I LOVE when they look at the way things were done in the old days and are amazed/impressed/confused. As someone that does Practical stuff that makes me SO happy.
I love it when you guys geek out over old school effects and talk about how they were done. I think what we can do with computers nowadays is truly magic, but what they did back then with clay and mirrors and other trickery was so clever. It's amazing what special effects have been able to do for movies for over a century and how it has evolved. I don't think I could ever get tired of learning about this stuff with you guys. Thank you.
3:34 My late father was a stop motion animator and a regular faux pas in the 16mm Bolex days (When the eye piece was on the side of the camera rather than through the lens) was spending all day animating frame-by-frame, before realising they had left the lens cap on all day.
@@tihomirvrbanec9537 Not really, you had to put the lens cap on whenever you stepped away from the camera (Toilet/food/break/admin) to prevent light leaks, so was done several times a day with no monitor to look at and only one person operating the camera and animating so no second pair of eyes.
Yeah. And I think, instinctively, it makes sense that a moving rock face would have very jerky, blocky movement. With the light in the scene running at 24fps, the whole scene becomes very convincing.
It was almost certainly not done with a projector though. They probably shined a light through something called a "gobo" or "cucoloris". Just an opaque sheet of cardboard with holes cut in it that they turn incrementally every frame. It's a really old/dirt cheap technique that studios like Laika still use all the time.
I've worked as a VFX artist on multiple stop motion films. I wouldn't say anything went horribly wrong, but certainly there have been challenges, ranging from things that were just mistakes, to things that were hard to plan for. Most of the mistakes were stuff like this: Animators forgot something in the shot, like leaving a screwdriver in the shot or something else that needed to be painted out. Animator stood in front of a light, or put down a cellphone with lights on or wore a different color shirt from one day to the next that affected the bounce light, which had to be fixed in comp. Most stuff you do on a stop motion isn't really mistakes though, its the stuff you have to deal with on all productions like Set-shifts: These happen when something changes the set over time. either were parts of the set slowly become softer and bend (like flowers) when they are under heat from lights for a day. Or moisture changes from one day to the other makes the whole wooden table the set is standing one shift and contort (often in the middle of a shot since most animators will only do 3-5 seconds per day). deflickering the shots because of natural power grid differences during the day, which makes all the lights flicker all the time. The stuff that came more out of the blue was when we animated stuff that was flying on two's and realizing it looked way to choppy, so we had to manually reanimated all the in-between frames of the character flying to ease out the animation (this is quite tricky cause you have to actually understand how its supposed to move, you can't just go 50% on all frames, cause animation curves should ease in and out etc..) Roto of anything is suddenly not as easy cause normal interpolation doesn't work on two's, but at the same time, suddenly an animator will do something on ones or three's because that makes it flow better so you can't just reduce the framerate an roto on 12 fps either. I guess the biggest curveball was on a film called "In the Forest of Hucky Bucky" where there's a Old bear whose son has been kidnapped by some farmers who are gonna sell him to the circus, and he was supposed to have a sad face, but the two heads we had for him (it was animated with a rig instead of the printed head swap like skellington) which was happy and sad, was more in the lines of happy and sociopath. So we had to manually warp his face in comp to make him look sad about his son instead of a serial killer :P
@@hggdgdgfgg He basically realised he can do it on his own, they're still friends. Clint has created a really cool 3D community over at his channel Pwnisher
Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury were friends -- in 1999 there was a round-table talk (hosted by Greg Bear!) with the 2 of them at a St. Louis sci-fi convention. They greatly admired each other's work.
I know one of the team that did the "fingers-through-the-head" scene. As soon as I got out of the theatre, I messaged him and told him of horrifically creeped out I was during that scene. He did great.
I introduced them. First I met Denis on a trip to Italy. It was a particular sad trip because my wife left me and we had to go together. So one day I was sipping sad Negronis on the Amalfi coast and a guy came up to me asking how I got such fantastic and phat calves, this guy was Denis. I told him how my ex wife and I bonded because she loved my calves. After that story we became the best of friends, and one might say, almost lovers. When it was time to fly back we coincidentally took the same flights home and realized we lived in the same neighborhood. So the following week I invited him and other friend to dinner. My other friend was the VFX guy that made this effect. Denis and Lex (the VFX guy) became friends after also bonding over my calves. And yeah, that's the story.@@bennettphotography08
@ We live in the same city and he has a table at an art festival. He was there the next year again, and the next and we just got to know each other, only meeting once a year. Then we connected on Twitter and kept in touch with all things nerdy. We've both dropped Twitter now, so hopefully I'll bump into him again soon. He's just a nice guy, and my kids and I love his personal art projects.
The old CG (Clay Graphics) has always blown my mind, imagine what people must have thought when they first saw something like that, I don't think we'll ever experience that kind of thing nowadays.
I remember watching Jurassic Park in the theatres and the first shot of the sauropod was really mind blowing, it was amazing. It's obviously cg but the sensation would be the same, nothing like that had been seen before
Unpopular opinion: While I appreciate Ray Harryhausen's legendary artistic skill, this type of CG (Clay Graphics) just looks so jerky to me that it takes me out of the scene.
Wallace and Gromit is the nearest you get to it these days, although there is no interaction with live actors. In fact there is a new one coming out this Xmas called Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Growing up, Will Vinton, one of the creators/pioneers of claymation was my sisters best friends dad. His original claymation projects from when he was in college can be found on RUclips, he founded Will Vinton Studios (now known as Liaka studios) makers of Coraline)) before it was bought by Phil Knight of Nike. Anyways, I highly recommend looking into his Closed Mondays, one of his early projects. Really freaking cool dude RIP Will
You guys should do a whole episode on Harryhausen. 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' is my favorite. Fight with the 6-armed Kali statue is so awesome. Plus, Caroline Munroe (better known as Stella in 'Star Crash') is absolutely beautiful.
Oh man 7th Voyage and Golden Voyage are two amazing Harryhausen movies. The Cyclops and dragon fight in 7th Voyage was awesome, and yes the six-armed Kali statue was phenomenal looking! But my all-time favorite is the Valley of Gwangi. I remember watching that for the first time as a lil tyke in late 70's and just loved Dinosaurs immediately!
@@ItsFreakinHarding. - Ray did so many amazing f/x during his career, CC could do a 1+ hour episode on him and just scratch the surface. Even if they only focused on his 3 Sinbad films, there’s plenty of ground to cover.
The guy in the robot in Return to Oz was a presenter from a famous UK children's TV show, Blue Peter. You should be able to find a clip from him explaining it. Pretty sure he was walking backwards so that the legs kicked up properly.
SO glad you guys did some more of Harryhausen’s work. _One Million Years B.C._ is such amazing attention to detail, especially regarding the integration with the plate photography. I watched it all the time as a kid and it holds up amazingly well looking back at it now.
What I find impressive about Harryhausen that's never mentioned is the fact that the stop-motion puppets are standing on _something,_ but it blends into the live-action plate so well that it's hard to see. If it were a composite, one could fiddle with the grading until they matched, but this was done in camera.
The fact that people genuinely believe humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time is testament to how great it is (also how stupid people are, but I won’t go there).
The stop motion puppets where shot in front of of a screen projecting the frame of the film , the actors are usually standing on something completely different, to what you see on screen .
The projected images were exposed separately from the animated model elements; Harryhausen would project the film onto a screen behind his models and position them to line up, then he would make two exposures on each frame, one with the models lit and the projector off and then another with the models in silhouette with the projector on, this allowed for control over the exposure levels so that the lights on the models did not wash out the projected images and the light from the projected images blended with the edges of the models to create seamless double-exposed in-camera composites.
Whenever I see you guys talk about old time effects my brain literally hurts coz the amount of effort it took for those guys to achieve a particular shot is incomprehensible to the modern mind
Ray Harryhausen is just the absolute GOAT for creature effects. I'd hate to think what things were like if he hadn't done the films he did. He inspired so many of the great FX studios.
The level of detail on these guys is unreal-Sam's practically photorealistic at this point. I mean, if you squint, you can almost see the rendering budget in his pores. And don’t even get me started on Nikos’ hair-that fidelity.
@MangroveLord No, I'm pretty sure that they are visual fx of artists.. in this case, Sam, Jordan and Niko. There is usually as Wren model too. I'll admit they are amazing models, but if you look closely, the skin shader has too much of a glossy look in certain lights. Though I bet they will be buzzed that people think its real.
You'll want to get a little further into Harryhausen's Dynamation setups. Note that he doesn't just have his puppets in front of a rear-projected plate, but that the FOREGROUND is also part of the same plate, exposed separately, so it looks like the puppets are standing within the space of the original shot. You can see a slight realignment in one of the dinosaur-attack shots just after 18:51.
@@isaackim7675 They did Chicken run too, I guess. Their style of stop motion is so accessible, still it feels like a fairy tale or something from a comic book you read ages ago.
I love how some of this old stuff, the “trick” so often boils down to, just be a stone cold monster at whatever the thing is. That claymation stuff is insane.
My layman guess for how they would've done the rock-face claymation animation, would be they had a pre-made hand-drawn animation they would project onto the clay to see how it should look like, and adjusted the clay accordingly, turning off the reference to record each frame.
@@ActionMan153 I don't think it was an optical illusion; would probably be harder to make it look good with an optical illusion than actually doing it for real.
@@tiagotiagot no offense but where did you get they said optical illusion? Their message hasn't been edited either as far as I can tell. Relief/carving isn't optical but practical.
@@GalactusTheDestroyer Felt like there could've been a misunderstanding since I never said anything about it being not 3d and they still felt the need to specify it was; so I decided to make clear I did not expect the depth to be illusory.
For guys that know so much about effects, it's always fun when you don't know how things used to be done. (I feel so old!) Just FYI, Claymation is not a generic term for stop motion animation. Claymation (animating clay figures) was popularized by Art Clokey (Gumby and Pokey), Will Vinton (the Nome King in Return To OZ, TV commercials for The California Raisins), and Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit). Harryhausen used latex foam puppets on metal armatures to animate, not clay. His filming process was called Dynamation.
Man, I loved those California Raisin commercials/movie. Really fun stop motion with great VA. The California Raisins movie/shorts are on YT I'm pretty sure. Worth a watch if you've never seen them and are interested in stop motion/claymation etc.
Niko pointed out the one thing that I hated about Deadpool & Wolverine: the guns on the high ground firing down into a pit and hitting nothing. It's so stupid.
The biggest giveaway that it's CGI is the skin wrinkles at 11:40. That's possibly the only point where they clearly goofed and they don't look real - the skin seems to be pulled beyond what is possible for real skin, and the eyebrow doesn't go down at all.
Harryhausen visited us at Pixar and told how crazy making it was when he was animating Medusa, keeping track of all of those serpent figures, and someone would knock on the door. He'd come back and try to remember where he was.
Going to be honest, I almost always fast forward through their commercials for the sponsors.... except when Jordan is doing them! I can watch that beauty all day long! ❤️🥰😍🥰❤️
I went and watched Deadpool in the theaters when it came out and when i watched the scene of her hands going through his face, I immediately thought about how i was excited to see when you guys cover it!
17:14 I don't think it is said enough but THANK YOU to all the artists who create these movies. I cannot imagine the amount of hours put in and I hope the support from Marvel and Disney has gotten better. Once again THANK YOU, THANK YOU and THANK YOU.
5:50 If I recall correctly the contortionist in the suit is actually walking backwards and viewing everything upside down since their head is sitting between their legs
Yes, they determined that the walk looked bouncier in reverse. I believe he used a video monitor for reference and couldn't actually see out of the rig at all.
Lyle Conway, creator of Tik Tok said in an interview, "Michael was about five five and Tik Tok's about four four. So Michael had to bend with his head between his legs, bolted in, and he did the actual walking around in the thing--BACKWARDS. Sometimes, in the morning, he wouldn't be able to fit, so it was just a matter of forcing him in. Then everything loosened up, and his body settled into it. When you took the suit off of him, this rush of hot air hit you and there were pools of sweat at the bottom of the thing."
In the Cinefex article on RETURN TO OZ, there's a great bit where they talk about developing the look of the Nome animation. (paraphrasing) "We studied how to make the characters look like rock and determined that one of the main features of rock is that it doesn't move..."
The actual quote from Vinton, because I'm obsessive this way: "One of the first things we dealt with all along was, 'What is the nature of rockiness?' -- and one of the primary answers was that rock doesn't move. Yet the whole thing was to get that rock to move. The idea was that the Nomes were in this kind of plasma of rock, a sea of rock."
I gotta tell ya, as a certified old dude, I absolutely love seeing you guys geek out about Harryhausen's work. Time and again, you pay your respects to the old masters, and it's legitimately heartwarming.
I loved the Deadpool breakdown and the Return to Oz stuff….but you really killed it with the Master - Clay Grafix genius Ray Harryhausen. 👏🏻👏🏻 my first experience of the masters work was OG Clash of the Titans and you still don’t see anything more compelling today than a stop-motion Medusa. Thanks, fam.
Ray Harryhausen was a one man machine! Gotta shoutout his mentor Willis O’Brien to take on Ray as a pupil to work on Mighty Joe Young. They both were huge inspirations for modern stop motion/claymation artists like Phil Tippett, Tim Burton, Henry Selick, Nick Park, etc. I still have some of his movies to collect, but if Harryhausen worked on it, I’m totally down to watch it!
watching these clips from “Return to Oz” reminds you that films used to be so much more artistically rich. I’m not saying better per se but just more artful and simply more beautiful. I mean look at all those handcrafted sets and creatures and effects plus that orchestrated music. It reminds you that movies were really treated like art and not like a digital playground for the next tech. (Not saying CGI is not artistically rich btw it’s just a different vibe)
21:23 The clay arm takeover was the ultimate animated practical limb replacement flex! Try and find another movie where this exact thing happens to compare this too, I dare you.
18:19 The Harryhausen stuff has issues with scaling, total genius though. A total joy to watch as a child. Thank you so very much for all the fond memories Mr. Harryhausen. R.I.P.
11:13 that head is 100% CGI as well. The cheek/mouth movements are always a dead giveaway. It's like they always want to show off their CGI by doing the most complicated face muscle movements (the eye/cheek/mouth contractions). It always feels like they try to do _too much_ face movement. Idk, they always look so dead and cartoony. Especially the 'shocked' blinking.
I think for the claymation wall in the Oz scene, the animator would have had it all drawn out on paper ahead of time. That could have been shot as a pencil test to make sure the action worked, and then each drawing replicated on set in clay. Basically an animatic.
I’m a digital animator. A not very good digital animator. I have more tools and tips and tricks and techniques to help me work now than any animator in history and I still suck. The people that do stop motion, and in particular old stop motion and in particular old stop claymation have my undying and ultimate respect. They are the absolute GOATS in the animation world along with the old original 2D masters. Respect.
Thank you for discussing Return to Oz! One of my favorite childhood movies and super dark and creepy. I’ve seen it so many times and never noticed the outline of that woman’s shoulder and arm!
3:36 This Halloween I animated a Lego Stopmotion Film, based on Scream ("STOP SCREAMING" on RUclips). In one shot there is a girl walking through the frame and behind her is a TV pictures, for which i used a Phone as a screen. I was so focused on the walking animation, that I didn't notice, that the Phone turned off, halfway in the shot, so I had to some how fix it in post😅 That was so frustating
In the late 80's at high school we were doing a stop motion film project. We did several hours of work, moving the items, taking frames, then realised the old Super-8 camera appeared to work correctly even though it had no film in it.
Back in uni, I did some animation work with stop motion, but not clay. We used cardboard cutouts, sand, etc. We all joked about sneezing all sending the whole thing flying off. What no one accounted for was when someone sneezes, their body jerks around - a lot... And back then, we didn't have an easy way to previz, so... yeah...
Super glad you guys did Ray Harryhousen!!! I left a comment on your last video to do 20 Million Miles To Earth. Dunno if that's why you did it this vid or not, but it's super awesome either way. The way he blends live action with claymation is just so crazy to me, so thank you for giving it the spotlight it deserves.
The Vessi ad timestamp is wrong its far too long Just checked again didn't see any story blocks sponsor in the vid but it does have a massive timestamp 🤔
When I saw the scene with the hands in the new "Deadpool", I was like, "Yeah, they really outdid themselves. It looks perfectly real, even in motion," and I loved it!
The projected light onto the clay might be a really big clue as to how they did it. If you asked me to animate something like that, I would do the whole thing on paper first, every frame, so you can flipbook it and make adjustments on the fly until it looks good. Then you transfer those drawings onto cels, slap those cels on a projector, shine the projector on the clay and use it as a blueprint to sculpt. If the cool lighting was planned to be there from the start, you could even set up the projector for that from the get go. Every other slide alternates between cel and effects lighting. Sculpt, shoot, sculpt, shoot.
Might've been cheaper to have a second projector and roll of film than intercalate the animated reference frames with the fire light animation, I imagine....
@@tiagotiagot That's most likely the simplest solution, yeah. I don't know anything about projectors, so I figured maybe they had some fancy tech back then that could switch between two sources on the fly or whatnot, but I think I'm imagining a slide projector in that scenario and you probably wouldn't use one of those for hundreds of frames of animation! Or maybe you would, I have absolutely no idea.
I did stop motion at college back in 85 so I can tell you that we had video playback but it was on Low Band U-Matic and once you shot a frame the system would rewind the tape 5 seconds and then play back so it was up to speed to see the shot - those 5 second pre-rolls ate up so much time!
the guy in the robot suit for "return to oz" was michael sunden. he was a presenter on a childrens tv show in the uk (blue peter) for a while, before his "racey" past caught up with him
I came here to say just that. I'm not sure about his 'racey' past as Richard Bacon was fired for the same reasons. I remember the guy in the robot suit was a short-lived Blue Peter presenter that came onboard after a segment discussing the film. Apparently, he walked backwards in the suit to give the robot that side to side waddle.
If you guys like stop motion, I'm once again recommended "The Wizard of Speed and Time". The filmmaker basically did all the effects in the movie himself, which is impressive because it's a movie ABOUT special effects (and also about trying to get a movie made). Charming stuff. Also! Speaking of guys in robot suits: for something to really blow your mind, look up how they did the robots in Silent Running. And re: Sam saying "you still need a guy inside" for robots, I'd look at Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. Incredible work for basically an RC rig.
The more natural obstacles there is - the more amazing is the result. Even modern stopmotion amazes me, as a digital (wannabe) animator - I just can't fathom how they are able to animate EVERYTHING AT ONCE, straight forward, without adjustments or passes!
This is definitely my favorite react video! Love how you guys are so comedic and sociable even though we aren't there! Love it so much you guys! Thanks for the reactions and your passion for genuine creativity making magic happen!
For anyone wondering.. the garbage behind them was all from Wrens desk.. for years he's been sneaking into the office after hours and eating up all the food like some deranged gremlin.. sam put CCTV up in the office space to identify what or who has been eating all the food.. once Wren was outed Sam confronted him about it.. Wren broke down crying insisting he's got a problem, he opened up his desk drawers and a mountain of trash spilled out.. Sam just slowly nodded in shock and awe and instructed him to clean it up..
Either you wrote this like a fanfic but it's real, or this shit's made up. How big is his desk that he'd have *that* much garbage in it? Not to mention Sam "nodding in shock and awe."
3 дня назад
When I was watching the scene in Deadpool, In theater I literally thought "I can't wait to watch this scene again on Corridor Crew" AND HERE WE ARE! I hope I'm not too late and ya'll get to see this!
Return to Oz is an absolutely insane movie that gets passed over way too much. It terrified me as a child, but it utterly amazes me as an adult. The film is a masterpiece
The way my jaw was hanging open when they showed the dude in the robot 💀 like I’d need therapy for that! Seeing the hands-in-head is nuts! I was studying the whole thing on the imax screen when I saw it. Never would I have guessed they did both her head and his cgi, that’s just phenomenal talent 🔥 cgi when done correctly can be life changing especially for a filmmaking nerd such as myself.
There’s been several behind the scenes stills with Hugh Jackman looking exactly like he did in the movie. I think they didn’t mention it in this video because they didn’t want to admit they were wrong
Before you elaborated on the spherical robot's effects, I started having a low level panic attack, because I already had a good idea what you were going to say, and was feeling what that felt like. OMFG...
In film school, my project partner and I spent a week with a 16mm spring-wound Bolex shooting 100 ft of film (about 3 minutes at 24 fps, and animating on twos). It was a complicated stop motion sequence with an animated backdrop, environment, and character. When we got the footage back, we found it had been completely ruined by a light leak, either the camera body or the changing bag. We had to rebuild the set and reshoot everything again over one sleepless weekend. Unfortunately, we still had a shutter light leak. It wasn't nearly as bad but every other exposed frame had light catching on the aperture plate. It would only affect one of the two exposed frames because the lens was uncovered during the lengthy setup for each animation frame. We couldn't shoot it again, and even if we could our character's wire armature was already falling apart. It was certainly educational.
I LOVE when they look at the way things were done in the old days and are amazed/impressed/confused. As someone that does Practical stuff that makes me SO happy.
@@OfficialRUclipsAlgorithm Rude....Who hurt you?
@@OfficialRUclipsAlgorithm unnecessary
@@OfficialRUclipsAlgorithm Imagine being that PATHETIC over someone else's joy
@@OfficialRUclipsAlgorithmwhen did he say that?
@@OfficialRUclipsAlgorithmaww you saaaad 😢
I love it when you guys geek out over old school effects and talk about how they were done. I think what we can do with computers nowadays is truly magic, but what they did back then with clay and mirrors and other trickery was so clever. It's amazing what special effects have been able to do for movies for over a century and how it has evolved. I don't think I could ever get tired of learning about this stuff with you guys. Thank you.
This their most low effort videos and it must've killed them knowing how popular it is
Clay, Mirrors, Trickey, and torture/suffering XD
@@stellviahohenheim They clearly have fun doing it, I highly doubt it.
One of the coolest things about Cassandra Nova’s design is her slightly too long fingers - it’s super subtle but unsettling
I've watched the movie twice and I NEVER noticed that... wild lol
she built her entire body from scratch is why that's the case.
For her live stuff, she actually had prosthetic extended finger tips and nails.
@@CodeDonutIn a cave! With a box of scraps!
After watching the movie I had to double-check and look at the actor's actual fingers from red carpet photos because they felt just wrong lol
3:34 My late father was a stop motion animator and a regular faux pas in the 16mm Bolex days (When the eye piece was on the side of the camera rather than through the lens) was spending all day animating frame-by-frame, before realising they had left the lens cap on all day.
Oh nooooooooo that must have set him back days lol😂 condolences about your father. Same here last year 😢
but thats not faux pas, its just lack of concentration or stupidity XD
@@tihomirvrbanec9537 Not really, you had to put the lens cap on whenever you stepped away from the camera (Toilet/food/break/admin) to prevent light leaks, so was done several times a day with no monitor to look at and only one person operating the camera and animating so no second pair of eyes.
@@grantpowell4135 Yeah they only had two weeks to shoot an episode too so was always heartbreaking and frustrating! Thank you - hope you’re doing well
@davebrainvfx the pressure was on for sure and same to you sir. Head held high
The lighting effect on the 2.5 D rock face is genius. Simple in execution, genius in conception.
Yeah. And I think, instinctively, it makes sense that a moving rock face would have very jerky, blocky movement. With the light in the scene running at 24fps, the whole scene becomes very convincing.
It was almost certainly not done with a projector though. They probably shined a light through something called a "gobo" or "cucoloris". Just an opaque sheet of cardboard with holes cut in it that they turn incrementally every frame. It's a really old/dirt cheap technique that studios like Laika still use all the time.
I've worked as a VFX artist on multiple stop motion films. I wouldn't say anything went horribly wrong, but certainly there have been challenges, ranging from things that were just mistakes, to things that were hard to plan for.
Most of the mistakes were stuff like this:
Animators forgot something in the shot, like leaving a screwdriver in the shot or something else that needed to be painted out.
Animator stood in front of a light, or put down a cellphone with lights on or wore a different color shirt from one day to the next that affected the bounce light, which had to be fixed in comp.
Most stuff you do on a stop motion isn't really mistakes though, its the stuff you have to deal with on all productions like
Set-shifts:
These happen when something changes the set over time. either were parts of the set slowly become softer and bend (like flowers) when they are under heat from lights for a day.
Or moisture changes from one day to the other makes the whole wooden table the set is standing one shift and contort (often in the middle of a shot since most animators will only do 3-5 seconds per day).
deflickering the shots because of natural power grid differences during the day, which makes all the lights flicker all the time.
The stuff that came more out of the blue was when we animated stuff that was flying on two's and realizing it looked way to choppy, so we had to manually reanimated all the in-between frames of the character flying to ease out the animation (this is quite tricky cause you have to actually understand how its supposed to move, you can't just go 50% on all frames, cause animation curves should ease in and out etc..)
Roto of anything is suddenly not as easy cause normal interpolation doesn't work on two's, but at the same time, suddenly an animator will do something on ones or three's because that makes it flow better so you can't just reduce the framerate an roto on 12 fps either.
I guess the biggest curveball was on a film called "In the Forest of Hucky Bucky" where there's a Old bear whose son has been kidnapped by some farmers who are gonna sell him to the circus, and he was supposed to have a sad face, but the two heads we had for him (it was animated with a rig instead of the printed head swap like skellington) which was happy and sad, was more in the lines of happy and sociopath.
So we had to manually warp his face in comp to make him look sad about his son instead of a serial killer :P
Jordan's knowledge and enthusiasm is such a great addition, after Clint left it was concerning but Jordan really cares and knows his stuff
When did he leave??
Taking up the mantel of the young lion prince we lost -_-
@@hggdgdgfgg he left 3 years ago bro where you been
@@betterbaulball why tho? 😭😭😭 Also sorry
@@hggdgdgfgg He basically realised he can do it on his own, they're still friends. Clint has created a really cool 3D community over at his channel Pwnisher
Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury were friends -- in 1999 there was a round-table talk (hosted by Greg Bear!) with the 2 of them at a St. Louis sci-fi convention. They greatly admired each other's work.
I know one of the team that did the "fingers-through-the-head" scene. As soon as I got out of the theatre, I messaged him and told him of horrifically creeped out I was during that scene. He did great.
How did you get to know him? Like how did yall meet
I introduced them. First I met Denis on a trip to Italy. It was a particular sad trip because my wife left me and we had to go together. So one day I was sipping sad Negronis on the Amalfi coast and a guy came up to me asking how I got such fantastic and phat calves, this guy was Denis. I told him how my ex wife and I bonded because she loved my calves. After that story we became the best of friends, and one might say, almost lovers. When it was time to fly back we coincidentally took the same flights home and realized we lived in the same neighborhood. So the following week I invited him and other friend to dinner. My other friend was the VFX guy that made this effect. Denis and Lex (the VFX guy) became friends after also bonding over my calves. And yeah, that's the story.@@bennettphotography08
@ We live in the same city and he has a table at an art festival. He was there the next year again, and the next and we just got to know each other, only meeting once a year. Then we connected on Twitter and kept in touch with all things nerdy. We've both dropped Twitter now, so hopefully I'll bump into him again soon. He's just a nice guy, and my kids and I love his personal art projects.
@@DenisRyan What a great friendship story. ❤
@@DenisRyan Cool! I hope one day I'll be on the team with them lol (I'm an aspiring filmmaker)
That's really just amazing that Cassandra and Paradox were fully CGI. That is without a doubt the best face cgi I've ever seen.
It's pretty clearly cg...I don't get why they were surprised about that.
The old CG (Clay Graphics) has always blown my mind, imagine what people must have thought when they first saw something like that, I don't think we'll ever experience that kind of thing nowadays.
I remember watching Jurassic Park in the theatres and the first shot of the sauropod was really mind blowing, it was amazing. It's obviously cg but the sensation would be the same, nothing like that had been seen before
Avatar anyone?
@@kingcosworth2643 It was only when Jurassic Park came out that I thought that they'd bested Ray Harryhausen.
Unpopular opinion: While I appreciate Ray Harryhausen's legendary artistic skill, this type of CG (Clay Graphics) just looks so jerky to me that it takes me out of the scene.
Wallace and Gromit is the nearest you get to it these days, although there is no interaction with live actors.
In fact there is a new one coming out this Xmas called
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Growing up, Will Vinton, one of the creators/pioneers of claymation was my sisters best friends dad. His original claymation projects from when he was in college can be found on RUclips, he founded Will Vinton Studios (now known as Liaka studios) makers of Coraline)) before it was bought by Phil Knight of Nike.
Anyways, I highly recommend looking into his Closed Mondays, one of his early projects. Really freaking cool dude RIP Will
You guys should do a whole episode on Harryhausen. 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' is my favorite. Fight with the 6-armed Kali statue is so awesome. Plus, Caroline Munroe (better known as Stella in 'Star Crash') is absolutely beautiful.
Oh man 7th Voyage and Golden Voyage are two amazing Harryhausen movies. The Cyclops and dragon fight in 7th Voyage was awesome, and yes the six-armed Kali statue was phenomenal looking! But my all-time favorite is the Valley of Gwangi. I remember watching that for the first time as a lil tyke in late 70's and just loved Dinosaurs immediately!
@@ItsFreakinHarding. - Ray did so many amazing f/x during his career, CC could do a 1+ hour episode on him and just scratch the surface. Even if they only focused on his 3 Sinbad films, there’s plenty of ground to cover.
The guy in the robot in Return to Oz was a presenter from a famous UK children's TV show, Blue Peter. You should be able to find a clip from him explaining it. Pretty sure he was walking backwards so that the legs kicked up properly.
Yes! Michael Sundin, who tragically died at the young age of 28. I remember them explaining how they made Tik Tok move on Blue Peter.
Sam is THAT chill dude today
Finger shot
I also absolutely adored Jordan’s “Go on, get them” 😊
SO glad you guys did some more of Harryhausen’s work. _One Million Years B.C._ is such amazing attention to detail, especially regarding the integration with the plate photography. I watched it all the time as a kid and it holds up amazingly well looking back at it now.
What I find impressive about Harryhausen that's never mentioned is the fact that the stop-motion puppets are standing on _something,_ but it blends into the live-action plate so well that it's hard to see. If it were a composite, one could fiddle with the grading until they matched, but this was done in camera.
That's what confuses me too, he nails that blend
The fact that people genuinely believe humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time is testament to how great it is (also how stupid people are, but I won’t go there).
I was just thinking that - anything that's off the ground is supported by some kind of armature that he has to camouflage into the background footage.
The stop motion puppets where shot in front of of a screen projecting the frame of the film , the actors are usually standing on something completely different, to what you see on screen .
The projected images were exposed separately from the animated model elements; Harryhausen would project the film onto a screen behind his models and position them to line up, then he would make two exposures on each frame, one with the models lit and the projector off and then another with the models in silhouette with the projector on, this allowed for control over the exposure levels so that the lights on the models did not wash out the projected images and the light from the projected images blended with the edges of the models to create seamless double-exposed in-camera composites.
Whenever I see you guys talk about old time effects my brain literally hurts coz the amount of effort it took for those guys to achieve a particular shot is incomprehensible to the modern mind
Ray Harryhausen is just the absolute GOAT for creature effects. I'd hate to think what things were like if he hadn't done the films he did. He inspired so many of the great FX studios.
Not actually cringe @ 0:25
Disagree
😂 silly dudes being silly
😂😂
0:35 Let me guess, They are preparing a mountain of garbage next secret santa gift for Clint.
(I was wrong) I’m pretty sure they’re trying to do the snow effect from Dark Matter they reacted to a couple of weeks ago. But don’t quote me on that.
Isn't this part of the stage for that Spider-man trick they did?
They said on the podcast that it was part of Niko's Greymatter 2 set design
The level of detail on these guys is unreal-Sam's practically photorealistic at this point. I mean, if you squint, you can almost see the rendering budget in his pores. And don’t even get me started on Nikos’ hair-that fidelity.
they are real people
@MangroveLord No, I'm pretty sure that they are visual fx of artists.. in this case, Sam, Jordan and Niko. There is usually as Wren model too. I'll admit they are amazing models, but if you look closely, the skin shader has too much of a glossy look in certain lights. Though I bet they will be buzzed that people think its real.
You'll want to get a little further into Harryhausen's Dynamation setups. Note that he doesn't just have his puppets in front of a rear-projected plate, but that the FOREGROUND is also part of the same plate, exposed separately, so it looks like the puppets are standing within the space of the original shot. You can see a slight realignment in one of the dinosaur-attack shots just after 18:51.
I will always have the utmost respect for stop motion artists! So much manual labor!
Speaking of claymation, please do a vid about Kubo and the Two Strings
Or anything from Laika Animations...
it would be neat to compare to old stop motion. since laika incorporates cg tech with stop motion
@ Also with the studio for Wallace and Gromit
@@isaackim7675 They did Chicken run too, I guess. Their style of stop motion is so accessible, still it feels like a fairy tale or something from a comic book you read ages ago.
17:23 to be fair... 5 out of the 6 people fighting the bad guys have healing factors, and gambit survied having his movie canceled!
Woah... I didn't know they were chill like that...
I low key love Sam in "Hype Beast" mode.
I love how some of this old stuff, the “trick” so often boils down to, just be a stone cold monster at whatever the thing is. That claymation stuff is insane.
My layman guess for how they would've done the rock-face claymation animation, would be they had a pre-made hand-drawn animation they would project onto the clay to see how it should look like, and adjusted the clay accordingly, turning off the reference to record each frame.
There is definitely some kind of relief/carving involved due to the features having what appears to be actual depth.
@@ActionMan153 I don't think it was an optical illusion; would probably be harder to make it look good with an optical illusion than actually doing it for real.
@@tiagotiagot no offense but where did you get they said optical illusion? Their message hasn't been edited either as far as I can tell. Relief/carving isn't optical but practical.
@@GalactusTheDestroyer Felt like there could've been a misunderstanding since I never said anything about it being not 3d and they still felt the need to specify it was; so I decided to make clear I did not expect the depth to be illusory.
For guys that know so much about effects, it's always fun when you don't know how things used to be done. (I feel so old!)
Just FYI, Claymation is not a generic term for stop motion animation. Claymation (animating clay figures) was popularized by Art Clokey (Gumby and Pokey), Will Vinton (the Nome King in Return To OZ, TV commercials for The California Raisins), and Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit).
Harryhausen used latex foam puppets on metal armatures to animate, not clay. His filming process was called Dynamation.
Man, I loved those California Raisin commercials/movie. Really fun stop motion with great VA. The California Raisins movie/shorts are on YT I'm pretty sure. Worth a watch if you've never seen them and are interested in stop motion/claymation etc.
Niko pointed out the one thing that I hated about Deadpool & Wolverine: the guns on the high ground firing down into a pit and hitting nothing. It's so stupid.
It's a storm trooper reference.
@@balsalmalberto8086dude what
I'd just think of it as a comedy homage to all the times it's been done before. Looked like some 80s thunderdome type stuff there.
Yeah, that was one of the many things that was really stupid about that movie. It's easily the worst Deadpool movie. I did not enjoy it.
tbf everyone in that pit was a supe
The biggest giveaway that it's CGI is the skin wrinkles at 11:40. That's possibly the only point where they clearly goofed and they don't look real - the skin seems to be pulled beyond what is possible for real skin, and the eyebrow doesn't go down at all.
Harryhausen visited us at Pixar and told how crazy making it was when he was animating Medusa, keeping track of all of those serpent figures, and someone would knock on the door. He'd come back and try to remember where he was.
Going to be honest, I almost always fast forward through their commercials for the sponsors.... except when Jordan is doing them! I can watch that beauty all day long! ❤️🥰😍🥰❤️
I met Ray Harryhausen in 1981. My 14 year old self wasn’t ready for someone his is awesomeness
The genuine appreciation for old-school work like Harryhausen's is so wholesome.
I went and watched Deadpool in the theaters when it came out and when i watched the scene of her hands going through his face, I immediately thought about how i was excited to see when you guys cover it!
Honestly, I like it way more when you cover the old stuff ❤
A bunch of trash on the floor? Obviously someone is getting Clint’s secret Santa gift prepared
17:14 I don't think it is said enough but THANK YOU to all the artists who create these movies. I cannot imagine the amount of hours put in and I hope the support from Marvel and Disney has gotten better. Once again THANK YOU, THANK YOU and THANK YOU.
5:50 If I recall correctly the contortionist in the suit is actually walking backwards and viewing everything upside down since their head is sitting between their legs
Yes, they determined that the walk looked bouncier in reverse. I believe he used a video monitor for reference and couldn't actually see out of the rig at all.
Lyle Conway, creator of Tik Tok said in an interview, "Michael was about five five and Tik Tok's about four four. So Michael had to bend with his head between his legs, bolted in, and he did the actual walking around in the thing--BACKWARDS. Sometimes, in the morning, he wouldn't be able to fit, so it was just a matter of forcing him in. Then everything loosened up, and his body settled into it. When you took the suit off of him, this rush of hot air hit you and there were pools of sweat at the bottom of the thing."
In the Cinefex article on RETURN TO OZ, there's a great bit where they talk about developing the look of the Nome animation. (paraphrasing) "We studied how to make the characters look like rock and determined that one of the main features of rock is that it doesn't move..."
The actual quote from Vinton, because I'm obsessive this way: "One of the first things we dealt with all along was, 'What is the nature of rockiness?' -- and one of the primary answers was that rock doesn't move. Yet the whole thing was to get that rock to move. The idea was that the Nomes were in this kind of plasma of rock, a sea of rock."
I gotta tell ya, as a certified old dude, I absolutely love seeing you guys geek out about Harryhausen's work. Time and again, you pay your respects to the old masters, and it's legitimately heartwarming.
I loved the Deadpool breakdown and the Return to Oz stuff….but you really killed it with the Master - Clay Grafix genius Ray Harryhausen. 👏🏻👏🏻 my first experience of the masters work was OG Clash of the Titans and you still don’t see anything more compelling today than a stop-motion Medusa. Thanks, fam.
Ray Harryhausen was a one man machine! Gotta shoutout his mentor Willis O’Brien to take on Ray as a pupil to work on Mighty Joe Young. They both were huge inspirations for modern stop motion/claymation artists like Phil Tippett, Tim Burton, Henry Selick, Nick Park, etc. I still have some of his movies to collect, but if Harryhausen worked on it, I’m totally down to watch it!
Will Vinton was an absolute genius. I had the honor of meeting him at San Diego Comic Con in 2007 and he was the nicest guy. RIP to a legend.
watching these clips from “Return to Oz” reminds you that films used to be so much more artistically rich. I’m not saying better per se but just more artful and simply more beautiful. I mean look at all those handcrafted sets and creatures and effects plus that orchestrated music. It reminds you that movies were really treated like art and not like a digital playground for the next tech. (Not saying CGI is not artistically rich btw it’s just a different vibe)
Yes! Finally! A Ray Harryhausen appreciation episode!
For a second I was worried this video wasn’t gonna be casual and cool, but after seeing the intro I was reassured 😎
Claymation and stop motion will always be cool!
17:18 well they can shoot laura, deadpool and logan all they want without a problem.
Blade is a vampire, not sure about eletra and gambit though.
21:23 The clay arm takeover was the ultimate animated practical limb replacement flex! Try and find another movie where this exact thing happens to compare this too, I dare you.
I NEVER fast forward the in-video commercials when Jordan is doing them. No makeup natural beauty with an amazing personality. 😊
18:19 The Harryhausen stuff has issues with scaling, total genius though. A total joy to watch as a child. Thank you so very much for all the fond memories Mr. Harryhausen. R.I.P.
11:13 that head is 100% CGI as well. The cheek/mouth movements are always a dead giveaway. It's like they always want to show off their CGI by doing the most complicated face muscle movements (the eye/cheek/mouth contractions). It always feels like they try to do _too much_ face movement.
Idk, they always look so dead and cartoony. Especially the 'shocked' blinking.
Speaking of hands going through faces, Fringe had some pretty top-notch effects from what I recall.
I love how much respect you show to the older ways of doing things. To me, that’s where the magic happens.
Speaking of stop motion. Wallace and Gromit R rated would be a fun twist on the series. Would anyone go full stop motion or would it all be cg?
I think for the claymation wall in the Oz scene, the animator would have had it all drawn out on paper ahead of time. That could have been shot as a pencil test to make sure the action worked, and then each drawing replicated on set in clay. Basically an animatic.
I’m a digital animator. A not very good digital animator. I have more tools and tips and tricks and techniques to help me work now than any animator in history and I still suck. The people that do stop motion, and in particular old stop motion and in particular old stop claymation have my undying and ultimate respect. They are the absolute GOATS in the animation world along with the old original 2D masters. Respect.
Keep at it man, you'll see you'll be good.
@ Thanks. Been at it for 17 years 🫡🥲
What's that saying, something like 'comparison is the thief of joy'... Try not to see it as 'suck vs good' but instead as your own style.
@@greenplasticgun you are much better than us armchair generals here.
@ 😄👍
Thank you for discussing Return to Oz! One of my favorite childhood movies and super dark and creepy. I’ve seen it so many times and never noticed the outline of that woman’s shoulder and arm!
3:36 This Halloween I animated a Lego Stopmotion Film, based on Scream ("STOP SCREAMING" on RUclips). In one shot there is a girl walking through the frame and behind her is a TV pictures, for which i used a Phone as a screen. I was so focused on the walking animation, that I didn't notice, that the Phone turned off, halfway in the shot, so I had to some how fix it in post😅 That was so frustating
2:54 Jordans shirt comes to "life" I guess. Nice touch!
1:08
_Your Majesty_ ... sheeeeeeeeet
I thought that was the line for a second.
In the late 80's at high school we were doing a stop motion film project. We did several hours of work, moving the items, taking frames, then realised the old Super-8 camera appeared to work correctly even though it had no film in it.
Back in uni, I did some animation work with stop motion, but not clay. We used cardboard cutouts, sand, etc. We all joked about sneezing all sending the whole thing flying off. What no one accounted for was when someone sneezes, their body jerks around - a lot... And back then, we didn't have an easy way to previz, so... yeah...
Super glad you guys did Ray Harryhousen!!! I left a comment on your last video to do 20 Million Miles To Earth. Dunno if that's why you did it this vid or not, but it's super awesome either way. The way he blends live action with claymation is just so crazy to me, so thank you for giving it the spotlight it deserves.
The Vessi ad timestamp is wrong its far too long Just checked again didn't see any story blocks sponsor in the vid but it does have a massive timestamp 🤔
When I saw the scene with the hands in the new "Deadpool", I was like, "Yeah, they really outdid themselves. It looks perfectly real, even in motion," and I loved it!
The projected light onto the clay might be a really big clue as to how they did it. If you asked me to animate something like that, I would do the whole thing on paper first, every frame, so you can flipbook it and make adjustments on the fly until it looks good. Then you transfer those drawings onto cels, slap those cels on a projector, shine the projector on the clay and use it as a blueprint to sculpt. If the cool lighting was planned to be there from the start, you could even set up the projector for that from the get go. Every other slide alternates between cel and effects lighting. Sculpt, shoot, sculpt, shoot.
Might've been cheaper to have a second projector and roll of film than intercalate the animated reference frames with the fire light animation, I imagine....
@@tiagotiagot That's most likely the simplest solution, yeah. I don't know anything about projectors, so I figured maybe they had some fancy tech back then that could switch between two sources on the fly or whatnot, but I think I'm imagining a slide projector in that scenario and you probably wouldn't use one of those for hundreds of frames of animation! Or maybe you would, I have absolutely no idea.
I did stop motion at college back in 85 so I can tell you that we had video playback but it was on Low Band U-Matic and once you shot a frame the system would rewind the tape 5 seconds and then play back so it was up to speed to see the shot - those 5 second pre-rolls ate up so much time!
the guy in the robot suit for "return to oz" was michael sunden. he was a presenter on a childrens tv show in the uk (blue peter) for a while, before his "racey" past caught up with him
I came here to say just that. I'm not sure about his 'racey' past as Richard Bacon was fired for the same reasons.
I remember the guy in the robot suit was a short-lived Blue Peter presenter that came onboard after a segment discussing the film. Apparently, he walked backwards in the suit to give the robot that side to side waddle.
I love the effort put in to have the dinosaur tail constantly moving
Please react to Alien Romulus! The weightless scene or the end near the ring has some REALLY good CGI
If you guys like stop motion, I'm once again recommended "The Wizard of Speed and Time". The filmmaker basically did all the effects in the movie himself, which is impressive because it's a movie ABOUT special effects (and also about trying to get a movie made). Charming stuff.
Also! Speaking of guys in robot suits: for something to really blow your mind, look up how they did the robots in Silent Running.
And re: Sam saying "you still need a guy inside" for robots, I'd look at Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. Incredible work for basically an RC rig.
Ray H. was next-level.
I know it's easy to crap on the new CG stuff but man... the old stuff is absolutely mindblowing. And it STILL HOLDS UP
Timestamps messed up, says you've got a 5 min ad in the middle lol, rough!
I love the older stuff; it's truly amazing the practical solutions that they had come up with to make a believable shot. Harryhausen was a master!
Return to Oz has to be praised more. It's genius stuff from the effects to the performances!
I feel like this video had too much cool stuff in it. Mixing cutting edge clips with old-school magic works incredibly well.
I love how collectively the clay graphics arms and shoulders got more of a WOW than the hand -through-face-CG
The more natural obstacles there is - the more amazing is the result. Even modern stopmotion amazes me, as a digital (wannabe) animator - I just can't fathom how they are able to animate EVERYTHING AT ONCE, straight forward, without adjustments or passes!
@@DarthBiomech Stop-motion has always been my favorite style
This is definitely my favorite react video! Love how you guys are so comedic and sociable even though we aren't there! Love it so much you guys! Thanks for the reactions and your passion for genuine creativity making magic happen!
The special effects in that Ray Harryhausen movie are better than the CGI in "the flash" (the movie not the TV show)
Well it’s probably better than the show as well…
So glad Return to Oz get some love. Definitely under appreciated
For anyone wondering.. the garbage behind them was all from Wrens desk.. for years he's been sneaking into the office after hours and eating up all the food like some deranged gremlin.. sam put CCTV up in the office space to identify what or who has been eating all the food.. once Wren was outed Sam confronted him about it.. Wren broke down crying insisting he's got a problem, he opened up his desk drawers and a mountain of trash spilled out.. Sam just slowly nodded in shock and awe and instructed him to clean it up..
Seems legit
Addiction is a terrible thing. I hope Wren gets his goblin tendencies under control. 😌🙏
Either you wrote this like a fanfic but it's real, or this shit's made up. How big is his desk that he'd have *that* much garbage in it? Not to mention Sam "nodding in shock and awe."
When I was watching the scene in Deadpool, In theater I literally thought "I can't wait to watch this scene again on Corridor Crew" AND HERE WE ARE! I hope I'm not too late and ya'll get to see this!
You guys should react to Superman VS Hulk by Mike Habjan!
I think they have reacted to it already
Return to Oz is an absolutely insane movie that gets passed over way too much. It terrified me as a child, but it utterly amazes me as an adult. The film is a masterpiece
They have proven soooo many times that old movies are just impecabe.
The way my jaw was hanging open when they showed the dude in the robot 💀 like I’d need therapy for that!
Seeing the hands-in-head is nuts! I was studying the whole thing on the imax screen when I saw it. Never would I have guessed they did both her head and his cgi, that’s just phenomenal talent 🔥 cgi when done correctly can be life changing especially for a filmmaking nerd such as myself.
It's nice having this every Saturday to be able to actually hear someone talk about film and effects in the way that I've enjoyed it since I was a kid
I remember seeing return to Oz in theaters when I was five years old, and it was terrifying!
Been subscribed to you for ages, love it!
Is it actually known now if the arms of Hugh Jackman are CGI or the it was CGI when they were covered in the Deadpool 3 trailer?
There’s been several behind the scenes stills with Hugh Jackman looking exactly like he did in the movie. I think they didn’t mention it in this video because they didn’t want to admit they were wrong
LOL pause @1:54
*Vine Boom*
Before you elaborated on the spherical robot's effects, I started having a low level panic attack, because I already had a good idea what you were going to say, and was feeling what that felt like. OMFG...
14:23 Small Jackman 😂
In film school, my project partner and I spent a week with a 16mm spring-wound Bolex shooting 100 ft of film (about 3 minutes at 24 fps, and animating on twos). It was a complicated stop motion sequence with an animated backdrop, environment, and character. When we got the footage back, we found it had been completely ruined by a light leak, either the camera body or the changing bag. We had to rebuild the set and reshoot everything again over one sleepless weekend. Unfortunately, we still had a shutter light leak. It wasn't nearly as bad but every other exposed frame had light catching on the aperture plate. It would only affect one of the two exposed frames because the lens was uncovered during the lengthy setup for each animation frame. We couldn't shoot it again, and even if we could our character's wire armature was already falling apart. It was certainly educational.