(upbeat music) - After watching The Sandman
and his hilarious raven,
we got ourselves a real life raven
to see what they can do.
- [Raven] Oh!
(upbeat music)
- I'm Kat, I'm an electrical engineer and content creator.
- And I'm Dominic, and I'm a science communicator online.
- [Kat] In the show,
the Sandman's raven is actually possessed
by the spirit of a human named Matthew Cable.
Matthew uses his knowledge of humans
to advise the Lord of Dreams,
and his raven body to do,
well, raven things.
(wings flap) - [Matthew] Nope, nope.
Not doing that.
- [Kat] Matthew the raven was almost completely CGI.
- But the CGI is actually modeled after real Ravens.
- Let's see how the filmmakers pulled this off.
- So we have bird trainers,
and there will be a real raven
with us on the day that we film Matthew.
There'll actually be three ravens.
And each raven has a different personality.
And so these different birds are able to come in
and actually perform opposite Tom.
And in some instances,
those birds will be the real birds in the final show.
And in other instances,
when Matthew's doing particular things
that the real raven isn't able to perform,
we'll have a CG version of Matthew
perform those specific tasks.
- So today we brought in
a bird behavior specialist, Hillary Hankey.
- Matthew will watch over you there.
- [Matthew] At your service, Rose.
- Have you met a raven?
- No, I feel like this is like a wedding first look.
- This is yeah, yeah, (Kat giggles)
don't look, don't look, don't look.
- Oh my gosh.
(both gasp)
- Oh, they are big.
- Wait, I didn't think he would be that big.
- They are big. - Welcome.
- That's not like a parrot.
- The reason why he looks so big
is he's got a really big beak,
and that's because in Africa they are scavengers,
and they're gonna find like the thicker skinned animals.
- I don't know if they can talk, can they talk?
- They can mimic.
- Okay they can mimic. - So yeah, so he can talk.
He mimics human speech,
as well as other speeches,
like native birds.
He's in the corvid family.
So corvids are a kind of songbird actually.
And so like crows, ravens, jays, magpies
are all in the corvid family.
- [Dominic] Okay.
- [Hillary] And they're all known to mimic human speech.
- So in the show that we saw
that the raven was actually talking
and having a conversation.
What's the extent of their speech?
Can they like have a couple words back and forth,
or is it just like a word,
and that's pretty much it?
- Yeah, having a conversation
would not really be something that he would do.
(Kat giggles)
Like they do learn how to like request something.
So for instance, - That's what
I was going to ask. - yeah, he might say,
like, he could learn his favorite food,
and he would get that food, for instance.
- Yeah. But as far
as like a coherent conversation,
that's just not something a bird,
any kind of bird would really do.
- What's the intelligence level?
- Ravens are very, very smart,
and they will watch stoplights
to teach each other how to like run over walnuts
and crack the walnut shells.
- [Dominic] Oh, and like drop them
for the cars to run over? - Oh my gosh.
(cross talk)
- Yeah, they're so smart.
So smart.
So we're gonna have Katie come in,
who is my other trainer,
and she is going to show off some of Linus,
you can see he's...
- [Kat] He's so excited.
- [Hillary] He's ready.
- [Kat] He loves you.
(upbeat music)
- Hi.
- [Raven] Hi.
- Do you wanna sit on her hand?
- Yes. - Hi.
Hi.
(raven mimicks) - Hi.
(Katie whistles)
(raven whistles)
(Katie whistles)
(raven whistles)
(Katie whistles)
(raven whistles)
(Katie whistles)
(raven whistles)
- That's our love language.
(Hillary and Kat laugh)
- It's interesting.
He like can tell that someone's speaking to him.
Like we've been talking this whole time,
he didn't really pay much attention,
but the second like someone's looking at him
and making certain noises that he recognizes,
- [Kat] He's like paying attention.
- [Dominic] Yeah, he gets alerted really instantly.
- Yeah.
- In the show, that raven was possessed.
So maybe if this one was,
we'd probably have a little bit better luck.
- But I don't know if I would want him to talk to me.
- That's true.
- [Matthew] I used to have thumbs.
I, now I have these things.
(upbeat music)
(match scratches)
- So I'm gonna show you guys
some of the things that he knows how to do really well.
So you can help, here.
- Yay!
- You can actually hand him this, just like that.
- Oh!
- Yep.
- Dude, he's, this is a firm grab.
- There ya go!
- Yeah, it's a firm grab.
I thought it was just gonna be
like light and petite and he pulled it away from me.
- Which makes sense though
, because you said that the beak
is supposed to be able to, you know,
dig into really tough skin.
- Exactly, exactly.
So now we're gonna do some stacking,
and he is, let's see if he'll do these.
Oh, oh, good job.
So smart.
(upbeat music)
(match flares)
So now we're gonna see if he's up to his colors.
You hand him that.
Do you wanna try that?
There you go. (Kat cheers)
Good job.
- And he knew, he stood off of it.
He's like, okay, fine.
- Yeah.
- So what's the like eyesight with color, obviously?
- That's, yeah.
So they can see color.
Not all birds can see color really well.
Some birds can see it even better than us.
There you go, good.
- What about ravens?
- Yeah, they can see like UVA, UVB rays.
(Kat cheers)
- So can ravens hold grudges?
- [Hillary] Yes, they absolutely do.
They will.
They will hold grudges for years.
You do not have to train it.
- Wait, how, how did they learn that?
Like did it just like start attacking a specific person?
They're like, oh, that person took its baby years ago?
- Yes, absolutely.
And they'll remember your face.
- So if we put an arm out, will he jump on it?
- He might, or he might bite it.
(Dominic laughs)
- 50, 50.
- What do you wanna do?
- [Matthew] Human beings cannot be trusted.
- Thanks for watching Netflix IRL.
Be sure to like and subscribe.
- And tell us in the comments
who you think is cuter, Linus or Matthew.
- And be sure to watch The Sandman, only on Netflix.
- Sweet dreams.
(both chuckle)