I would love to see Corridor make short scenes, using old technology. It does not have to be a main scene, or a flashy scene, just a scene. Make it 10-20 seconds long, just enough to get an idea onto film.
I did a lot of work at Introvision back in the day. I was part of a core group of artists that Introvision Art Director Tim Donahue relied on to get art jobs done at a very high level of quality. (R.I.P Tim) I painted matte paintings, models and full sized set pieces, whatever they needed. I was there from '86 to about '90 or '91. It could be a pressure cooker at times, but a lot of fun, too. I was working with friends, which made it all the better. Thanks for showcasing us!
No joke, you should reach out and offer to provide some behind-the-scenes info or something! I can imagine you have a wealth of information that may not seem as special to you as you lived it, but could be very interesting to the rest of us who weren't there
@@KrazzeeKane There's one crucial element to an Introvision shot that the guys didn't touch on: the use of a second Scotchlite screen. This screen was much smaller than the main screen, and was positioned at a 90 degree angle from the camera, directly opposite the projector. So the projector projects an image onto the beam splitter, sending the projection onto the big screen behind the actors and set pieces, and the splitter lets the same projection pass through onto the smaller screen off to the side. The camera can see BOTH screens. Then a black matte was constructed on a huge piece of glass in front of the camera, matting out the parts of the shot that would be picked up by the smaller screen, which had a corresponding countermatte in black in front of it. The mattes had to align PERFECTLY, or you'd see a bright edge where the projection was doubled, or a black edge where the projection was cut off completely. This use of 2 screens and mattes/ countermattes is what made Introvision Introvision, instead of just normal front projection. It's where you get that shot of the guys walking around in the room behind the table. The table is being projected onto screen #2, and a matte lets the guys walk behind it. Same with Harrison Ford jumping off the bus. He's standing on a platform on set. The platform is matted out, and the second screen fills in the lower part of the bus. All this was done in camera, where the director could see it all and give feedback/ direct etc.
The movie "Outland" with Sean Connery is a really great showcase for Introvision. It was their first big job on a feature film, and the shots they were able to get were spectacular. The Cinefex article on "Outland" gives a really good, detailed explanation of the Introvision process, and interviews with the creative heads.
i wonder if we can compact out introvision's tech nowdays since you know, seems like reusing this tech sounds much more compact nowdays than doing big screen projection that mandalorian has
The fact that we're 120+ episodes in and still uncovering the fuckin coolest VFX secrets is actually incredible. This is an all-time episode right here boys, keep em coming.
Fun fact: Star Trek: The Next Generation was the most expensive weekly television show during its run. At its peak, it cost 2.5 million dollars per episode, which doesn't sound much these days, but was INSANE for the time. And yet it was considered a massive success throughout its run, always scoring high in the ratings, even up to its final episode. It was very rare at the time for a show to CHOOSE to basically cancel itself even though it was still doing extremely well in ratings. But they wanted to go out on top... which they did.
Honestly ending things off where they did was a great choice. All Good Things is still a prime example on how to end a longrunning show with dignety. It is much better then just continuing to make content and sour the entire series by ending it with bad content.
@@zafranorbian757almost everything about TNG was an example of what to do. That show was amazing, and with all due respect to the other series and movies, it is still by far the best Trek.
Just adding a bit, it was also syndicated. There was no big, multi-billion dollar network behind it. Which is probably why it was so good and for the time revolutionary in a lot of ways.
Its also is one of the few tv shows from back then that was able to get a native 1080p transfer when the bluray was being worked on because most, if not all of the special effects were keep in the analog 35mm film realm, before being transfered to tape for broadcast.
I keep saying, a great episode would be to have them go through the different ways trek ships have been shot through the years, starting with The Original Series, all the way through to Picard, all the different tech, and how it transitioned.
My theory for the strange crowd shots in Prom Pact: It was filmed late 2022, maybe they had some covid restrictions to apply with the extras, meaning they had to leave every other row empty. Which they then filled with CG doubles.
Sounds better than my my cynical guess is that Production decided that the original extras that were sat there didn't have a broad enough range of ethnicities.
One of the astonishing things about Star Trek TNG is that each episode had as many or more special effects shots as contemporary blockbuster movies, but they were made with a fraction of the time and budget. The average TNG episode had a budget of 1.3 million dollars and around 50 VFX shots - some had more than 200 - and the show was cranking out 26 episodes a year. In comparison, Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million dollars, 50 VFX shots, and took 3 years to make. The fact that TNG effects still hold up so well is a testament to the astonishing talent and dedication of Star Trek's VFX team. It would be amazing if you could do more Star Trek stuff, especially if you could get a member of the VFX team to join you on the couch!
It was good enough that while remastering it required recompositing (since it was done on video for TV) the shots, all they had to do was scan the 35mm effects plates in and put them together again without much augmentation at all!
@@okankyotothats not quite true. For models yes, but phasers etc had all be redone since they were made on tape. This is one reason why DS9 and Voy will never get a HD release besides many later scenes used CG models.
This is one of your best episodes ever, hands down. As someone who treasures old-school movie magic, I thought the segments on Introvision and Star Trek: TNG were absolute gold. I love that you guys bridge the pre- and post-digital worlds with your analysis and your admiration.
I had the absolute pleasure of working directly for Sam Raimi on 50 states of fright, The man is the most humble and down to earth dude I have ever met, I was pretty new to my career as a Video Assist operator when we worked together yet he still came to me for review instead of his monitors and would ask my opinion on every shot we would review, such a legend.
It always gets me cracking up 😂 this and the green lantern episode where he loses it over him using historic weapons are some of my favorite moments on UA-cam.
I just watched The Fugitive again a few weeks ago and I was totally blown away by how well it held up. It is a top-tier movie in nearly every way and it made me miss older movies in general for their pacing and character driven storytelling. I watched the scene with the train wreck and it seemed like they were actually almost running Harrison Ford over, even though it’s obvious they wouldn’t have placed him in such a situation. Truly incredible.
At worth mentioning that a large part of why a lot of old effects still work so well today is that every few years they get a digital remaster that ‘irons out’ a few things that originally gave them away, such as extra grain or a darker background. In the case of The Next Generation they actually recomposited all the original elements.
True, and in this case, it’s the original elements and how clever and professionally all that was done that makes that possible. It’s not that they’re redoing original bad footage. They’re just enhancing everything that was there to begin with since it was shot on 35mm film, but wasn’t picked up when they composited it on video originally.
And also pointing out flaws. One of their tricks for the bridge was to tape black cardboard on the displays in the back to reduce glare. When they remastered it no one noticed and for a while you could actually see cardboard painted black taped on the wall.
There's an episode of Reading Rainbow where LeVar Burton goes behind the scenes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to show how they did a lot of the special effects and stuff for the show, like how one of the shuttlecraft models they used was basically made with disposable razor handles and other random bits. So cool as a kid seeing all that, especially when you rarely got behind the scenes looks like that back then.
Dude, best episode since long. The Star Trek bit and Introvision were so informative. And I thought with 120 episodes you wouldn't have anything more to reveal. Dang, I love this channel.
As you say, TNG has great models, filmed with care. And the fact they still have most of the 35mm film of it is why the HD remaster worked so well. Sadly, DS9 and Voyager have way too many CGI elements that were never intended to be more than TV standard, so getting them to HD or better would be a far more expensive undertaking, and the disappointing commerical performance of the TNG HD release means we'll probably never see it doen officially.
Bringing _The Next Generation_ to high definition was an expensive and labor intensive process. If we get HD versions of _Deep Space Nine_ and _Voyager,_ it will likely be through AI upscaling, which is getting better by the day.
As I recall, DS9 is pretty much the same as TNG, except maybe very late in the show. (Yes, that includes the massive space battles.) The main reason there probably won't be a remaster is that it isn't popular enough to sell well. (TNG 's remaster didn't have amazing sales, and that is the most popular of the Trek shows.)
Well, they can do it the same as with TOS, just put new CGI into that shows, but there are 2 main problems with that: 1st - nobody will pay that for several 30 years old shows 2nd - you will destroy that original feeling from these shows, so let's keep it outdated 😀
@@SylvesterInk Yeah, but a lot of the background ships are not good models. A lot of the Birds of Prey in The Way of the Warrior are Hallmark Christmas ornaments.
I thought part of the problem with trying to remaster Voyager and DS9 was the master's for those episodes were saved to tape versus 35mm film stock for TNG?
So glad you guys gave some attention to Star Trek. There are some really great effects to talk about in there. The Enterprise crash in Generations still holds up so well!
I still think the shot of the Enterprise B, pulling away from the Nexus and getting hit, is one of the best model shots ever. It has so much weight and impact in it.
@@kd84afc In that case they did an exceptional job, cause I thought all the Enterprise-B parts were models. But I thought the specific scene was Model, as they redesigned the ship so they could damage it without damaging the Excelsior class filming model, its got those new flanges of the engineering hull. But if that was CGI, then I think it speaks to animators/Graphics department who had worked with models long enough to get the look right, and could get that translated to CGI. Some of the issue I have with CGI is that the models often don't have the correct weight in their movement, as you aren't restricted by cameras/models physical limitations, of having mass and inertia.
That Introvision effect is what they use for the Tilt Five AR headset! There's a projector above each eye bouncing light away from you off an angled piece of glass, and the retro-reflective screen sits on the table. Due to the near perfect retro-reflectivity, each eye receives a separate image (3D!), and different players can see different projections.
It was brilliantly fun. I was amazed at how they were really clever about what they reconstructed and pieced together to keep it affordable on their budget, but then they went and did the lineup and the incredible handoff to Kirk that must have taken a ton of work.
Bruce Campbell spoke about the Introvision process in his memoir If Chins Could Kill, and whilst the effect was very cool, it was very time consuming because it required all his moves to be choreographed super tightly; he describes it as "acting by numbers", because he would have to hit preplanned marks for his movements with exact timing, and if one move was off they'd have to do it over and over until he got it perfect. It's one of the reasons Army of Darkness ended up running over budget and took 2 years to complete.
These are the kind of episodes I love the most. It's always so interesting to see how special effects were done back then and how much more ingenious these people doing them were.
As a guy who's been watching TNG since the early '90s and also consumed a fair amount of BTS stuff, I just need to say "thank you" for giving one of the best nutshell descriptions of the visual effects work on the minatures I've ever heard. I'd heard about the black lights before, but never quite understood it until now and I'd never even heard that bit about the starfields before! Thank you again for all you do and thanks for being the best and really one of only a few sources of quality reaction videos on the internet. You guys just rock!
Yes! It took some pure genius for some of those people to figure out how to do things years or even decades before the technology to do it was even invented. Even something as simple as Technicolor, which was a way to film movies in color using black and white film.
Rarely see today? Tv shows now take more work and effort then a lot of movies. Star Wars shows, Marvel, game of thrones. All feature quality better then movies a few years back
@JohnnyWednesday This, Star Trek has a tradition of being efficient with their constraints. Showrunners tried to optimize to the seasons budget, saving of budget by planning in bottle episodes (which with their actors usually ended up to be some of the finest episodes), and reusing the shit of every vfx assett ever put to film, but being clever enough about it that it doesn't stand out immediately. Reuse to make best with a generous but limited budget, use the money where it pops, and not to make it look cheap.
@@Durwood71 Actually ILM only filmed 100% the first episode. ILM filmed stock flybys of the Enterprise, and of course models they built for the TOS movies were used throughout the run of the show. After the first episode all VFX were handled in house by Rob Legato, and models like the 3ft Enterprise and original ship designs for TNG were built by the great Greg Gein, may he rest in peace.
Have you guys heard about "Zathura"? It's a children's film extremely inspired by Jumanji from 2005. I recently rewatched it because it reminded me of my childhood and my head exploded when I realized that the visual effects are really good for the time and still hold up until today.
2001 was front projection, not rear. In fact, they basically pioneered this type of high-quality front projection with the 45 degree mirror/Scotchlite screen. Perhaps there is more innovation involving foreground layers used on Introvision, but it's otherwise very similar to the techniques used in the Dawn of Man sequence.
Exactly so! This is most obvious in the early shot of a big cat who looks toward the camera with eyes shining brightly because of the projected image is reflected off the tapetum lucidum layer behind the retina. The projectors used giant glass slides created with a view camera if I recall correctly. I recall reading about this at the time. (Yes, I'm that old...)
It wasn't invented for 2001, I believe the major innovation there was that they came up with a synchronization mechanism between the camera and projector that allowed the camera to be panned and tilted across a projected still background that was much larger than the camera frame.
I would love an episode with people from the Star Trek TNG series, talking through some of the old school practices like this one. They are getting much older and some might not be here, but maybe a few people could come and go through the process more in depth.
@@widdomonki238 ok, do you have examples or references I can look up? Perhaps a UA-camr? I know there are the guys from Enterprise, but it’s not the same as to what corridor crew does
Some of Bruce Campbell’s fights in AoD could qualify for Stunt Performers React; he had to meticulously memorize every motion and repeat them as Raimi yelled them, so he could match the filmed plates of the miniatures. It sounds like the experience still haunts him!
In Bruce Campbell's book, "If Chins Could Kill", he goes over how they did some of the effect in the Evil Dead movies (with no budget). Very clever stuff, fun read.
I rewatched the TNG Blurays recently. It really cannot be overstated how excellent they are. They are the gold standard for how to go about restoring a beloved old production. The team spent thousands and thousands of hours, used as much original 35mm material as possible and recomposited much if it digitally. All of the digital effects that were done video to video originally such as the phaser blasts, photon torpedoes and transporter beams etc, obviously had to be redone from scratch as well, but they are matched so perfectly and with such loving care that there is basically no difference from the way they looked in the standard definition original masters. There are only one or two short shots in all 7 seasons that are clearly SD upscales, presumably because the original film elements were either lost or damaged. If only Star Wars fans were so lucky. George Lucas should be ashamed of himself for allowing the same shoddy, poorly color-graded 1990s era Special Edition masters to be released again and again, changing more and more and making his original films worse and worse.
Love that you covered The Next Generation. The Blu-Ray restoration for this series was a true master-class in how to do a proper restoration. They went back to all the original footage, including the multple plates for the FX shots and basically recut the entire series exactly as it was. And it shows just how amazing those model shots were and how much fantastic detail we were losing at standard definition TV broadcasts. Also, probably the best Sci-Fi series ever produced.
This episode was great! I love seeing old school techniques, so impressive. As a 90s kid I remember some commotion about special effects in The Fugitive, especially that train sequence, but couldn't remember how it was done. Pretty amazing! ❤
I'm so glad you covered Introvision, some blockbuster movies from eras past used it, quite effectively too, it was a great technology before there was even any digital effects, it's a magic trick, it's all about perception and tricking the eye and blending the effect seamlessly in camera, it was used in the invisible bridge scene in The Last Crusade, it was used on Outland (1981), the scenes out in space.
These 3 are my favorite on the couch. I love Niko and how he teaches. I love Wren and how smart he is with breaking down shots and how effects are done. I love Sam because.. I just love Sam. Been watching for so long now. This was one of my favorite episodes because of how excited and interested/happy everyone was. Love you guys.
I was a make-up artist who worked on "The Fugitive" when they shot it here in Chicago, so I wasn't aware all these years how they did that effect with the train. I'm glad you thoroughly covered what went into the practical effects of making Harrison Ford jump off the bus and out of the way of the oncoming train The effect still looks great even after all this time. I'm a big fan of your channel, and I really enjoyed the episode on"The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" and the one on the lost Disney yellow sulfur crystal (I can't remember the name that you called it) Your videos are very informative, thank you and keep them coming.
Corridor, thank you guys. Years ago I would sit down on Sunday mornings with a coffee and breakfast and watch Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. When that show ended you guys started your first episode of reacts and I've been watching every weekend since. Thank you for the entertainment and the insight into VFX.
Honestly, these were some really good breakdowns of the technology. I understand a bit of what they say when they figure this out on the couch, but adding the visuals to show what they are explaining just adds a whole new dimension of understanding for us non-industry folks. Thank you for the detail in the explanations. That is what makes these reactions great as they figure out the effects, they bring us along for the journey!
Thank you for showing old-school effects some love! Love those old effects, when they're well done they have such authenticity. Do a segment on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, please!
If you're looking for more star trek scenes to react to, check out the episode of Deep Space Nine "Trials and Tribble-ations". It has the actors placed incredibly well into the scenes from the orignal series star trek
Probably one of the most interesting episodes I've seen to date. Absolutely blows my mind they managed to do all that inside the technology limitations they had back in the day!
So true! Star Trek: Next Gen still looks fantastic to this day. It's fascinating to know the ingenuity that went into making it a timeless classic for us fans.
This is one of the best episodes of all time guys! I still dont understand that 45° mirror retro reflector technology. Wren should make a short video explaining the science of how it works because its m8nd blowing to me. All these little spheres in a sheet? And some glass? This is magic to me right now! DO IT!!
I understand the sentiment but it's not quite related! Digi-doubles are nothing new. There's a lot of misunderstanding from SAG or the general public as they don't quite have the experience or knowledge when it comes to visual effects. Their fears were more about how AI or machine learning could affect or replace actors' work - this case of Prom Pact, while hilarious, is not quite related. This is just good ol' fashioned CG work, done poorly in execution. Nevertheless, it was not done with AI or machine learning - it was still VFX artists likely paid a minimal amount, given no budget and no time to turn out these shots. At the end of the day, as Corridor touched upon, there are reasons we don't know about for why they chose this route. Likely, they filmed on set and either FORGOT to have extras in that row (which is the the fault of the filmmakers on set - meaning, the director, DP, 1st AD, etc. all missed the empty row). Or they wanted to cover something up. They likely didn't have the budget to do a reshoot of that location, and bring back the entire crew and extras back. So instead, they were forced to try to patch it with VFX. Still a poor decision overall, as they would've had better luck shooting extras against green screen to comp in.
I remember when Introvision came out. One of the first movies to use it was Outland with Sean Connery. I thought it was so amazing. I ordered a beam splitter from Edmund Scientific. I did something similar, but for a matte painting. I cut pieces of 3M Scotchlite tape into the shape of a neon sign and little pieces for street lights and used a slide projector as a light source with the beam spiltter. It looked just like the actual neon sign. I had read about this being done for the movie Altered States. They painted a body suit with Scotchlite paint to project cracks of glowing hot lava onto a character.
This might be my favorite episode so far. It really shows how powerful non-digital effects were. It really makes you think about why the move from practical effects and hand animation to digital effects and computer animation happened.
Because those practical effects are extremely complex to do and leave little (if any) space for mistakes or corrections. That's not to say CGI is easy, Marvel movies show they definitely can be screwed up quite easily by people who think that, but there's a degree of flexibility that you can't match with practical effects, not to mention you can reach a way bigger scope in what you do with it (The Lord of the Rings trilogy gets a lot of deserved credit for its use of practical effects but just consider how much of it actually is CGI and how impossible those movie would have been to make without it). Ideally, movies should use a combination of both (think Top Gun Maverick or Mission Impossible), but man, I don't think any VFX guy would like to go entirely with these techniques, IMO: Introvision is awesome, but think how many complex steps it takes to pull off compared to a well executed digital composite. A good miniature, however? That's something I do think they would relish working on (think Batman Begins).
@@Diegorskysp17 there is also the issue of unions. The digital animation artists weren't unionized. So they could bid out to the lowest bidder rather than pay artists what they're worth. Not to mention it could be done by vfx studios nowhere near the film studio. Meaning it could be done overseas for way less money. A lot of the reported expense for hand animation and practical effects also comes from paying union workers what was contracted. Changing the nature of how the effects were done meant they could avoid that expense. The example of LotR is awesome. There were tons of practical effects. Same with Jurassic Park. The Hobbit and Jurassic World is almost entirely done in computers. They don't look as good as their predecessors. Digital effects are great when used to augment practical, when they're used without practical effects they don't hold up. Even a movie like Avatar looks as good as it does because of the practical work that was done. Compare the underwater work there to the live action Little Mermaid. Even just taking the time to see how something looks practically can have a huge positive impact on how the digital effects come out.
@@ubermoose5694 I sincerely don't think unions played as big of a role on the rise of CGI in VFX. In fact, the abuse of CG artists is a relatively recent phenomenon, thanks to the rise of the MCU and other superhero properties, as well as the streaming boom, where platforms devoted to makea ton of shows and movies where money is no object. It clearly is an issue today tho, one that hopefully will be fixed sooner rather than later. As for CGI working better when used to augment (or alongside, I would add) practical effects, I think every VFX artist will agree with you. It's just better to have something to, at the very least, use as reference (hell, look at Michael Bay's Transformers movies. Whatever you might think of them, the effects work in there is better than most of what's released today). As an aside, I do think The Hobbit is a weird case, very similar to the SW prequels in the sense of them trying to push the envelope of the technology at the time, but because we had some frame of reference of the practical effects used in the previous movies (say, full makeup orcs and goblins instead of mocap), we notice stuff is different... although not necessarily worse (Azog is fantastically well made and the Goblin King is a great character design... but one that clearly couldn't be played by a person in a rubber suit), IMO. Them not having the same impact as the previous movies certainly didn't help matters.
I work in AR, and I love that the Tilt5 AR headset is basically this same principle but WAAYY smaller! Those glasses have mine projectors in them, and you play on a retroreflective mat. What's rad is that your distance from that mat, doesn't effect the sharpness of the image, because as you get nearer/further from the retro reflective mat, it defocuses, but then refocuses on the return journey so it's fine!
On The Fugitive in the theaters it looked just like rear projection. I don't know what it looks like on the TV you're watching it on, but all my friends and I talked about how bad it looked after we left the movie.
Awesome video! Interestingly the front projection technique actually dates back to the 60s with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is the first film to use it extensively. It's an idea so wild it it took someone like Stanley Kubrick to fully embrace it.
Totally true about stars in real life. When I take people flying at night they always notice, "Orion is so big!". Because as you said, their perspective changed.
Oh, some love for Star Trek! I'd love to see a breakdown of PIC season 3's space battles. The Titan-A doing strafing runs on the fleet formation ships was absolutely gorgeous... same with the D's resurrection.
I wonder if the missing people in the Prom Pact were due to COVID restrictions? This was filmed during the later half of it, so it is conceivable that they put a row or two between the main actors and the extras so that you could film them together and also have less rise of exposure. The extra's in one 'bubble' away from the main cast they need to film the rest of the movie. Just a theory though.
That's a great estimation, but also, the actual human extras could have been fucking around somehow (they're kids after all right?). Maybe they slipped in some dank meme or flipped the bird & it wasn't caught until the edit, because there are clearly real people (extras) sitting close to the team elsewhere even in the examined shot. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened, & that would result in a time crunch to fix the shot, which would explain why it's so sloppy. Also when you go to the shot right before the one examined, you can see the entire crowd when the camera is shooting thru the cheerleaders, & they're real people.
I was thinking COVID could have been the problem, but they could have totally worked around it by maybe doing a dang double exposure shot with the extras shuffled around to fill the space.
@@JeighNeither That is a definite possibility. Having worked as an extra before, it's not like you audition and are checked to see if you have any competency with acting. You just get hired if you have the right look for what they are filming.
If that were the reason, couldn’t they just have filmed all the extras (or a row of extras at a time or whatever) first and then superimpose the main cast on top of them?
Front screen projection using the 3m reflective beads was used for some backgrounds in Close Encounters of the Third Kind including the country road scene "Crescendo Summit." If you can manage to find a book by Bob Balaban (Laughlin in CE3K) called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind Diary" pick it up and give it a read.
I appreciate this episode, love hearing about old school methods. Now compare the Enterprise D CGI model from Picard Season 3 Eo 9&10 to the original and see who did it better.
One of the interesting outgrowths of introvision that made it into regular studio work was the retro reflective green screen. Wild technology that broke my brain when I started. Green screen with a grey screen. But never having to worry about green reflection. Has its pitfalls, but in right scenarios....amazing.
Wren. at 3:38 you ask, "there is something they have to hide". The movie was filmed here in Vancouver. I work in background, and after making some inquiries it seems the most likely explanation is that Disney felt the crowd was too white and had them add in some more POC.
Star Trek; Orange makes the film react more but I'm betting they put a linear polariser on the camera which would have killed reflections off the model - I did this a lot in product photography. You can turn the filter to get no reflections, turn it 90 degrees to get a mega reflective shot then decide whats best or where you want reflections in the comfort of your chair in front of the computer when you haven't got to photograph 100 things and start loosing the will to live! LOL
these types of comments are an 'own' only till the next billion parameter architecture comes out and then everyone has to pivot towards moralistic arguments again. So why even do it
So made some inquiries, and my best educated guess as to why the Digi doubles were dropped in was for diversity reasons. Notice how white most of the crowd is? Notice the 5 they put in the second row were all POC? It is Disney and I can see this being a concern enough to add in POC. It was filmed here in Vancouver and I work in background here. We struggle to get enough POC background here. Even though Vancouver is a very diverse city most of the people who are interested in doing background are white.
It was filmed in 2022 in Canada at that time the Onnicron corona virus variant was going around. I wonder if during filming they had the row behind the main actors empty to keep some social distancing as they would not want one of the main cast to get covid and delay filming.
I suspect they added the digital people into the audience to make the audience look more diverse than it really was. And that's pretty fucked up on a couple different levels.
Hey! I think you should look into movie "The Peasants" (Chłopi). It's hand-painted movie (oil paint). And there is "Loving Vincent" too (Twój Vincent), movie about Vincent van Gogh. They are incredible.
So glad Intravision got a segment, but I'm shocked that many didn't know it existed....I'm about the same age and have known about it for more than a decade. The glow from the Enterprise is also helped by the lights being neon inside too.
I have learnt do much for all these videos. It’s incredible. Funny. Interesting. Not only a homage and love letter to fx work, but craft and film history in general. Please never stop. Beyond fascinating ❤
I would love to see Corridor make short scenes, using old technology. It does not have to be a main scene, or a flashy scene, just a scene. Make it 10-20 seconds long, just enough to get an idea onto film.
I second this!
3rd!
Yeah and it would be cool to see it against the modern digital version of the same short and a budget breakdown for each
Probably requires a lot of money and knowhow so it wouldn't be viable since they have to start from scratch.
That would be too expensive :(
I did a lot of work at Introvision back in the day. I was part of a core group of artists that Introvision Art Director Tim Donahue relied on to get art jobs done at a very high level of quality. (R.I.P Tim) I painted matte paintings, models and full sized set pieces, whatever they needed. I was there from '86 to about '90 or '91. It could be a pressure cooker at times, but a lot of fun, too. I was working with friends, which made it all the better. Thanks for showcasing us!
No joke, you should reach out and offer to provide some behind-the-scenes info or something! I can imagine you have a wealth of information that may not seem as special to you as you lived it, but could be very interesting to the rest of us who weren't there
@@KrazzeeKane There's one crucial element to an Introvision shot that the guys didn't touch on: the use of a second Scotchlite screen. This screen was much smaller than the main screen, and was positioned at a 90 degree angle from the camera, directly opposite the projector. So the projector projects an image onto the beam splitter, sending the projection onto the big screen behind the actors and set pieces, and the splitter lets the same projection pass through onto the smaller screen off to the side. The camera can see BOTH screens. Then a black matte was constructed on a huge piece of glass in front of the camera, matting out the parts of the shot that would be picked up by the smaller screen, which had a corresponding countermatte in black in front of it. The mattes had to align PERFECTLY, or you'd see a bright edge where the projection was doubled, or a black edge where the projection was cut off completely. This use of 2 screens and mattes/ countermattes is what made Introvision Introvision, instead of just normal front projection. It's where you get that shot of the guys walking around in the room behind the table. The table is being projected onto screen #2, and a matte lets the guys walk behind it. Same with Harrison Ford jumping off the bus. He's standing on a platform on set. The platform is matted out, and the second screen fills in the lower part of the bus. All this was done in camera, where the director could see it all and give feedback/ direct etc.
The movie "Outland" with Sean Connery is a really great showcase for Introvision. It was their first big job on a feature film, and the shots they were able to get were spectacular. The Cinefex article on "Outland" gives a really good, detailed explanation of the Introvision process, and interviews with the creative heads.
@@rickrische557that is super fascinating, thanks for sharing. I hope the crew sees this
i wonder if we can compact out introvision's tech nowdays
since you know, seems like reusing this tech sounds much more compact nowdays than doing big screen projection that mandalorian has
The fact that we're 120+ episodes in and still uncovering the fuckin coolest VFX secrets is actually incredible. This is an all-time episode right here boys, keep em coming.
The fact that I watched all of them
@@f_Harrysame, absolutely everyone! Love these videos! Along with most of the rest of the Corridor Crews videos!
Vfx is (partially)barely talked about. People invest too much time in Sharon Stone's cli* to be bothered to know about the rest 99% of the industry.
Yeah this was a great ep :D
Fun fact: Star Trek: The Next Generation was the most expensive weekly television show during its run. At its peak, it cost 2.5 million dollars per episode, which doesn't sound much these days, but was INSANE for the time. And yet it was considered a massive success throughout its run, always scoring high in the ratings, even up to its final episode. It was very rare at the time for a show to CHOOSE to basically cancel itself even though it was still doing extremely well in ratings. But they wanted to go out on top... which they did.
Honestly ending things off where they did was a great choice. All Good Things is still a prime example on how to end a longrunning show with dignety.
It is much better then just continuing to make content and sour the entire series by ending it with bad content.
@@zafranorbian757almost everything about TNG was an example of what to do. That show was amazing, and with all due respect to the other series and movies, it is still by far the best Trek.
Just adding a bit, it was also syndicated. There was no big, multi-billion dollar network behind it. Which is probably why it was so good and for the time revolutionary in a lot of ways.
Its also is one of the few tv shows from back then that was able to get a native 1080p transfer when the bluray was being worked on because most, if not all of the special effects were keep in the analog 35mm film realm, before being transfered to tape for broadcast.
@@zafranorbian757 Totally agree. Unfortunately, new Trek couldn't leave it well enough alone and soured the milk.
Finally, some classic Star Trek! The ships always looked so good. Anything Evil Dead is just a bonus.
Indeed
I really like how the production crew on Evil Dead I and II did whatever was necessary to get their story in the can; even using claymation 😍
I just aged 30 years when you called The Next Generation "Classic". I hope the cold war starts again and gives you a great sense of unease. Classic ;)
I keep saying, a great episode would be to have them go through the different ways trek ships have been shot through the years, starting with The Original Series, all the way through to Picard, all the different tech, and how it transitioned.
My theory for the strange crowd shots in Prom Pact:
It was filmed late 2022, maybe they had some covid restrictions to apply with the extras, meaning they had to leave every other row empty. Which they then filled with CG doubles.
Sounds better than my theory, that one or more of the background people were overacting or doing something eye-catching they wanted to get rid of.
in the end the cgi people was waaaay more eye-catching than even real people with watermelons on their neck @@ourkeving 🤣
Sounds better than my my cynical guess is that Production decided that the original extras that were sat there didn't have a broad enough range of ethnicities.
They needed diversity so they put CG doubles
That was my first thought, too. Socially Distant Crowd Scene.
Sam absolutely losing it over the Prom Pact clip is hilarious
It's also a bit scary
@@LuisSierra42 absolutely not
@@ISirSmoke I meant the clip, not Sam
One of the astonishing things about Star Trek TNG is that each episode had as many or more special effects shots as contemporary blockbuster movies, but they were made with a fraction of the time and budget. The average TNG episode had a budget of 1.3 million dollars and around 50 VFX shots - some had more than 200 - and the show was cranking out 26 episodes a year. In comparison, Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million dollars, 50 VFX shots, and took 3 years to make. The fact that TNG effects still hold up so well is a testament to the astonishing talent and dedication of Star Trek's VFX team. It would be amazing if you could do more Star Trek stuff, especially if you could get a member of the VFX team to join you on the couch!
Adjust 35 years of inflation and that's $20M an episode or something
@@bobjohnson1633 It is 4,8
It was good enough that while remastering it required recompositing (since it was done on video for TV) the shots, all they had to do was scan the 35mm effects plates in and put them together again without much augmentation at all!
@@okankyotothats not quite true. For models yes, but phasers etc had all be redone since they were made on tape. This is one reason why DS9 and Voy will never get a HD release besides many later scenes used CG models.
@@RC2225 Of course they'll get them eventually.
This is one of your best episodes ever, hands down. As someone who treasures old-school movie magic, I thought the segments on Introvision and Star Trek: TNG were absolute gold. I love that you guys bridge the pre- and post-digital worlds with your analysis and your admiration.
Agreed! From the hilarity of Prom Pact to multiple ingenious old school techniques, this episode had it all.
for sure! The effects from those movies still hold up, fascinating to see how they were made.
Learned so much from this one! Want to go back and watch all of these movies that used Introvision. Top 5 episode
It really is. You could tell everyone there was also really enjoying the clips and figuring out how they made those shots.
i liked the picks but i felt they spent a lot of time explaining the stuff to each other and not explaining to the viewers lol.
I had the absolute pleasure of working directly for Sam Raimi on 50 states of fright, The man is the most humble and down to earth dude I have ever met, I was pretty new to my career as a Video Assist operator when we worked together yet he still came to me for review instead of his monitors and would ask my opinion on every shot we would review, such a legend.
That show was alright. The two episodes that were on quibi were quite good 😅😅
How many eps did they make??
Man I can’t believe how realistic Patrick Stewart looks these days…
It's because they film him on the other side of some glass.
They really did a great job with his skin texture
HAHAHAAA xDDD
@@PlastoJoe *The glass from the packaging he's been in since his last Star Trek movie.*
xD
we need a practical effects renaissance . It's amazing what they could achieve combining various techniques
its coming.
There is already. Many new films, even New Trek like Strange New Worlds, uses practical effects more and more.
Sam barely holding together his laughter and having to alter his hat to cope is always fantastic.
It always gets me cracking up 😂 this and the green lantern episode where he loses it over him using historic weapons are some of my favorite moments on UA-cam.
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5nope. Don't do that here.
I just watched The Fugitive again a few weeks ago and I was totally blown away by how well it held up. It is a top-tier movie in nearly every way and it made me miss older movies in general for their pacing and character driven storytelling. I watched the scene with the train wreck and it seemed like they were actually almost running Harrison Ford over, even though it’s obvious they wouldn’t have placed him in such a situation. Truly incredible.
"I don't care"
Except for the dummy in the dam jump shot lol
After 20 Years as a Star Trek fan this channel still manages to bring new things to the table about my fav franchise !
I agree, in principle, but I gotta be honest... as much as I love Star Trek, I think, in all honesty, my favourite franchise is McDonalds!! 😕
@@RocksterOO1 Did they hire you to say this? because I would say they fund Terrorist governments.. maybe not the best franchise.
At worth mentioning that a large part of why a lot of old effects still work so well today is that every few years they get a digital remaster that ‘irons out’ a few things that originally gave them away, such as extra grain or a darker background. In the case of The Next Generation they actually recomposited all the original elements.
Yeah, as a huge fan, I have to say while they were always good shots, the remasters have helped!
Same goes for the TOS movies on bluray. Lots of work was done to clean up those compositing lines
True, and in this case, it’s the original elements and how clever and professionally all that was done that makes that possible. It’s not that they’re redoing original bad footage. They’re just enhancing everything that was there to begin with since it was shot on 35mm film, but wasn’t picked up when they composited it on video originally.
And also pointing out flaws. One of their tricks for the bridge was to tape black cardboard on the displays in the back to reduce glare. When they remastered it no one noticed and for a while you could actually see cardboard painted black taped on the wall.
There's an episode of Reading Rainbow where LeVar Burton goes behind the scenes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to show how they did a lot of the special effects and stuff for the show, like how one of the shuttlecraft models they used was basically made with disposable razor handles and other random bits. So cool as a kid seeing all that, especially when you rarely got behind the scenes looks like that back then.
I loved tha episode
I remembered this episode well enough that as I was watching this video, I was comparing it to what I remembered from that Reading Rainbow episode
I grew up on TNG so fanatically that Levar Burton's real eyes hold a quality that no other eyes on earth have. It's like the miracle of warp flight!
Just left a comment with the same episode. Season 5, episode 1 "The Bionic Bunny Show".@@JohnnyWednesday
It's on UA-cam somewhere. I saw it not too long ago.
Dude, best episode since long. The Star Trek bit and Introvision were so informative. And I thought with 120 episodes you wouldn't have anything more to reveal. Dang, I love this channel.
As you say, TNG has great models, filmed with care. And the fact they still have most of the 35mm film of it is why the HD remaster worked so well. Sadly, DS9 and Voyager have way too many CGI elements that were never intended to be more than TV standard, so getting them to HD or better would be a far more expensive undertaking, and the disappointing commerical performance of the TNG HD release means we'll probably never see it doen officially.
Bringing _The Next Generation_ to high definition was an expensive and labor intensive process. If we get HD versions of _Deep Space Nine_ and _Voyager,_ it will likely be through AI upscaling, which is getting better by the day.
As I recall, DS9 is pretty much the same as TNG, except maybe very late in the show. (Yes, that includes the massive space battles.) The main reason there probably won't be a remaster is that it isn't popular enough to sell well. (TNG 's remaster didn't have amazing sales, and that is the most popular of the Trek shows.)
Well, they can do it the same as with TOS, just put new CGI into that shows, but there are 2 main problems with that:
1st - nobody will pay that for several 30 years old shows
2nd - you will destroy that original feeling from these shows, so let's keep it outdated 😀
@@SylvesterInk Yeah, but a lot of the background ships are not good models. A lot of the Birds of Prey in The Way of the Warrior are Hallmark Christmas ornaments.
I thought part of the problem with trying to remaster Voyager and DS9 was the master's for those episodes were saved to tape versus 35mm film stock for TNG?
Corridor should make a video of them trying to use old technologies. That would be awesome to see!!
So glad you guys gave some attention to Star Trek. There are some really great effects to talk about in there. The Enterprise crash in Generations still holds up so well!
They used a massive model minute to achieve that shot, so much detail put into the saucer section and landscape. ILM did great work on generations.
It maybe looks a little bit like a Thunderbirds crash with the density of the soil and motion of trees - but if anything that makes me love it more
I still think the shot of the Enterprise B, pulling away from the Nexus and getting hit, is one of the best model shots ever. It has so much weight and impact in it.
@@Scuzzlebutt142 Some of that scene the Enterprise B was fully CGI.
@@kd84afc In that case they did an exceptional job, cause I thought all the Enterprise-B parts were models. But I thought the specific scene was Model, as they redesigned the ship so they could damage it without damaging the Excelsior class filming model, its got those new flanges of the engineering hull.
But if that was CGI, then I think it speaks to animators/Graphics department who had worked with models long enough to get the look right, and could get that translated to CGI.
Some of the issue I have with CGI is that the models often don't have the correct weight in their movement, as you aren't restricted by cameras/models physical limitations, of having mass and inertia.
That Introvision effect is what they use for the Tilt Five AR headset!
There's a projector above each eye bouncing light away from you off an angled piece of glass, and the retro-reflective screen sits on the table.
Due to the near perfect retro-reflectivity, each eye receives a separate image (3D!), and different players can see different projections.
Star Trek! You guys really need to check out the flawless comp work in the 1996 episode of Deep Space Nine titled "Trials and Tribble-ations"
Excellent suggestion actually!!
Such a great callback episode.
It was brilliantly fun. I was amazed at how they were really clever about what they reconstructed and pieced together to keep it affordable on their budget, but then they went and did the lineup and the incredible handoff to Kirk that must have taken a ton of work.
That would be a great episode for them to look at!
Yes, they need to do this!
Bruce Campbell spoke about the Introvision process in his memoir If Chins Could Kill, and whilst the effect was very cool, it was very time consuming because it required all his moves to be choreographed super tightly; he describes it as "acting by numbers", because he would have to hit preplanned marks for his movements with exact timing, and if one move was off they'd have to do it over and over until he got it perfect. It's one of the reasons Army of Darkness ended up running over budget and took 2 years to complete.
These are the kind of episodes I love the most. It's always so interesting to see how special effects were done back then and how much more ingenious these people doing them were.
Learning about all the creative solutions of the older films are possibly the best thing about the VFX artist react series.
As a guy who's been watching TNG since the early '90s and also consumed a fair amount of BTS stuff, I just need to say "thank you" for giving one of the best nutshell descriptions of the visual effects work on the minatures I've ever heard. I'd heard about the black lights before, but never quite understood it until now and I'd never even heard that bit about the starfields before! Thank you again for all you do and thanks for being the best and really one of only a few sources of quality reaction videos on the internet. You guys just rock!
The sheer amount of creativity and ingenuity in old school movie making was truly magical.
Yes! It took some pure genius for some of those people to figure out how to do things years or even decades before the technology to do it was even invented.
Even something as simple as Technicolor, which was a way to film movies in color using black and white film.
The breakdown of the Star Trek shots is so cool. So much work for shots in a TV series you just rarely see today
Rarely see today? Tv shows now take more work and effort then a lot of movies. Star Wars shows, Marvel, game of thrones. All feature quality better then movies a few years back
The models were built and filmed by Industrial Light and Magic.
@@DanielRieger - The constraints of the system is what gave better shots, at least for the tone of the show.
@JohnnyWednesday This, Star Trek has a tradition of being efficient with their constraints. Showrunners tried to optimize to the seasons budget, saving of budget by planning in bottle episodes (which with their actors usually ended up to be some of the finest episodes), and reusing the shit of every vfx assett ever put to film, but being clever enough about it that it doesn't stand out immediately. Reuse to make best with a generous but limited budget, use the money where it pops, and not to make it look cheap.
@@Durwood71 Actually ILM only filmed 100% the first episode. ILM filmed stock flybys of the Enterprise, and of course models they built for the TOS movies were used throughout the run of the show. After the first episode all VFX were handled in house by Rob Legato, and models like the 3ft Enterprise and original ship designs for TNG were built by the great Greg Gein, may he rest in peace.
Have you guys heard about "Zathura"? It's a children's film extremely inspired by Jumanji from 2005. I recently rewatched it because it reminded me of my childhood and my head exploded when I realized that the visual effects are really good for the time and still hold up until today.
2001 was front projection, not rear. In fact, they basically pioneered this type of high-quality front projection with the 45 degree mirror/Scotchlite screen. Perhaps there is more innovation involving foreground layers used on Introvision, but it's otherwise very similar to the techniques used in the Dawn of Man sequence.
Exactly so! This is most obvious in the early shot of a big cat who looks toward the camera with eyes shining brightly because of the projected image is reflected off the tapetum lucidum layer behind the retina. The projectors used giant glass slides created with a view camera if I recall correctly. I recall reading about this at the time. (Yes, I'm that old...)
It wasn't invented for 2001, I believe the major innovation there was that they came up with a synchronization mechanism between the camera and projector that allowed the camera to be panned and tilted across a projected still background that was much larger than the camera frame.
I would love an episode with people from the Star Trek TNG series, talking through some of the old school practices like this one. They are getting much older and some might not be here, but maybe a few people could come and go through the process more in depth.
that already exists online and has for a long time
@@widdomonki238 ok, do you have examples or references I can look up? Perhaps a UA-camr? I know there are the guys from Enterprise, but it’s not the same as to what corridor crew does
Some of Bruce Campbell’s fights in AoD could qualify for Stunt Performers React; he had to meticulously memorize every motion and repeat them as Raimi yelled them, so he could match the filmed plates of the miniatures. It sounds like the experience still haunts him!
They need to get Bruce on the couch!
And some of it backwards. He's one of the best at it because of Raimi and Evil Dead.
The only thing cooler than Bruce Campbell is several Bruce Campbells
In Bruce Campbell's book, "If Chins Could Kill", he goes over how they did some of the effect in the Evil Dead movies (with no budget). Very clever stuff, fun read.
In fact it's so amazing that Corridor should try to invite Campbell AND Raimi and make a special episode just talking about Evil Dead movies.
Dude 14:04 The Phoenix you don’t even understand how amazing this show was for a young me. Love you all, great episode!!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Never saw Sam so happy as when he saw the row of janky CGI models. It made my day
I rewatched the TNG Blurays recently. It really cannot be overstated how excellent they are. They are the gold standard for how to go about restoring a beloved old production. The team spent thousands and thousands of hours, used as much original 35mm material as possible and recomposited much if it digitally. All of the digital effects that were done video to video originally such as the phaser blasts, photon torpedoes and transporter beams etc, obviously had to be redone from scratch as well, but they are matched so perfectly and with such loving care that there is basically no difference from the way they looked in the standard definition original masters. There are only one or two short shots in all 7 seasons that are clearly SD upscales, presumably because the original film elements were either lost or damaged. If only Star Wars fans were so lucky. George Lucas should be ashamed of himself for allowing the same shoddy, poorly color-graded 1990s era Special Edition masters to be released again and again, changing more and more and making his original films worse and worse.
Love that you covered The Next Generation. The Blu-Ray restoration for this series was a true master-class in how to do a proper restoration. They went back to all the original footage, including the multple plates for the FX shots and basically recut the entire series exactly as it was.
And it shows just how amazing those model shots were and how much fantastic detail we were losing at standard definition TV broadcasts.
Also, probably the best Sci-Fi series ever produced.
_cough_ Babylon 5 _cough_
@@fredfredburger5150there wouldn't be any Babylon 5 without TNG
That first clip in the prom pact scene is them adding some diversity to the crowd.
So glad you guys covered Star Trek: TNG. That was my whole childhood. It still looks incredible.
This episode was great! I love seeing old school techniques, so impressive. As a 90s kid I remember some commotion about special effects in The Fugitive, especially that train sequence, but couldn't remember how it was done. Pretty amazing! ❤
I'm so glad you covered Introvision, some blockbuster movies from eras past used it, quite effectively too, it was a great technology before there was even any digital effects, it's a magic trick, it's all about perception and tricking the eye and blending the effect seamlessly in camera, it was used in the invisible bridge scene in The Last Crusade, it was used on Outland (1981), the scenes out in space.
I havn't seen the logo for it for a long time...
These 3 are my favorite on the couch. I love Niko and how he teaches. I love Wren and how smart he is with breaking down shots and how effects are done. I love Sam because.. I just love Sam. Been watching for so long now. This was one of my favorite episodes because of how excited and interested/happy everyone was. Love you guys.
These guys are still in awe at old school techniques. That’s what makes them so enjoyable and entertaining.
The craftiness, truly a Movie Magic.
I was a make-up artist who worked on "The Fugitive" when they shot it here in Chicago, so I wasn't aware all these years how they did that effect with the train. I'm glad you thoroughly covered what went into the practical effects of making Harrison Ford jump off the bus and out of the way of the oncoming train The effect still looks great even after all this time. I'm a big fan of your channel, and I really enjoyed the episode on"The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" and the one on the lost Disney yellow sulfur crystal (I can't remember the name that you called it) Your videos are very informative, thank you and keep them coming.
Shoutout to whoever is making all the cool new graphics and stuff. The editing is very nice.
Corridor, thank you guys. Years ago I would sit down on Sunday mornings with a coffee and breakfast and watch Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. When that show ended you guys started your first episode of reacts and I've been watching every weekend since. Thank you for the entertainment and the insight into VFX.
This is the hardest I’ve seen Sam laugh 😂 great episode as always!
And when they reacted to Saaho!
I dont know, Sams reaction to Jordan’s satisfaction Zelda render is priceless.
Sam is one of those rare adults still capable of pure joy - we must protect him from bad traffic and disappointing series finale.
@@meekofortin14which episode is that? Really curious to see
@@denisbarac4871 The ep isn’t up on youtube anymore because of copyright. It’s on their Corridor website, one of the Bollywood videos.
Christian NAILED that sponsor segment. I got so hyped for Rocket Money. Hope you have fun in the Philippines! much love
Honestly, these were some really good breakdowns of the technology. I understand a bit of what they say when they figure this out on the couch, but adding the visuals to show what they are explaining just adds a whole new dimension of understanding for us non-industry folks. Thank you for the detail in the explanations. That is what makes these reactions great as they figure out the effects, they bring us along for the journey!
Thank you for showing old-school effects some love! Love those old effects, when they're well done they have such authenticity. Do a segment on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, please!
If you're looking for more star trek scenes to react to, check out the episode of Deep Space Nine "Trials and Tribble-ations". It has the actors placed incredibly well into the scenes from the orignal series star trek
yess i second that
Oh yeah that's a good one!
Definitely!
Probably one of the most interesting episodes I've seen to date. Absolutely blows my mind they managed to do all that inside the technology limitations they had back in the day!
So true! Star Trek: Next Gen still looks fantastic to this day. It's fascinating to know the ingenuity that went into making it a timeless classic for us fans.
This is one of the best episodes of all time guys! I still dont understand that 45° mirror retro reflector technology. Wren should make a short video explaining the science of how it works because its m8nd blowing to me. All these little spheres in a sheet? And some glass? This is magic to me right now! DO IT!!
prom pact is proof we should be happy the actors' strike won
Did they won though?
I understand the sentiment but it's not quite related! Digi-doubles are nothing new. There's a lot of misunderstanding from SAG or the general public as they don't quite have the experience or knowledge when it comes to visual effects. Their fears were more about how AI or machine learning could affect or replace actors' work - this case of Prom Pact, while hilarious, is not quite related. This is just good ol' fashioned CG work, done poorly in execution. Nevertheless, it was not done with AI or machine learning - it was still VFX artists likely paid a minimal amount, given no budget and no time to turn out these shots.
At the end of the day, as Corridor touched upon, there are reasons we don't know about for why they chose this route. Likely, they filmed on set and either FORGOT to have extras in that row (which is the the fault of the filmmakers on set - meaning, the director, DP, 1st AD, etc. all missed the empty row). Or they wanted to cover something up. They likely didn't have the budget to do a reshoot of that location, and bring back the entire crew and extras back. So instead, they were forced to try to patch it with VFX. Still a poor decision overall, as they would've had better luck shooting extras against green screen to comp in.
Nice to see wren back on the couch. Missed his impish wiles
I remember when Introvision came out. One of the first movies to use it was Outland with Sean Connery. I thought it was so amazing. I ordered a beam splitter from Edmund Scientific. I did something similar, but for a matte painting. I cut pieces of 3M Scotchlite tape into the shape of a neon sign and little pieces for street lights and used a slide projector as a light source with the beam spiltter. It looked just like the actual neon sign. I had read about this being done for the movie Altered States. They painted a body suit with Scotchlite paint to project cracks of glowing hot lava onto a character.
I loved seeing you guys light up over this older technology :) you all continue to learn every day and you share it with us and I love that
This one episode illustrates so much of the tech being used in the last 3 decades. It's amazing!
I really love how excited you each get seeing and learning new (old) stuff.
This might be my favorite episode so far. It really shows how powerful non-digital effects were. It really makes you think about why the move from practical effects and hand animation to digital effects and computer animation happened.
Because those practical effects are extremely complex to do and leave little (if any) space for mistakes or corrections. That's not to say CGI is easy, Marvel movies show they definitely can be screwed up quite easily by people who think that, but there's a degree of flexibility that you can't match with practical effects, not to mention you can reach a way bigger scope in what you do with it (The Lord of the Rings trilogy gets a lot of deserved credit for its use of practical effects but just consider how much of it actually is CGI and how impossible those movie would have been to make without it). Ideally, movies should use a combination of both (think Top Gun Maverick or Mission Impossible), but man, I don't think any VFX guy would like to go entirely with these techniques, IMO: Introvision is awesome, but think how many complex steps it takes to pull off compared to a well executed digital composite. A good miniature, however? That's something I do think they would relish working on (think Batman Begins).
@@Diegorskysp17 there is also the issue of unions. The digital animation artists weren't unionized. So they could bid out to the lowest bidder rather than pay artists what they're worth. Not to mention it could be done by vfx studios nowhere near the film studio. Meaning it could be done overseas for way less money. A lot of the reported expense for hand animation and practical effects also comes from paying union workers what was contracted. Changing the nature of how the effects were done meant they could avoid that expense.
The example of LotR is awesome. There were tons of practical effects. Same with Jurassic Park. The Hobbit and Jurassic World is almost entirely done in computers. They don't look as good as their predecessors. Digital effects are great when used to augment practical, when they're used without practical effects they don't hold up. Even a movie like Avatar looks as good as it does because of the practical work that was done. Compare the underwater work there to the live action Little Mermaid. Even just taking the time to see how something looks practically can have a huge positive impact on how the digital effects come out.
@@ubermoose5694 I sincerely don't think unions played as big of a role on the rise of CGI in VFX. In fact, the abuse of CG artists is a relatively recent phenomenon, thanks to the rise of the MCU and other superhero properties, as well as the streaming boom, where platforms devoted to makea ton of shows and movies where money is no object. It clearly is an issue today tho, one that hopefully will be fixed sooner rather than later.
As for CGI working better when used to augment (or alongside, I would add) practical effects, I think every VFX artist will agree with you. It's just better to have something to, at the very least, use as reference (hell, look at Michael Bay's Transformers movies. Whatever you might think of them, the effects work in there is better than most of what's released today).
As an aside, I do think The Hobbit is a weird case, very similar to the SW prequels in the sense of them trying to push the envelope of the technology at the time, but because we had some frame of reference of the practical effects used in the previous movies (say, full makeup orcs and goblins instead of mocap), we notice stuff is different... although not necessarily worse (Azog is fantastically well made and the Goblin King is a great character design... but one that clearly couldn't be played by a person in a rubber suit), IMO. Them not having the same impact as the previous movies certainly didn't help matters.
I work in AR, and I love that the Tilt5 AR headset is basically this same principle but WAAYY smaller! Those glasses have mine projectors in them, and you play on a retroreflective mat. What's rad is that your distance from that mat, doesn't effect the sharpness of the image, because as you get nearer/further from the retro reflective mat, it defocuses, but then refocuses on the return journey so it's fine!
You guys need to have a series where you try and recreate the effects from these movies but using the original in camera methods!
On The Fugitive in the theaters it looked just like rear projection. I don't know what it looks like on the TV you're watching it on, but all my friends and I talked about how bad it looked after we left the movie.
Awesome video! Interestingly the front projection technique actually dates back to the 60s with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is the first film to use it extensively. It's an idea so wild it it took someone like Stanley Kubrick to fully embrace it.
I'm so glad you guys did Star Trek: TNG. That show wowed me through my entire childhood and it's cool to see how it was done. Thanks guys.
i would really love to see you guys shoot a scene or a short using all these retro techs and no modern vfx.
The Fugitive analysis blew me away
It would probably be difficult and expensive but it would be incredible to see you recreate scenes from old movies the way they were made
💯
Props to whoever did all the graphics to help illustrate how things work. They were next level!
Totally true about stars in real life. When I take people flying at night they always notice, "Orion is so big!". Because as you said, their perspective changed.
That intravision was so cool. We need an episode just dedicated to it.
Oh, some love for Star Trek! I'd love to see a breakdown of PIC season 3's space battles. The Titan-A doing strafing runs on the fleet formation ships was absolutely gorgeous... same with the D's resurrection.
Man this may well be one of the best (non-guest) episodes so far!! So much cool stuff in here!
I wonder if the missing people in the Prom Pact were due to COVID restrictions? This was filmed during the later half of it, so it is conceivable that they put a row or two between the main actors and the extras so that you could film them together and also have less rise of exposure. The extra's in one 'bubble' away from the main cast they need to film the rest of the movie.
Just a theory though.
That's a great estimation, but also, the actual human extras could have been fucking around somehow (they're kids after all right?). Maybe they slipped in some dank meme or flipped the bird & it wasn't caught until the edit, because there are clearly real people (extras) sitting close to the team elsewhere even in the examined shot. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened, & that would result in a time crunch to fix the shot, which would explain why it's so sloppy. Also when you go to the shot right before the one examined, you can see the entire crowd when the camera is shooting thru the cheerleaders, & they're real people.
Shit... I should finish watching the episode before commenting 🙄
I was thinking COVID could have been the problem, but they could have totally worked around it by maybe doing a dang double exposure shot with the extras shuffled around to fill the space.
@@JeighNeither That is a definite possibility. Having worked as an extra before, it's not like you audition and are checked to see if you have any competency with acting. You just get hired if you have the right look for what they are filming.
If that were the reason, couldn’t they just have filmed all the extras (or a row of extras at a time or whatever) first and then superimpose the main cast on top of them?
Front screen projection using the 3m reflective beads was used for some backgrounds in Close Encounters of the Third Kind including the country road scene "Crescendo Summit." If you can manage to find a book by Bob Balaban (Laughlin in CE3K) called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind Diary" pick it up and give it a read.
I want to see Corridor try doing some cool scenes using this amazing old school tech.
Loved this episode! The non-digital, traditional effects will never cease to amaze me. Love that you guys mix it up. Keep up the great work!
I appreciate this episode, love hearing about old school methods. Now compare the Enterprise D CGI model from Picard Season 3 Eo 9&10 to the original and see who did it better.
Kudos to all the VFX work corridor put into this episode to explain it. Feels like so much more than usual.
Sam's laugh is so infectious. Poor guy trying and failing to hold it together in that first section.
I'm glad you did one with older shows and techniques, would love to see more of those!
Sam's laugh is the best part of this... 😂
That Introvision is awesome! I had no idea what I was seeing in the movies that used it!
This episode is top 1% VFX Artist React - plenty of goofs & plenty of knowledge
One of the interesting outgrowths of introvision that made it into regular studio work was the retro reflective green screen.
Wild technology that broke my brain when I started. Green screen with a grey screen. But never having to worry about green reflection.
Has its pitfalls, but in right scenarios....amazing.
Wren. at 3:38 you ask, "there is something they have to hide". The movie was filmed here in Vancouver. I work in background, and after making some inquiries it seems the most likely explanation is that Disney felt the crowd was too white and had them add in some more POC.
What a bizarre opinion to have that a production set in a white majority nation should be 'too white'.
As a kid Star Trek TNG blew my mind. Still looks great today. I'll watch it with my kids. Thanks for the reminder :)
You should try to recreate something similar but with 3d printed models and compare the that to a CG version
Star Trek; Orange makes the film react more but I'm betting they put a linear polariser on the camera which would have killed reflections off the model - I did this a lot in product photography. You can turn the filter to get no reflections, turn it 90 degrees to get a mega reflective shot then decide whats best or where you want reflections in the comfort of your chair in front of the computer when you haven't got to photograph 100 things and start loosing the will to live! LOL
I have never seem Sam laugh so hard lmao
We've never seen him force a laugh so hard.
11:22 Wren pulling out his iconic "you changed my desktop background to a funky spider" Fus Ro Dah
That first clip is an example of what the studio execs wanted to sell to everyone with their fully AI generated nightmare
these types of comments are an 'own' only till the next billion parameter architecture comes out and then everyone has to pivot towards moralistic arguments again. So why even do it
They spen less money
So made some inquiries, and my best educated guess as to why the Digi doubles were dropped in was for diversity reasons. Notice how white most of the crowd is? Notice the 5 they put in the second row were all POC? It is Disney and I can see this being a concern enough to add in POC. It was filmed here in Vancouver and I work in background here. We struggle to get enough POC background here. Even though Vancouver is a very diverse city most of the people who are interested in doing background are white.
I think they just put some deversity there
It was filmed in 2022 in Canada at that time the Onnicron corona virus variant was going around.
I wonder if during filming they had the row behind the main actors empty to keep some social distancing as they would not want one of the main cast to get covid and delay filming.
This episode was amazing! I LOOOOOVE old school model photography
13:45 wtf is Sam doing
I LOVED the effect used to show the layers in the Fugitive shots 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Also more Star Trek, please. And more of Sam completely losing it 😂
I suspect they added the digital people into the audience to make the audience look more diverse than it really was. And that's pretty fucked up on a couple different levels.
That's the 1st thing I thought as well. Look at the rest of the crowd lol. Thats probably the actual reason. It's insane they did that.
Distorting a true racial makeup of a crowd under the guise of wanting to show a 'true racial makeup of a crowd'.
Hey! I think you should look into movie "The Peasants" (Chłopi). It's hand-painted movie (oil paint). And there is "Loving Vincent" too (Twój Vincent), movie about Vincent van Gogh. They are incredible.
So glad Intravision got a segment, but I'm shocked that many didn't know it existed....I'm about the same age and have known about it for more than a decade.
The glow from the Enterprise is also helped by the lights being neon inside too.
I have learnt do much for all these videos. It’s incredible. Funny. Interesting. Not only a homage and love letter to fx work, but craft and film history in general. Please never stop. Beyond fascinating ❤