Captain: Greetings, children. Captain Disillusion here.
Today, I thought we'd slow things down and talk about -- Whoa, what the hell is that!?
It's some sort of alien craft floating in the distance. Is that real?
Well, we can't be sure -- it's important to keep an open mind!
Let's pass the video around the internet a million f***ing times and argue about personal anecdotes in the comments.
That's my impression of you.
I'm sorry, it's just the end of the year, and I'm a little jumpy.
Thank you Zaphroid. Back to your pen.
Zaphroid: [roars] Captain: Back!
Good boy.
Believe it or not, video views are a limited resource. When you're watching something stupid, you're not watching something cool.
And you've only got 28,000 days of an average human lifespan to watch everything you're ever gonna see.
So why do over 700,000 of you choose to waste them on watching this?
A video called "HUGE UFO over India filmed from airplane window" shows a UFO filmed from an airplane window.
It's not shaped like a flying saucer -- because that's just what they'd want you to think -- and after floating peacefully for a few seconds
it descends and disappears under the canopy of clouds.
When I first saw this video, my reaction was something like, [scoffs]
and when I saw the view count I was like, [gasp].
But then, below in the comments, I saw something that made me go, "hmm..."
Most people don't actually seem to believe the video is real.
But their explanation for what they're seeing usually comes down to three letters:
CGI.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you've become accustomed to define it as. Let's get to know the industry terminology.
This is computer generated imagery.
It's stuff that's constructed, animated, lit, and rendered entirely inside the computer by a team of talented young artists with cute Nordic accents.
Animator: I don't know what's-- Captain: Look at them, they're so adorable!
This is special effects -- mechanical stuff and pyrotechnics that happen on the movie set.
This is visual effects, stuff that happens in post.
This is a subset of visual effects called compositing.
And this is a subset of amateur compositing called s****y garbage view-grubbing UFO bulls**t.
Wait a minute, rather than me trying to explain it, I've got something around here.
No... no... ah, here it is!
I've got a tape, my favorite TV show, which explains all about this particular art form.
[VCR whirring]
["How It's Faked" theme begins]
Narrator: UFO videos soar high in views with each new social media platform
but the techniques for faking them are as old and played out as Myspace.
Every UFO fake starts as an idea in the mind of its creator.
This up-and-coming hoax artist finds his inspiration on a standby flight to Atlantic City.
He begins by carefully filming a background image called a plate, which will become the foundation of the composite shot.
He then gathers assets from which to generate the object that will be fashioned into the UFO.
And takes the rest of the evening to clear his mind and prepare for the challenging digital work ahead.
The hoaxer uses specialized photo retouching software to fashion the images he gathered into potential spaceship designs.
Then selects one that seems to best match the lighting in the background plate.
He inserts the ship into the background plate and links it to the tracked motion of the clouds.
When he animates a mask to create the illusion of the ship disappearing into the clouds, he discovers a mistake.
The clouds were tracked at the wrong depth, causing the ship to slide unrealistically.
But that's okay. He knows that the audience won't notice or care.
Their desire to believe the UFO is real will automatically endow the video with a necessary level of realism.
They'll probably even interpret ordinary optical artifacts, such as the flare from the sun being refracted
into tiny dots by the glass in the window as orbs escorting the mothership.
As a final touch, the hoaxer adds camera defects, flashes, and shaking to the image.
It may seem counterintuitive for an object filmed with a modern, high-resolution, auto-stabilized sensor to somehow become more difficult to see when it's larger
but this is a time-honored tradition of hoax culture, and continues to be preserved.
Now, it's time to upload the finished video to the internet, tag it with appropriate keywords, and promote it to people who might find it interesting.
With the hard work completed, the hoaxer carefully monitors the view count on his masterpiece...
...And is rewarded as it quickly swells to an impressive size.
Passion for the paranormal, dedication to the craft of fakery, and a little bit of talent
beam the creator of this UFO video up to a place in history.
That's our show, everybody. I want to thank all the YouTube subscribers, thank you bloggers, thank you Reddit,
Thank you MSNBC, Space Channel, and a special thanks to every single supporter on Patreon. You guys rock!
Love with your heart, use your head for everything else. See you next year!
Actor: Look out!
Captain: Zaphroid, no!