- 2 minutes ago
Ever wonder how filmmakers pull off the impossible? This video uncovers the astonishing practical effects and clever set designs behind iconic scenes in 'Spider-Man,' 'Breaking Bad,' and 'Home Alone.' Prepare to have your mind blown by the secrets you never knew you were watching.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00The sheer amount of blood, sweat and tears that go into making even a terrible movie is unmistakable, my friends.
00:08From getting the script written to having the actors perform it, lighting the set appropriately, cutting it all together and
00:15ensuring the sound is mixed correctly.
00:17It's a multidisciplinary art form where even the most basic film is comprised of thousands of smaller creative decisions and
00:25details.
00:26And often filmmakers are ingenious enough that their crew's work is on full display, even while audiences are absolutely unable
00:34to fathom the true graph that went into achieving it.
00:37And so we tip our hat to the ludicrously talented crafts folk across all cinematic disciplines, whose hard work allowed
00:44these scenes right here to land as brilliantly as they did.
00:48Kevin's home was actually a high school gym, Home Alone.
00:51Holiday classic comedy, Home Alone, features one of the most iconic and immediately recognisable houses in all of cinema, given
00:59that the vast majority of the film takes place inside Kevin McAllister's spacious abode.
01:04But as was eventually revealed in Netflix's series The Movies That Made Us, the interiors of Kevin's home weren't actually
01:12those of the real house featured in the film's exterior shots, but in fact a custom-built house constructed inside
01:19a nearby high school gymnasium, where you learn something new every day.
01:23Though director Chris Columbus loved the house which had been selected for exterior shots, the crew quickly realised that the
01:30interiors were too narrow to practically shoot a movie with heaps of equipment and dozens of personnel.
01:35And so the decision was made to simply build their own version with far wider hallways to facilitate easy shooting.
01:42This even extended to building the basement of the house in the gym swimming pool, allowing for it to be
01:47easily flooded at the end of the movie.
01:49And despite the potential for there to be an obvious disconnect between the exterior shots and the artificial interiors, the
01:56end result is absolutely seamless.
01:58Bravo to all.
01:59Look, movie fan to movie fan, we've all been there.
02:03Sat on the couch, doing the scroll of doom, desperately trying to find something to watch until you think of
02:09something you do want to watch, you put it in the search bar and nah, it's not there.
02:14And that's really annoying.
02:16Thankfully there are ways you can fix that exact issue and now you can do so in a way that'll
02:21save you money too.
02:22That's right amigos, WhatCulture has an exclusive offer from NordVPN right now that'll get you 77% off a subscription
02:30plus 4 months extra free and an Amazon gift card.
02:34That works out at $2.91 a month or £2.22 per month plus with the 4 free extra months
02:41and a gift card.
02:43Click the link in the video description or scan the QR code on screen to go check it out and
02:47start watching the movies you want to today without restrictions.
02:51I think of all the movie watching you can do with that.
02:54There's Nord vs Ferrari, Harold and Nord, The Nord in the Stone, Nord by Nord West, The Nord of the
03:01Rings.
03:02So many classics you can watch with this.
03:04Get NordVPN today and unlock your favourite content while you're on the go.
03:08Do it now!
03:10Jesse's floating high wasn't green screened.
03:12Breaking Bad.
03:13Perhaps the single most memorable shot in the entirety of Breaking Bad occurs in Season 2's Mandala,
03:19after Jesse takes heroin for the first time and is shown levitating to the ceiling,
03:22symbolising the euphoric, otherworldly nature of his high.
03:25Now to the untrained eye, it's fair to assume that the scene was simply achieved by filming Aaron Paul against
03:30a green screen,
03:31which would have then been composited onto a separate plate shot of the camera, craning upwards towards the ceiling.
03:35I mean the shot just looks CGI, in large part because the lighting source on Paul's face never changes,
03:40which screams fake to our brains.
03:42But incredibly enough, it was actually achieved entirely practically and in camera.
03:46Rather than resort to green screen tricks, Paul was simply placed on a secure platform,
03:50along with the camera which was then moved upwards towards the ceiling, creating the desired effect.
03:54Tobey Maguire caught the lunch tray for real on his 156th take, Spider-Man.
04:00Perhaps the single most visually remarkable moment in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man
04:05isn't a bout of mighty superheroism, nor is it even that iconic kiss in the rain.
04:10But an early gag where a recently bitten Peter Parker uses his advanced reflexes to catch Mary Jane's tray of
04:17food,
04:18after she slips and catapults it into the air.
04:20Conventional filmmaking logic would dictate that the various food items on the tray were simply added digitally in post-production,
04:27right?
04:28And so Maguire simply had the not terribly challenging task of just catching the tray itself.
04:33Except, well, that's not the case at all, folks.
04:35The effect was actually executed entirely in camera,
04:39with an adhesive applied to Maguire's hand to help him keep hold of the tray.
04:43While if you look closely, the falling apple appears to have a magnet on its underside,
04:48presumably helping it cling to the apparently metal tray.
04:51But even with these aids, pulling off a successful take took Maguire 156 attempts over a reported 16-hour shooting
05:00day.
05:00The final result is fantastic, admittedly.
05:03Though most everyone in the audience surely assumed it was a simple VFX shot, no?
05:08Well, I did, and now I look stupid.
05:09There's invisible CGI everywhere.
05:12Mindhunter.
05:13David Fincher has proven in movies like Zodiac and The Social Network
05:16that he's a virtually unrivaled master of employing subtle visual effects
05:20that massively enhance the mood of his works.
05:22The very same was true on his brilliant Netflix crime series Mindhunter,
05:25which uses a frankly mind-boggling amount of CGI to extend sets,
05:29remove unwanted elements,
05:30and basically fine-tune every single frame of the shot to Fincher's perfectionist liking.
05:34Watching the show's VFX breakdown is a jaw-dropping testament to how subtle effects
05:38can massively elevate the tone and production value of a show,
05:41while granting the director a fascinatingly granular amount of control over their projects.
05:45In Fincher's case, this apparently even means changing the damn curb to look more period accurate.
05:50Especially impressive in the breakdown is the pitch-perfect compositing of green-screened actors
05:54into a digital environment.
05:56Even watching the show in 4K, you'd basically never guess that the actors weren't in a real location.
06:00It's often said that the best CGI is invisible,
06:03and Mindhunter is mesmerizing proof of that.
06:05Linda Hamilton's twin sister was used for her T-1000 double, Terminator 2 Judgment Day.
06:11Terminator 2 is one of the greatest visual effects movies of all time,
06:16precisely because James Cameron understood the importance of allowing CGI
06:20to enhance the practical, human elements of a story,
06:24rather than ever letting them supersede the vital, tactile element.
06:27Yet T2 is such a well-aged triumph of VFX mastery,
06:31that any remotely complex sequence can be easily dismissed as another feat
06:36of ahead-of-its-time visual wizardry.
06:38This is especially true with the climactic sequence
06:41where Sarah Connor faces off against a doppelganger of herself created by the T-1000.
06:46While most would assume that some sneaky split-screen trickery
06:50or primitive face-replaced tech was responsible for the scene,
06:53Cameron instead took full advantage of the fact that Linda Hamilton
06:56had a twin sister called Leslie,
06:58who could be used to create a practical double of Sarah.
07:02If you look at the two actresses in the same shot,
07:04it is actually relatively easy to tell the two apart,
07:07but in the thrall of the movie itself, you'd never really have a clue.
07:10I know I didn't.
07:11In fact, Leslie is also used for the nightmare sequence featuring two Sarahs.
07:15And most ingeniously of all,
07:17she also doubles for her sister during the incredible special edition sequence,
07:21where the T-800 has its chip reconfigured in front of a mirror.
07:25Twin magic is the best movie magic.
07:27The red light, green light arena has CGI walls.
07:30Squid Game.
07:31While it's no secret that some of the more elaborate games were achieved with the help of CGI,
07:35you probably didn't notice that one of the more simple games also received a major post-production assist.
07:39The very first game is a grim, fatal take on the playground game of red light, green light,
07:43where contestants caught moving are shot dead on the spot.
07:46The game unfolds in a large, expansive arena,
07:48featured numerous times throughout the show,
07:50but you probably never noticed that, in fact, the arena's walls were almost entirely digital.
07:54Indeed, the distinctive provincial wallpaper was added during post-production,
07:58with the walls instead being covered with blue screens during shooting.
08:00It isn't clear why this decision was made,
08:02when it surely must have been cheaper to build and paint the walls practically,
08:05but the effect is staggeringly seamless enough that you'd never know it was intangible.
08:09This is especially impressive in a later episode, where the arena is soaked with rain,
08:13and yet there's not a single telling sign that the background is a feat of sophisticated trickery.
08:18Episode 6 is a masterclass of trickery,
08:20The Haunting of Hill House
08:21Mike Flanagan's Netflix horror series The Haunting of Hill House is an absolute masterclass of writing,
08:27acting, and direction, with Flanagan demonstrating absolute control over every aspect of the production.
08:31This is most palpably felt in the show's incredible sixth episode, Two Storms,
08:36which despite being almost an hour in length, is comprised of just five long takes,
08:40the longest clocking in at a whopping 17 minutes.
08:42The entire season's production was centered around this episode,
08:45because with one of the single takes requiring a seamless transition between two locations across time,
08:50it was necessary for the two sets to be built with an adjoining hallway.
08:53In a fascinating tweet thread, Flanagan detailed the astounding particulars of the production
08:57that surely everybody watching took for granted.
08:59The sets included hiding places for cast members to sneak around,
09:02doubles were used to teleport characters,
09:04and a secret elevator was built into the set for the cameraman to move between levels.
09:08Additionally, there were literally hundreds of precise lighting cues which required the cast and crew
09:12to have their timings down to the second, or risk blowing the entire take.
09:16The much-discussed 17-minute take was almost also ruined by a damaged camera dolly,
09:20which broke apart moments after a successful take was finally completed.
09:23There's no denying the technical ingenuity of the episode as presented,
09:27but it's easy to underestimate just how much work went into staging, rehearsing, and shooting it.
09:32Flanagan himself said,
09:33Production was murder and almost killed us all,
09:35but it was the easiest edit of my life.
09:37Took 10 seconds.
09:38A stuntwoman's face is replaced with CGI Jurassic Park.
09:42It never ceases to amaze just how well Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park has aged.
09:47For while its CGI isn't quite as remarkable as it was 30 years ago,
09:52it's still an extremely impressive technical achievement,
09:55smartly melding practical filmmaking with cutting-edge visual effects.
09:59But everyone's so busy being distracted by the CGI dinosaurs,
10:03that nobody actually noticed an incredibly sneaky, state-of-the-art visual effect hidden in plain sight.
10:09When Lex falls through an air duct near the end of the movie,
10:12it won't surprise anyone that we're actually looking at a stunt performer here.
10:16Her toned arms and general body type are clearly that of an adult woman rather than a child.
10:21But when Lex looks up at the camera for maybe half a second as she's pulled back to safety,
10:26Spielberg actually used CGI to paste Ariana Richard's face over that of the stuntable.
10:31Yep, there it is.
10:33No matter how many dozens of times you've probably seen Jurassic Park,
10:36this is incredibly easy to miss.
10:38In large part because of the low-key lighting and how nobody's actually looking for it.
10:42After all, photorealistic face-replaced CGI was virtually unheard of back in 1993,
10:47and the only effects audiences were primed to look out for was the dinosaurs themselves.
10:53Though it's ultimately a primitive stab at the now commonplace effect,
10:57it still holds up shockingly well if you're not examining it in finer detail.
11:01The New York exteriors were CGI plates.
11:04Ugly Betty
11:04Although Ugly Betty's pilot episode was filmed in New York City where it's set,
11:08in order to cut-cost productions,
11:10it was shifted to Los Angeles for the remainder of the show's first two seasons.
11:13As a result, any time we see Betty out on the streets of New York,
11:16we're actually seeing an impressive feat of digital chicanery.
11:19These scenes were actually all shot against a green screen,
11:21and then ingeniously composited into a background plate filmed in New York.
11:25Despite the show being over 15 years old now,
11:27these scenes generally hold up shockingly well today,
11:29to the extent that you probably never even notice unless you saw the VFX breakdown.
11:33This can largely be attributed to how closely the lighting was matched between the two elements,
11:37as is typically the most blatant giveaway in bad compositing.
11:40Unsurprisingly, the shooting style presented a major challenge for the cast,
11:43but production actually moved to New York for the third and fourth seasons,
11:46courtesy of a tax credit offered by the state of New York.
11:49Even so, it's rare that 15-year-old green screen looks that damn good.
11:53The Dead Whale is Mostly Practical
11:55The Boys Season 2 episode,
11:58Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men,
12:00features one of the most ambitiously grotesque set pieces to date,
12:03where Billy Butcher drives a speedboat into a beached whale,
12:06brutally killing it and smashing its bloody carcass onto the shore.
12:09Though the impact shot was obviously produced digitally,
12:11you might be surprised to learn that the subsequent whale corpse was actually almost entirely practical.
12:16Indeed, a massive silicon and styrofoam whale prop was built for the gnarly aftermath,
12:20where the boys find themselves caught up in its innards.
12:22The whale's mouth and tail contained animatronic elements to portray its final moments of life,
12:27while the whale interior was augmented with VFX for its pulsating organs.
12:30The whale took an entire five months to design and perfect,
12:33with the practical effects team even building fully lifelike,
12:36anatomically correct guts for the interior
12:38and creating a hidden back door to give the camera crew more space to move around.
12:42The end result, of course, is absolutely spectacular.
12:44Rear projection was subtly used in many scenes.
12:48Citizen Kane
12:49Awesome well, Citizen Kane gets plenty of justified praise for Robert Wise's landmark editing
12:55and Greg Toland's incredible deep-focus cinematography.
12:59But Well's masterpiece is also far more of a special effects movie than its reputation would have you believe.
13:05Well's made extensive use of rear projection technology,
13:09that is, having scenes performed in front of a painted or video backdrop,
13:13in order to give the film a subtly heightened and totally unique aesthetic.
13:18Notable examples include the matte painting background of Kane's Xanadu estate,
13:23an entire dance sequence being rear-projected while Thompson interviews Leland,
13:27young Kane playing in the snow as projected behind a window,
13:31and most amusingly, the exotic background of the swampy picnic scene.
13:35In the latter case, Well's actually opted to rear-project jungle footage
13:39previously used in 1933's The Son of Kong,
13:42and in a hilarious mistake, didn't even try to disguise the pterodactyls visible in the footage,
13:48which can be briefly seen flying around in the background of the picnic scene.
13:52Watch, they don't grab your butties.
13:53And yet, these moments are so astonishingly subtle,
13:56and so counter to what audiences expect from how Citizen Kane was made,
14:00that they're basically invisible effects, the best kind.
14:04Michael B. Jordan is a blend of live-action and CGI.
14:08Love, Death, and Robots
14:09The Netflix animated series Love, Death, and Robots prides itself on presenting
14:13some of the most groundbreakingly photorealistic animation ever,
14:16enough so that audiences couldn't figure out what the hell was going on
14:19in the second season's seventh episode, Life Hutch.
14:21The episode stars Michael B. Jordan as a stranded pilot struggling to survive on a hostile planet,
14:26and Jordan's visual presence was persuasive enough that many simply believed
14:29that he must have been a live-action element.
14:31But the truth is way more interesting, though.
14:33You see, Jordan appears in the episode through a state-of-the-art combination
14:35of live-action and VFX.
14:37A shockingly lifelike CGI model of Jordan was created for the episode,
14:41and appears in many shots as nearly imperceptible from reality.
14:44But for more challenging close-ups, Jordan's live-action performance
14:47was integrated into a digital environment.
14:49It's a mind-blowingly seamless effect all in all,
14:52with it being incredibly difficult to spot whether CGI and live-action elements coalesce.
14:56It just goes to show that the most impressive effects work is often
14:58a harmonious combination of the practical and the digital.
15:01The show uses almost no green screen.
15:04The Mandalorian
15:05Disney's The Mandalorian perhaps marks the point at which TV visual effects well and truly feel
15:10like they've come to match the CGI that we're used to seeing in movies.
15:13And while you'd be reasonable to assume that Disney simply poured a few hundred million
15:16dollars into the most refined and sophisticated green screen VFX that money could buy,
15:20they actually went an entirely different route.
15:21You see, the show contains very little in the way of a conventional green screen,
15:24opting instead to use a bespoke technology called StageCraft,
15:27a gigantic 360-degree LED video wall that can project dynamic virtual backgrounds into the
15:33filmmaking space which move and react to the camera's movements.
15:36This is a massive improvement over green screen for many reasons.
15:39First of all, the actors can actually see the environment that they're in,
15:41directors won't have to worry about how the end result will look in post,
15:44and technical issues with green screen like mismatched lighting are now non-existent.
15:48Best of all, because the virtual environments created during post-production
15:51use the Unreal Engine, they can be iterated upon at a moment's notice,
15:54adding and removing elements, changing the staging of the scene, and so on.
15:57Needless to say, the show's backgrounds look absolutely fantastic and massively boost the
16:01show's sense of tactile immersion. It goes without saying that StageCraft will probably
16:05end up replacing standard green screen on major Hollywood movies in coming years.
16:08I mean, Disney are already using it on a few upcoming MCU movies,
16:11and we the audience are going to benefit from that.