i love you oh no grandpa
they did all that for like two shots
in the film that's so good
it's amazing
straight up vfx area right there there's
a very subtle and genius thing that
they're doing here
[Music]
hey welcome back to another episode of
visual effects artists react and today
is it today is the episode we have been
waiting for for months
[Laughter]
lord of the rings trilogy my favorite
set of movies of all time this is
actually the first of a duo of videos
we've got another one coming next week
stay tuned for that lord of the rings
kind of is this pinnacle of all visual
effects technology leading up to like
the year 2000 and the start of what
would eventually become the digital
revolution in visual effects all right
we have a lot to talk about we'll do our
best let's get into this
so gollum is considered to be the
biggest technical achievement of the
entire lord of the rings trilogy there's
a whole workflow pipeline they they
created for this movie see motion
capture with a real actor on set with a
digital character wasn't really a thing
before this movie the general way they
did all of these shots is they had andy
circus wearing like this
whitish gray suit
on set interacting with frodo and sam
but all of the actual animation they
didn't have any of that he's just doing
all this stuff and then once filming
wrapped like nine months later they had
to go back and have andy circus
re-perform every single performance he
had throughout the entire trilogy of
movies after the fact on a motion
capture stage hey stinker don't go
getting too far ahead
this shot blew my mind what jeez man how
do you do that that's real water
reacting to a cg character is that uh
andy circus in the water flopping no no
it is yes okay it is okay okay somehow
just throwing himself onto the rocks on
this creek bed going for an imaginary
fish how are they painting him out i
don't know painting andy circus out of
that shot dude that is so advanced and
so tedious now the thing about painting
stuff out is that you basically need to
take parts of your image and paint it
back in and usually you can just find it
from a different part of the image but
the challenging thing is when the stuff
that you're trying to replace is moving
and animated and changing every second
aka water the water is flowing and all
the splashes are there and an artist is
sitting there trying to fill in those
moments there's no crazy water
simulations there's no crazy light
simulations happening it's just brute
force hard work to get this shot to work
but you can also kind of see there's
some unmotivated water splashes where
his arms aren't there but there's some
splashes oh yeah yeah yeah
but fortunately for a shot like this no
one's looking at that they're looking at
the motion of smeagol like going through
the water splish bashing around they
didn't have him do this again in the
motion capture stage very frequently the
animators would actually just animate
the character based to andy circus's
performance in the footage itself
there's there's like there's shots with
nuance like with trembles and like
little micro movements that's all motion
capture like this golden versus smeagle
dialogue scene like that's all motion
capture with a hand animated facial
animation based off of the reference
footage of andy circus doing it on set
you don't have any friends
nobody likes you
by the way look at that upper lip
animation right there it's perfect the
center of the lip stays put unless it's
motivated by the muscles on the outside
of the lip pulling it around that's
actually one of the very first things i
noticed in this movie is they got human
anatomy around the mouth working
correctly like it doesn't feel like this
unmotivated like thing that just floats
into different shapes you can see how
the face is pulling the lips and like
how the muscles are influencing the
shape of the lips and it feels so
realistic
gollum is a very successful 3d character
he doesn't exactly look photoreal i mean
he looks good but it doesn't look
photoreal yeah but yeah we still like
him i feel like it's because they've
designed him to be just cartoony enough
that he doesn't enter the uncanny valley
he stays on the cartoon side of it so
he's still fun to watch and he's still
lively and he still conveys emotion also
like the movement is right yeah there's
so you're selling the movement of this
character it doesn't seem off it doesn't
seem strange and that takes us that's
huge so far that it's like 90 his
loincloth and his hair those things
waving yeah and being physics
simulations on top of the movement just
makes it even more real a lot of
attention is given to andy circus and
rightfully so he performed and brought
to life this character but i don't think
enough credit is given to the animators
who actually have to do a lot of heavy
lifting
and a lot of the creation on a lot of
these uh shots it was seeing gollum that
actually inspired james cameron to make
avatar really yeah he was like oh
technology's finally there i can have
digital actors uh with real actors and
make it work
big gandalf tiny bilbo dude
so heartwarming so this is this is like
kind of the first moment where you
really see the true like size difference
between a hobbit and a wizard aka a
person high angle of ian
home or something like that yeah that's
a that's a person a big big costume he
was like seven feet tall an actual like
huge man that they just dressed up as
gandalf notice you never see his face
yeah it's just the hair in the hat and
the robe and and so now the reverse shot
now we're seeing the real sir ian
mckellen with the tiny actor notice the
hand position is exact they are tricking
you into thinking these are all just the
same moment coming back and forth
because i've made a point of having one
unique thing throughout all these
different setups but this is nothing
revolutionary this is just simple
editing back and forth good editing but
here's the visual effects shot the
moment they walk into the door and you
see the inside
how did they pass those off they're two
separate actors filmed separately so the
way they actually shot this is they shot
this with bilbo baggins on set the real
full-size set that they built with just
a stand in for gandalf the gandalf you
see here is not in the original plate
blue screen gandalf they have exactly
matched the lighting of this uh hobbit
hole yeah on their blue screen set like
the sunlight from when he steps in to
like that soft glow from like the left
side and then the ground all the
lighting is perfectly matched not only
are they in the shot together they
interact they interact look at that he
grabs the hat from him okay i think i
saw it i think i saw it too there's a
very subtle and genius thing that
they're doing here he passes his staff
to his other hand which is then behind
his body so the moment his elbow is
behind his body you just have a forearm
and they can cut that out and reposition
that however they want and that's what
they do right there see how it settles
down so right there now it's a cut out
arm have the hat now cut out watch the
tip of the hat it actually distorts into
place yep right there and you no longer
see his fingers or his arm or anything
interacting with it it can just
literally be an image that's cut out and
then moved to the right spot did you see
his beard clip
oh
there it is oh my gosh that's huge this
is just a straight up vfx area right
there
they had the chandelier as a real prop
on the blue screen wait the chandelier
isn't in the original set that's been
comped into the whole time oh my god
thank you
[Music]
oh
so that was an accident he didn't mean
to actually hit his head are you serious
yeah it's perfect and they just kept it
because it was like so genuine and
authentic all right
we put it away
we keep it hidden we never speak of it
again no one knows it's here do they
it's so good
it's amazing in this shot ian mckellen
is on a tiny set and elijah wood is
filmed on a blue screen in order to make
this work they have to use motion
control so they filmed on the set with a
motion control rig and you can do that
motion again and again as many times as
you want in the exact same path it's
basically a robot but the thing is when
they filmed frodo aka elijah wood on the
blue screen they needed to repeat that
same motion but they needed to scale it
it's a small camera motion with gandalf
and a big camera motion with frodo so
they are actually scaling the camera's
path in the computers and reinterpreting
that and giving you a motion controlled
path that's been altered and scaled so
the two shots line up speaking of
controlled motion though it's not a
visual effect but it's one of the
coolest like techniques they developed
for this film which was the use of
forced perspective with the moving
camera now force perspective is the act
of having like someone kind of close to
camera someone far away we actually did
that effect with our powered up video
with uh master chief eating the mushroom
mario's mushroom getting big it's just
jake standing close to the camera in the
master chief costume and then our mario
standing far away but the thing about
that type of shot is it only works when
the camera's stationary and not moving
the moment the camera starts moving it
gives away that perspective
this is not a visual effect that's
entirely in camera look at the smoke too
in the foreground it's like oh yeah
they're proving that it's not a vfx
the challenging thing here is they have
a table that's connecting the two actors
so what they actually have to do is the
table is split into two pieces there's a
tiny portion of the table that's been
made for being in front of gandalf and
there's a big portion of the table
that's made to sit in front of elijah
wood so frodo is actually standing next
to a stationary giant table whereas
gandalf sirian mckellen's on a tiny
little table like attached to his own
chair that's actually moving on a track
and it's moving in the opposite
direction of the actual camera move
itself they're moving very specifically
inverse to each other to maintain that
parallax change they built a complicated
rig two tables different size props a
track system for the actor to sit on
plus the track system for the camera
they did all that for like two shots
in the film
so
i've seen every visual effects shot ever
made you can't impress me if you think
you have a visual effects shot that can
impress me leave it in a comment below
and we'll watch it and you can watch my
face and see if i react i also challenge
you guys send me a vfx shot that is so
bad i do something like this oh my god
if you can warrant that legit reaction
from me
then i'll give you a thumbs up
let it pass to him
let him
save him
that soft mask around him it's like ah a
couple of mask points feather don't have
a lot of time
one of the biggest things that sets lord
of the rings apart is the fact that they
filmed most of the crazy big spectacular
stuff for real using miniatures but not
just regular miniatures
massive massive miniatures
this is a shop that i still don't quite
understand because they filmed frodo on
a blue screen and they say that they
actually filmed the whole background as
their miniature it's a big miniature
with lots of great detail but the camera
moves match between both frodo and the
separately filmed background that's
because i used a motion control rig and
scaled the camera path for all those
different elements notice how they add
an actual actor in the background on a
little blue screen actually tracked into
the miniature set there when when
filming with miniatures if they just
left them as like miniatures in the shop
they felt really really lifeless and
they looked like miniatures they had to
add things that moved so they have
actors walking around on them they have
waterfalls coming down you have leaves
playing down in front of the camera
there and all that bird's flying yep all
these things bring it to life and make
it feel like you're not just looking at
some static model sitting in a warehouse
like the shot of the council of elrond
when they're actually sitting there and
it's the big establishing shot it's like
that's all filmed on a miniature and the
actual console itself was filmed on a
blue screen and just
comped in you might be wondering why
that's not cg like why didn't they just
do that with a computer the answer is
because it's the year 2000
and they couldn't
yep like right there all that background
there is miniature okay i do want to see
so this is a scene that like freaked me
out i freaked you out too i know we're
talking about yes bilbo goes like full
demon face for a moment
my own dreams
i just wanted to kiss a little bit just
a taste and
give it to me
[Music]
oh my god
oh my god that's what frodo experienced
in that scene
oh it's so it's so creepy man
you're really damaged what
is your what
i love you oh no grandpa
it is so it's definitely digital i think
he is opening his eyes really wide but
they add a lot of darkness around it and
they mess up his teeth and they give him
a square shaped mouth which is really
interesting because it makes it feel
very unnatural hey what's up andrew
kramer here wait wait wait wait wait
wait hold on hold on hold on
books oh wait are you gonna bakehead him
follow us at quarter digital instagram
to see this
version of monster bilbo bacons
[Laughter]
oh can i drop some street cred we got
some street cred corridor
is the only other studio in the world to
have an official live-action lord of the
rings film out there this is the trilogy
there's the hobbit which is all peter
jackson and then shadow of mordor which
is us our video is technically canon
well clint is actually in the lord of
the rings if you guys want to see me in
full body makeup as an orc hopping
around the fields of utah then subscribe
to this channel and then go to corridor
and subscribe to that channel and then
look up a shadow of mordor and watch
that video we have so much to say about
lord of the rings that we actually ended
up deciding to break this into a second
part so next week we'll finish talking
about lord of the rings stay tuned for
that subscribe if you are not already so
you do not miss one of those videos