Oh
A man walking around like a dog. Oh, this is horrible
Let's break these VFX down. Yeah, there's a lot of visual effects going on here
Hey, what's up, welcome back to another episode of visual effects artist react we got some great clips :)
we're gonna be looking at today a few that we've been wanting to talk about for a long time that we're finally addressing you've been
Asking for him and we're finally delivering and there's a very special clip I have for you guys today
It's called the call of the wild. It's about a man and his dog and a lot of snow
I never saw this film but on NPR I heard a review everyone just kept saying there's some love with that dog
And I'm like, huh, so I decided to look into it
Mmm, okay. Yeah, you know actually that dog doesn't look that bad
That's pretty pretty good-looking dog. It's a pretty good-looking pub. Look at all these dogs. These are all CG dogs
So before we even get into the dogs everything in this movie is shot like on a blue-screen stage
Frightening really like all the backgrounds you're seeing and all that stuff. They're all on a soundstage right now
Okay, I can see it's pretty it's pretty nuts. How much CG is in this film
So that means like if the dogs are CG the ground they're walking on is CG, too
Because they're gonna be interacting with the snow a lot better
If it was CG
The concept of CG snow is something that I've been like paying attention to over the like it's about the last 10 years
It's something called granular fluid simulation. It's like sand
Oh, yeah
basically
But it's like semi fluid but it clumps in a natural way. So
You can see a ton of it in action here and it's the subtle 100% CG shot. That is nuts, dude
[film stuff]
Mean the dogs look pretty freakin good. It's just too good
It's like they look too good almost. the're very expressive. But I think that's the main thing. right Yeah, that's what it comes down to
It's like from like a still frame. They look 100% real like that. Looks so good. Yeah like that right there
Looks like a National Geographic photo of the dog totally but the moment they start moving they're like magic pups
Basically magic props that are ultra intelligent
And can express themselves in ways that are just impossible for normal animals
I find myself actually kind of liking that a lot. If this was Air Bud, you know, you just have a dog look back and be like
Yeah, you get no emotive value out of real animals like that. But here you can see the determination on his eyes
He's like I'm ready to go. This all looks handy and I made it to me
They're like how else would you do this? You know? Oh it most definitely probably is he man. in that case Clint
What do you think the process is to capture this footage?
well
I mean you would definitely shoot a number of plates one without the dog
One with something or someone in the space of the dog to see how their shadows react to the environment
So you probably you bring a reference dog to set to constantly get shots of a real dog in that area
Well, the producers had a very different take on this.
Oh Boy this is our dog all the plates of interaction were done with a
a man
Walking around like a dog wait do I recognize him?
He's the guy from planet of apes eight dude I bet he was so sore
Oh my god, the amount of yoga you'd have to do to undo all of that all day long for months. [sign]
Don't think they're actually taking any of the motion capture aspects to it
There's an animator who's watching The Dukes performance and then making the dog animate in a similar fashion
They're not actually tracking anything and directly translating it to the dog
[laughing] harisson ford is scratching his ear
I mean this is what i'm saying
Tell me though is it harder to act like a dog on a motion capture suit or
Harder for Harrison Ford to act like this man in front of you as a dog
I think it's easy enough to believe that you are a dog when you're in that situation
I think it's harder for a person like Harrison Ford to
Embrace the fact that this is not a person and it's a dog
I'll just tell you like if I do this this is hard for me to imagine here a dog. This is like good
We're gonna replace him with a dog later
Harrison Ford is probably not thinking I have to imagine he's a dog
He's probably just thinking like the way I'm actually reacting to this guy in a mocap suit
Is probably the same way I'd be reacting to a dog right now a certain actor might do it a different way
But I think they all try to get to an end goal by a bunch of different means
I think Harrison Ford is probably just like what I'm just a little strange. I'm rolling around on the floor with this guy
Scratching his tummy cuz they had to I guess right there's money involved. They're leaning into these animals having performances
So it makes sense to have a person inspiring those performances
I would make an argument that this is one of those films that they need to release an alternate cut of they should release
The the man cut of this one where we see the actual motion capture actor
performing the dog's actions
Look the Mahina scenes seeing the dog man is a goof but I think there's some really good execution still going on here
There are moments where it's like obviously not a real dog, but it doesn't detract from the experience of watching it
Oh, I think watching the full movie might change your mind biting me me, dude, you know
This reminds me is hocus-pocus. The cat ain't hocus-pocus. It's hallowed ground
Witches can't set foot here
He talks I mean, he was a puppet right? It was a CG mouth moving and stuff. I think it was a puppet mouth
I think I'm pretty sure of CG couldn't have been a CG cat this movie came out in the early 90s why it's so impressive
It came out before Jurassic Park
There's no way that was a CG cat you're gonna to pretty sure I'm pretty pretentious up now
Because of me, my little sister's life for stolen, you know, see look at that real cat with a CG face
That's what that is. Not a CG face appreciate computer-generated Clint. I'm telling you. There's no possible way. It was a CG cat
I'm gonna get you my phone or no
Okay, Rhythm & Hues the visual effects and animation company that created CGI went all-out making his feline features realistic
Reduce
The performance of the mouth was matching the performance of the eyes so I will give you that Clint
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So, this is the mermaid alright, this is directed by Stephen Chow, he's one of my all-time favorite directors
I think it's really a really weird movie. It's got some funny jokes some funny scenes, but it's weird. Alright just brace yourself. It's weird
Alright this guy is trying to kill that main bad guy over here an assassin is so the guy in the black jacket is bad
Guy, yes, what's wrong with his pants? Something's up
Okay, oh he's split man, he's an octopus by the way, yeah, I can tell and that that's the bad guys bodyguards
They're hunting down all these like fish people. So he's trying to play it cool or else. He's gonna he's gonna die here
You're the chef, right? So cook the food
Oh, this is horrible
They're funny. They're cutting up his tentacles and cooking him a lie
Oh, this is oh, this is horrible. Oh my god
Agony oh my god. This is so twisted
Look at this exit though
He's like just
The practical like octopus ball man
window like
Just the concept of the scene is so gross. Let's break these VFX them. Yeah, there's a lot of visual effects going on
Yeah, okay, those tentacles look pretty solid, but you could tell they're so CG. Oh, yeah. All right, but they will tell
Yourselves look fine. It's the comping into the real footage that is suffering a little bit
Yeah, but you can tell this got fake shadows underneath him. Yeah contact shadows are a little kind of janky here. Yeah, it's weird
It's like not bad, but you can still tell that it's pretty obviously the effects
This reminds me of some of the stuff that we've made because it's like the visual effects are good enough to convey a point
But not like Hollywood grade like grade-a effects
But this is a non-serious scene the dudes frying himself, and he's even the reaction
Yeah, yeah, that octopus clip is really jacked up
And if you have any other jacked up visual effects clips that you would like to see us break down
Let us know in the comments below
Okay, so 1917 a movie about world war 1 but not just about the war but about the people who fought in the war
It's it's famously a single take movie. The entire movie was filmed in one shot one shot
Obviously that's impossible. You can't shoot this whole thing in one shot
So you gotta fake it what visual effects so there there are easy ways to mask transitions
If you have just something cross frame, that's a classic really easy way to do it
And that is in this movie all over the place
It's really easy to identify
but there's a few times where it's right in front of your face and you don't realize it but let's say they shoot one take
Of these guys, like crawling up and over a mound
But they have to cut to a different take where they're looking at kind of the same camera angle
But there's no way to wipe between them now
You have to like somehow combine these two entirely different shots together in front of your eyes the whole time like a card trick
Do this whole sequence crossing no-man's land was oh my god not like the the corpses sticking out of mud
And that was it that was it that was a transition yeah, so they did a CG double
Oh, I see what you're saying to morph between the two different shots
this is a scene where we have characters starting at Point a
at the end of one shot and they begin at point B in the next shot and in order to transition between them they basically
Transition to a completely CG character to complete that movement from one location to the next but it's invisible
Because they're so good
It's a lot of like projecting the the ground and the crater on system geometry and just kind of like morphing it into place
so that
Ideally, it looks exactly like the beginning of the next shot so they could just cut the CG stuff out and resume the real footage
Afterward that that's cool. I've never seen a
CG transition like that. I'm sure they've done this before but like this type of use of it is really it's it's really advanced
It's definitely hard to do and there's lots of scenes in this movie that are like them
See like right there that was did you see it
They cut to a digi double there as he drove in now, we don't have behind-the-scenes footage of this
But I think we can tell we're like he goes and he goes through the actions of actually jumping and then they they they're done
Shooting for the day they start up the next day
with him jumping down into the crater and now they have to morph those two shots together with just a
photo real
Digi double and they just match his his posture
Perfectly go through the motion to match the posture of him in the next moment. Those are the types of things
you probably are not gonna notice when you're watching this film it it won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects this year because you never
Notice any visual effects in this movie, they're everywhere and yet never once think about the visual effects
World War 1 really jacked up
If you don't know a lot about World War one and you're interested, Dan
Carlin has an amazing World War one podcast called blueprint for Armageddon you you should you should listen to it
Because it will give you a really really good perspective on how the 20th century kind of kicked off
1917 is a fantastic movie if you haven't watched it, you better go do it and also watch hocus pocus. It's a good
Hey guys. Thank you so much for watching this episode
I had a blast Ren had a blast Sam had a good time, too
You know, it's great that we can all get together and break down these VFX shots for you guys
So, please keep watching keep subscribing keep commenting. Send us your VFX shots. We love doing this. See you guys on the next one
Hey, that's pretty good
Hey, that is pretty good. That's pretty good. Hey, that was pretty good
Good good