Hi I’m Andrew and I don’t know about you but I hate every chimp I see.
I f---ed that line up already.
Yeah I hate this. Why make me sing?
Hi I’m Andrew and I don’t know about you but I hate every ape I see.
From chimpan-A to chimpan-Z.
But I love the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies.
The three reboots give us the chance to see how special effects have developed over the last 50 years of cinema.
It’s a lot like evolution.
It started in the 60s with a bunch of primitive, sweaty monkey masks.
Reached the pinnacle of physical effects with the reboot.
And today, we’ve evolved beyond actual makeup and use computers and performance capture to make our talking apes.
So let’s put the theory to the test.
We’re gonna tell you all about
The Evolution of Effects in Planet of the Apes.
So let’s start with the common ancestor, the original 'Planet of the Apes.'
Take your stinking paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!
Back in the 60’s, sci-fi movies weren’t big budget blockbusters like they are today.
They were cheap, low quality films that were good for a quick buck, but not much else
So when the studio saw the $5 million budget for the original ‘Planet of the Apes,’ they needed some convincing.
No one knew whether audiences would take the idea of a talking ape seriously.
You see? He keeps pretending he can talk!
Execs were worried that they’d burst into laughter every time they spoke.
So they commissioned a screen test.
Fox gave the producer $5,000 to film a short scene with Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius.
The orangutan makeup was a little rough, but it worked.
By the way, have you seen that scene? It looks like a post-apocalyptic 'Muppet Show.'
The movie was a go, so Fox hired an effects artist named John Chambers to refine the ape makeup.
Chambers is a fascinating dude.
He got his start making facial prosthetics for soldiers disfigured in World War II.
That experience led him to Hollywood, where he became one of the most influential people in the history of movie makeup.
He’s the guy that made Mr. Spock’s ears!
Which means that without him, Vulcans would just be humans 2.0. It wouldn't make sense.
They have green blood...
They have green blood is what I'm being told by our writer.
So Spock would effectively have to bleed every f---ing episode to let you know he's an alien.
There’s even a rumor that Chambers created the sasquatch in this famous Bigfoot film.
But ‘Planet of the Apes’ was his masterpiece.
It won him an honorary Oscar.
Please bring Mr. Chambers his award.
But that’s not even the coolest award he’s ever received.
There definitely aren’t too many Academy Award winners who also have a medal from the CIA.
Chambers designed high-tech disguise kits for their spies
and he helped with the rescue of captive diplomats in Iran.
Remember ‘Argo?’
John Goodman plays him in the movie.
Anyway, Chambers wanted find the perfect balance between human and simian features.
Basically, he didn’t want his apes to be just people walking around with hair glued to their faces.
But he didn’t want them to seem like animals, either.
He began sculpting heads that looked more like Neanderthals than apes, then slowly worked backwards down the evolutionary ladder until he found the right look.
Once the designs were locked, Chambers got to work on developing the makeup process.
They spent a huge chunk of their budget on makeup effects, the largest amount in history at the time.
In those days, movie studios had pretty small makeup departments.
They were basically just a few people locked away in a room.
That wasn’t going to work for ‘Apes.’
Chambers taught his methods to over eighty new makeup artists.
Originally, it took them five hours to apply the full ape makeup, but by the time shooting wrapped they had honed it down to a cool three.
So at first, they wanted stuntmen and extras to play the apes.
Why bother casting an expensive star when they’d just be hidden under makeup?
But Chambers’ makeup was the first to let an actor’s performance shine through.
By using three separate appliances-- a chin, a muzzle, and a forehead-- the apes could talk and emote in a way that let them be real characters, not just movie monsters.
If we didn't keep the appliances moving, they began to look like masks.
I got very used to making them move all the time. We were doing crazy things with our faces all the time.
The emotions you can see behind Chambers makeup is a lot like of how Weta Digital uses facial capture technology to make Caesar one of the most convincing CGI creations ever.
We’ll get to that reboot in a little bit.
But first we’ve got to talk about Tim Burton’s 'Planet of the Apes.'
Do we have to?
Yes. It's Mark Wahlberg.
Let’s get this out of the way first: This movie sucks.
It’s the most pointless remake this side of ‘Robocop,’ but I can’t complain about Rick Baker’s awesome makeup effects.
Baker was part of the generation of makeup artists who grew up inspired by Chambers’ work.
And he had a reputation for being the ape guy in Hollywood.
By the time Tim Burton hired him for the remake, he’d done four ape movies, including the 1976 update of ‘King Kong.’
Baker wasn’t happy with how unrealistic Kong looked, and he saw the new ‘Apes’ as a way to atone for it. A second chance if you will.
His apes weren’t quite as innovative as the originals, but they looked incredible.
It’s the same basic techniques, just with decades of refinement and progress.
They're the natural evolution of Chambers' work in the '60s.
All of the main apes have unique looks as opposed to the three basic designs in the old films.
And I’m still blown away by how they seamlessly transformed these huge stars into realistic primates.
Except for you Helena Bonham Carter.
Apes shouldn’t have eyebrows, you shouldn't put your girlfriend in every movie, and honestly
she looks just like the boy in 'Jumanji' through the third act in the film. Can we get that on screen for a second?
Baker’s apes were much more animalistic than the originals.
The old ones walked upright and pretty much acted like humans for the most part.
But in Burton’s remake the apes run on all fours, leap around treetops, and attack humans with fists and feet of fury.
It feels a lot more authentic than the old movies, mostly thanks to a Cirque du Soleil performer named Terry Notary.
He set up an “ape school” on set, where he taught the main actors and over 100 extras how to behave like real primates.
And then the chimps are much more wiry, they're much more...
It worked so well that Notary got the same job in the 2011 reboot.
Burton actually considered using CGI to create the apes in his remake.
But considering the technology at the time, they made the right call going with makeup.
Seriously, it was 2001. Look at all the CGI from 2001. It's a great case for not doing CGI in 2001.
Think of the remake as the missing link in the evolution from physical effects to the computer animation of the reboot
Take your stinking paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!
So the performance capture technology used in ‘Rise,’ ‘Dawn’ and ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ isn’t anything new.
Remember all those creepy mo-cap movies like ‘The Polar Express?’
It’s rooted in an old animation process called “rotoscoping.”
Artists would trace over live-action footage to make a cartoon character move realistically.
Performance capture isn’t all that different.
It just uses little dots all over the actor’s body to record their movements, then transposes them onto a computer-generated character.
Making for some pretty funny behind the scenes featurettes. Just look at Benedict Cumberbatch pretend to be Smaug.
It’s an industry standard practice, but Weta Digital is famous for pushing boundaries.
They pretty much wrote the book on CGI characters with their work on Gollum in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy.
And they made a major technological breakthrough with ‘Planet of the Apes.’
With traditional mocap, you had to film the actors indoors with very specific lighting.
That’s so the camera can keep track of all the reflective dots.
Weta came up with a way to use infrared sensors to make the technique work outdoors.
Shooting on location made a huge difference in the apes’ performances.
Instead of being hidden away in a studio, the actors were out there in the rain and mud and dirt.
They’re interacting with their human co-stars on set in real time.
And with facial capture, we can have CGI performances with the same nuance and subtlety of real life.
Once Weta tweaks things by hand and corrects for the differences in ape and human face structure, the results are incredible.
Especially with a great actor like Andy Serkis.
King Kong! Gollum! Caesar! He's gonna be in 'Black Panther!' I mean, what's Andy Serkis gotta do to get nominated for a f---ing award?
His performance is so immersive that you completely forget about the illusion.
Also, did he ever win an Oscar? He wasn't even nominated for an Oscar! The man's a genius!
Caesar is as real as any flesh and blood character.
It’s honestly hard to believe there’s not a single real ape in any of these movies.
That’s because special effects have come a long way since 1968.
Today, they can bring giant transforming robots to life, create impossible new worlds and even re-animate the dead. Lookin' at you, Tarkin.
But if you really want to see evolution at work, you don’t have to look much further than a talking ape.