its authenticity.
14:31After all, an off-screen surgeon dropping a tray in shock at learning of Blake's death
14:36just adds even more weight to one of the series' most unforgettable scenes, right?
14:40The cast and crew were only told about Stevenson's departure from the show mere moments before shooting the scene.
14:47James Franco's head injury was concealed with a headband, Pineapple Express.
14:51Have you ever wondered why James Franco is suddenly wearing a headband in the second half of Pineapple Express?
14:57Well, no, me neither, to be honest.
14:59But apparently, this was less an aesthetic choice than it was a practical necessity.
15:04In an earlier sequence, where Saul runs into a tree resulted in Franco accidentally running into a screw on the
15:10prop tree,
15:11cutting his head and requiring him to receive stitches.
15:13And in order to cover up the injury, Saul randomly acquires a headband.
15:17Simple, right?
15:17And because it fits with his character, audiences didn't even question it.
15:21The Tale of Two Beckys, Roseanne.
15:23If you grew up in the 90s, there is a good chance you saw your fair share of Roseanne episodes.
15:28And you might even remember that the series faced a major issue when Lisey Goranson, who played the Connor's eldest
15:34daughter, Becky,
15:35decided she wanted to leave to complete a college degree at the end of the show's fifth season.
15:40The show's producers wrote Becky out, but ultimately decided that the character should return.
15:44And so recast Becky, with future Scrubs star Sarah Chalk taking over the part.
15:49But by season eight, Goranson was able to return, resulting in Chalk being let go.
15:54However, because Goranson's college schedule often conflicted with filming,
15:58Chalk occasionally returned to fill in for her, resulting in a hilarious game of hot potato,
16:03with the role being shared between the two actresses.
16:06Mad.
16:06Now, in another show, this could have spelled out a major production problem.
16:10But countless wink-wink jokes were made about Becky's changing appearance during season eight,
16:15before Chalk took over the role again for its ninth and initially final season.
16:20In the belated tenth season, Goranson returned to play Becky,
16:23while Chalk was brought in to play an entirely new character,
16:27with the show inevitably passing comments on their physical similarities, to hilarious effect.
16:32Considering how much of a headache this must have been for the showrunners,
16:35making a big old joke out of it was clearly the smartest possible route,
16:39without just writing Becky out entirely.
16:41Plus, we got an hilarious end-credits send-up out of the whole mess, too.
16:44Brilliant.
16:44Brilliant.