(shouting) (ethereal music)
- We're filming a sword fight
and I need a really cool shot to end it.
And I wanna film something I've never seen before
with a camera mounted on the sword
as it cuts off the bad guy's head in slow motion.
But before I can do that,
I need to figure out how to build it
and then film it.
Let's put a GoPro on a sword.
GoPro, roll video.
(camera beeps)
Oh my god, it's rolling.
GoPro, stop recording.
The idea is that we have this, like,
looking down at the blade, right?
You can stick it to things.
Okay, that looks pretty sweet.
- We wanna make sure that the blade
is leading the frame though.
- [Wren] Oh, so like this.
- So that we see the destruction.
- [Wren] This looks pretty sweet.
How's it look going this way?
- [Nick] That looks pretty cool.
(Wren roars mildly)
- And we have a few katanas,
like, there's this one, but this is aluminum.
It's useless for actually chopping something.
We do have one steel-bladed sword.
It's very dull, as you can see.
(mimics flesh ripping)
Niko does have a really nice high-quality katana.
Maybe he'll let us use it for this.
- Uh,
I'm gonna say no.
- (Sighs) Okay.
- I'm sorry. - Okay.
Unfortunately, this will have to be the sword we use.
It's not ideal.
Now our issue is how do we sharpen this?
This is steel.
What if we actually just take a belt sander to it?
- Yeah, let's try it. - It's either that
or we don't do this video.
(energetic music)
I mean, that's kinda working.
- [Nick] Dude, if we hit that with some smooth.
- [Sam] May I test it?
It feels a little sharp.
Oh!
(group shouting)
Not bad, not bad.
- This is sword test number one
with a mini watermelon.
(relaxed electronic music)
That is officially sharp.
Let's go look at the footage.
- [Nick] How's the footage look?
- [Wren] It's cool, I guess.
- [Nick] What do you mean, "it's cool, I guess?"
- Well, it's like it's so fast.
(mimics whooshing) Did you see it?
Way faster than we expected.
If I go through frame by frame,
we now see the watermelon and the cut.
There's way too much motion blur.
Even though that we're recording at 120 frames per second,
the motion blur is so intense.
(sighs) We wanna have as little motion blur as possible,
which means we have to have a very high shutter speed,
which means we need to have a lot of light.
We can go up to the roof,
where we actually get more direct sunlight.
That should, in theory, provide enough light
so that the shutter speed doesn't have to be dropped.
- [Nick] Let's go check it out.
- [Wren] Dude, yeah, so far,
the motion blur, there's none.
I mean, that was a good test right there.
No motion blur.
- [Nick] What?
- Well, I mean, 100% chance of rain tomorrow.
- [Nick] Dang it!
- This is gonna be something that we just
have to play by ear.
Play by sight.
I got it.
Get the GoPro on.
(camera beeping) (water gurgling)
Okay, ready?
- [Nick] I think I'm ready.
- Okay, I'm gonna wait for that to come around
and then I'm gonna slice through.
Okay, ready?
- [Nick] Go for it.
(Wren shouting)
(relaxed electronic music)
(Wren grunting)
- There are now to GoPros on this sword
and we're gonna get both angles at the same time.
Alright, this is it, this is the cut.
(Wren mimics whooshing) (group shouting)
I needed to have the camera more angled though.
(groans)
What we learned is that
this looks pretty sweet in slow motion,
but the camera placement could have been way better.
- Show me what you got.
(Sam mimics slow whooshing)
That looks so cool.
All those little flecks of paint,
like, that looks so cool.
And seeing the juice go (mimics warping).
Yeah, if you put the sword over there,
on the left side of frame,
suddenly, all that chopping action
is gonna be in the shot now.
- Right, I have an idea.
So we have two GoPros,
one is Corridor's, one is Nick's.
So here's the blade.
We have one GoPro here looking down the blade
and then we take the second GoPro
and put it straight up horizontal along the blade.
And this one will see all of the debris that flies out
and the other GoPro will see the cut.
(gasps) And then what if we can somehow
stitch those shots together for a super wide shot?
That's a little high level.
I don't know if I can do that.
That would be cool though.
We might have a bit of stitch mark,
but that wouldn't,
I mean, if it's janky, embrace the jank.
It is what it is.
- I came in today to find that Nick and Wren
hadn't gotten the footage
that they were looking for yesterday
and, apparently, they've been working on this video now
for two or three days.
This is the last day to get the footage
that they need to get in order to make this video cool
or we're scrapping this whole project.
- So I'm trying to line these up so that I have
the right 25% of this camera matching up
with the left 25% of this other camera
so that I can have them overlapping.
I'm gonna shoot, you ready?
- [Nick] Go for it.
(relaxed electronic music)
- Hey!
Nick, not bad.
I think that turned out well.
One, maybe two more and then we go check the footage.
I don't know, man.
It's gonna be weird.
The stuff in the distance lines up really nicely
but stuff right next to the cameras,
they don't match up quite as nicely.
The way we fix this is by trying to get the lenses
as close to each other as physically possible.
Like this.
So I'm just gonna create a couple, like,
super, super small wood things
to help support this.
So now I made a bit of a wedge.
It's not perfect or anything,
but hopefully it'll get the job done.
A very, very dumb thing I'm about to do.
Hey, hey, Carmichael.
- [Nick] You're right in time for the dumb thing.
- Always am.
- I am hot gluing this piece of wood to the GoPro.
Alright, so here is the final alignment.
At this point, we just gotta get this thing filming
'cause we're gonna be losing light.
(tense music)
- [Nick] Wren, we have 15 minutes to shoot.
- Dear god, man!
- [Nick] No!
Hold on, GoPro.
No, Wren, my GoPro!
- Sorry, Nick.
- [Nick] Franken-mount, dude.
- Franken-mount.
(groans) Okay.
We are running out of time.
- [Nick] Don't run with the sword, Wren!
God.
(tense music)
- GoPro, record video.
Alright, they are both rolling now.
Here goes.
- [Nick] That's what I'm talking 'bout.
- I am not a samurai!
This is not ideal!
Well, we have now officially chopped everything we have.
This was our little 15-minute GoPro rig.
We are just in time, we're about to lose light.
So hopefully, we still have enough
so that the background isn't motion blurred.
(grunts)
So we got what we got
and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
It is what it is.
Let's go look at the footage.
- So these guys have been rolling
on swords cutting through fruit for about a week now.
And we're gonna finally get to see the footage.
I am super excited.
- Okay, so this is the first rig
where it was just the regular mounts and cameras.
(group chuckling)
- [Man] Oh, on the drill.
(mimics slashing)
That's sweet.
- [Man] Oh, that's nice.
- [Man] Did you spin all the way around
and hit it a second time?
- Those are cool.
That stuff's sweet.
- That's really cool. - That's cool.
- [Man] This oddly reminds me of Fruit Ninja, the VR game.
- [Wren] This is essentially 1000 frames a second.
- [Man] Interpolation?
- (Groans) You didn't make it through!
- I was just, I just did like, the half thing
'cause I was like, oh, I've been going too fast.
I'll go slower and then it was like
it didn't make it through!
It was like no!
So the second rig was the super janky one,
but it still works.
Check it out.
So here is it without any blending.
Just the two frames lined up.
- Oops. - And the sword actually bent
a whole lot on that shot.
(Niko laughing)
(mimics whooshing) - [Sam] That one looks like--
- [Niko] This is like the modern cubist, like, drawings.
- Oh yeah, there we go.
That somehow ended up being
one of the coolest things so far.
- So here's the blended shot
where I did, like, the repeat edges stuff,
and, like, a feathered mask.
Just to kind of try to get some semblance of--
- [Sam] Yeah, that was a little gnarly there.
- [Niko] It looks like you need to sharpen
your sword a little bit.
- [Niko] Oh!
- [Wren] No, what happened is that it got deflected
and it was wanting to go up while I was still pulling it.
It was too sharp.
That was the issue.
- Wren, Nick, that turned out really good.
That would be the ultimate fatality shot in a sword fight.
- Guys. - Yes?
- You're not fired anymore.
Congratulations.
(relaxed electronic music)
♫ Do it
- [Niko] Three, two, one!
(explosion)
(group shouting)
- Holy!
- Oh my god!
- Still rolling. - Oh man.