Amazing Effects in Classic Films - How Did They Pull It Off? | Part 5

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▼ Timestamps ▼
» 0:00 - Intro
» 0:28 - King Kong (1933)
» 1:55 - A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
» 3:23 - Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ (1925)
» 4:45 - Bringing Up Baby (1938)
» 6:26 - iVanky
» 7:53 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
» 9:33 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
» 11:20 - Demolition Man (1993)
» 12:26 - True Lies (1994)
» 13:41 - Gladiator (2000)

#FilmRiot #ClassicFilm
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[imagesh]

I was fortunate in college to meet Victor Delgado, who's brother Marcel did so much of the Kong armature and FX construction. He and his wife had moved to Colorado Springs, and I cold called all the "Victor Delgado's" until I got him. What a wonderful visit. As a traditional VFX guy from the day, I still have all the 35mm gear needed to do the King Kong or Ray Harryhausen FX work; Two 35mm single frame process projectors, rear-screens, and the cameras to shoot it. The gear will never be used again... I suggest anyone interested read the Technique of Special Effects Cinematography by Raymond Fielding for a primer on all these processes. It's amazing how this stuff relates to the modern CGI world we now work in.

[brotherfullmer]

YES! Thank you for mentioning "Movie Magic!" The flash paper bars from Demolition Man always caught my attention too. I miss that show. It had great behind the scenes for film effects big and small. Thanks for including that one.

[petergivenbless]

In addition to miniature rear-projection to incorporate live action elements into the stop-motion animation, 'King Kong' also used a travelling matte process called the 'Dunning-Pomeroy Blue-backing Process' for shots combining live action and animation where the scale and positioning of the live action elements (in front of the animation) made rear-projection impractical. The 'Dunning-Pomeroy Process' took advantage of different colours reading the same in black&white and used orange and blue light onstage in combination with in-camera bi-packed (running a print of a film in contact with unexposed negative through the camera to essentially film "through" an already printed shot, as a kind of optical printing, to combine them) film tinted orange, so it would contrast with the blue-backing, while the set and actors were lit with orange light so that their image would "pass through" the tinted print relatively unaffected; resulting in shots where the live action appears to move in front of the animation in large scale shots.

Also, the shots of the UFO miniatures in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' used motion-control cameras, like the contemporaneous 'Star Wars, but, as bluescreen mattes would not work for their diffuse lights, the UFO models were shot twice; first in a blacked out, smoke filled, set with their lights lit-up, and then again in silhouette, with their lights off, in front of white card to create mattes. This multiple-pass motion control matte technique was refined and later also used for the "Spinners" in 'Blade Runner'. While 'Star Wars' used motion control photography for its miniatures, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' was also the first film to use digital motion control photography to shoot live action elements and combine them with miniatures as well.

[razumtazum]

The invisible bridge sequence in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade never made sense to me. The illusion works for the audience because we're watching a 2D movie. But Indy presumably has binocular vision and can see in 3D, so he would notice right away a flat surface that's just painted to look like the rocks in front of him.

[TomTennisco]

It is one (remarkable) thing to pull off those visual effects in King Kong, but can you imagine trying to explain to the executive producers or financiers of the time just how you were going to pull off these shots, especially when the concepts were so new they didn't have any frame of reference? Amazing!

[stookinthemiddle]

Film Riot!!! I've not been back in years. I first found you guys back in 2009, just before I went to Uni to study filmmaking. You guys helped me get into that course, and into filmmaking in general. Thank you :) So happy to see you still making amazing content! - love from Scotland :)

[Dontlicktheballoons]

The ship from close encounters of the third kind is on display at the air and space museum outside of DC near Dulles airport. It's like 3' across and really makes you appreciate how important a good gaffer is to selling miniatures😅

[jefffan]

Think my favourite Gladiator production fact is. Due to the script issues, production problems and the tragic loss of one of the principle cast. Dreamworks & Universal had all eyes heavy on the set every day. Meanwhile another Dreamworks movie was having its own troubles changing the movie to be different in tone that allowed fans of a franchise to embrace the film we ended up with thanks to little studio interference. That film was Galaxy Quest!!! So thank you Gladiator, as while the fan blades were being cleaned, we got another Gem of a movie and Gladiator turned out okay in the end .

[daveygivens]

Close Encounters is such a terrific film, lost in the wash coming out the same year as "Star Wars". There are tons of practical effects way before the spaceship scene and the story itself is brilliant.

[larrytalbot]

15:37 When the mother ship first appears in Close Encounters, Spielberg in a documentary points out something that no one ever really brought up, that this massive ship rises up _out of the ground_ behind Devils Tower, it doesn't emerge from a cloud like the smaller ships, descend from the heavens or arrive from far off, the whole craft literally comes out of the earth, roughly where the military camp would be on the other side of the mountain, now as he pointed out this was wholly for effect, to see it rising up silently behind the mountain, it just looks cool, but as he added, the physics of this massive ship hiding below & behind that mountain doesn't work when you stop to think about it, so the audience can just put it down to artistic & cinematic suspension of disbelief _or_ this thing, by some alien technology beyond our understanding, passed or phased through the solid earth to make a spectacular & memorable entrance.
Either way, it's iconic.

[EricMBlog]

I remember seeing that demolition man BTS about those flash paper bars back when I was a teen, and also thinking “huh, you basically can’t see all that work they did in the movie.”

[trumpdesantis]

I never got to see the close encounters space ship but have been in the house that was used for filming, and in 1984 as a 6 yr old I got to see the model of the mountain used for filming as the owner of the house was given the model, this was filmed in Mobile Al, the house is located in west Mobile and the hangers at Brookly Air Force base now known as Brookly field were larger than any sound stage at the time so the massive sets were constructed in them. The home and hangers still exist to this day the owner of the home at the time was Larry Hill, I don't know if he still owns it, last time I saw him was 25+ years ago, he was one heck of a trumpet player though !

[jpeg]

Always love to see how they did the shots. My suggestion for the next one is the house imploding in the original Poltergeist.

[toastnjam]

The special effects for the chariot race in the 1925 Ben Hur was very impressive.

[dsr]

I'm so glad you mentioned Movie Magic. My childhood was making model kits and always tuning into that show. I did remember those scenes in Demolition Man and True Lies being highlighted in the show. RE kit bashing: I think I remember reading that the Death Star being built in Return of the Jedi has a San Fransisco skyline in it. I also already knew how King Kong was done from watching interviews and a full documentary on the creative effects (as they really setup VFX for the whole century). Now to subscribe and catch up on these videos!

[punishedprops]

Great episode! I totally remember watching that Demolition Man episode of Movie Magic back in the 90s!

[cardiffst]

Absolutely love this series. Thanks so much for doing them.

[JustWastedHoursHere]

It just goes to show that intelligent people have been making movies more fantastic since the very beginning. The tornado in "The Wizard of Oz" still stands up today as one of the best realistic depictions of a tornado in cinema. It baffled audiences for decades (and still does in some cases).

[solfly]

This was great! I've always been interested in how things were achieved in movies and still have a collection of Cinefex and other magazines BUT, there were a few tricks in here that I've never seen! I love the forced perspective/miniature stuff. The moving mattes are incredibly effective! Incredibly clever stuff! Nice presentation! Thank you!

[BanthaPooDoo]

I grew up when buying magazines such as STARLOG, FANGORIA, FAMOUS MONSTERS and other types would have awesome write ups plus photos showing film magic and makeup techniques which inspired many young film makes and I was one of them