- [Narrator] A lot goes into making movies these days, particularly when it comes to using computer generated imagery, or CGI for short. Thanks to this technology, anything from small details to entire worlds can be created in post-production, turning regular films into real blockbusters. But without all that CGI, superheroes are left exposed, monsters look like mad mistakes, and some shots just make you cringe down to your core.
So, grab your popcorn and prepare for spoilers, because we're about to take a look at how actors are hilariously filmed on set without that all-important CGI. Hysterical Smaug. When "The Hobbit" trilogy was released as a prequel to the famous "Lord of the Rings" saga back in the 2010's, fans of the Middle Earth franchise were left thoroughly disappointed.
It was described by critics as a long, boring mess, but stripping away the copious amounts of CGI reveals some entertaining footage hidden within it. One of the main roles in the series went to Benedict Cumberbatch, who voiced the gold-obsessed dragon Smaug. - I smell you.
- [Narrator] But he didn't just lend the dragon his dulcet tones. Behind the scenes footage revealed that Benedict got down and dirty on all fours in order to really act out his character. He was dressed up in a motion capture suit, and reference dots were placed on his face, so that his reactions and emotions could be digitally mapped onto the massive reptile.
However, a man and a dragon are two very, very different creatures, and Benedict's floor-bound interpretation of the enraged dragon ended up being more of a comedy performance than a fantasy one. - Sharded Scheme. - [Narrator] Fortunately, the final cut based on Benedict's movements and vocals does make Smaug feel like a very imposing character.
Though I reckon if they edited in Benedict's floor-flopping, CGI-less performance, it would have gotten much better reviews. (Benedict hissing) - [Narrator] Doctor Seriously Strange. If you though Benedict looked bizarre without CGI in "The Hobbit," wait till you see what happened when he was shooting for Marvel's "Doctor Strange.
" Playing the leading role of Doctor Steven Strange in Marvel's cinematic superhero universe, he becomes a master of the mystic arts and uses all manner of magic to save the day. But magic doesn't abide by the laws of physics, so editing teams were brought in to create stunning, world-breaking scenes from scratch. To ensure the characters were included realistically though, the actors had to provide them with references, which meant a lot of the action had to be shot in green screen.
These bright backdrops allow media technicians to use a process called Chroma Keying, where they separate anything in green, or blue, out from the scene. Then, they replace those backgrounds with anything they like. So, combined with an insane amount of wire work, Benedict could look like he was flying, falling, or fighting in any scenario.
Though he didn't always look so badass, as this shot of him running into some imaginary battle while hung hilariously on a treadmill shows. At some points he even used little LEDs attached to strings and shields to emulate the magic he was wielding. Kinda looks like he was fending off the villains with a box of Christmas decorations.
Though it's still way more impressive than watching him flop around pretending to be a dragon. Now, I wanna do a quick poll. Which did you think was funnier without CGI: Benedict's silly Smaug scene, or his Super Strange Doctor Strange shoot?
For Smaug, flop your way over to that like button, and for Strange, throw some fairy lights at that subscribe button. May the best Benedict win. All right, now where were we.
Petrifying Pale Man. Guillermo Del Toro's 2006 film "Pan's Labyrinth" might just be the most iconic dark fantasy film out there, featuring one of the world's greatest creature performers: Doug Jones. His performance as the Pale Man, a child-eating monster that stomach-churningly sees through a set of eyes inserted into its palms, still haunts my dreams to this day.
(Pale Man hisses) (Narrator groans) It may look like a CGI nightmare, but incredibly, almost everything about this character was real. Back in 2006, CGI wasn't as advanced or believable as the stuff we see on the big screen today. So, to make it feel real, Jones underwent six long hours in the makeup chair every day to bring the Pale Man to life.
And while he was on set, he filmed a little behind the scenes footage while clad in the full costume, which is somehow both funny and terrifying. Doug also played the character of the Faun, which required another full creature suit and even more make up to play the disturbing mythological creature. But watching him casually chat with the cast while dressed as these nightmarish monsters is even more surreal than the film itself.
- It's not easy, but it's something I'm used to. - [Narrator] I don't know about you, but I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Cringey Colossus.
Deadpool is one of the most attention-grabbing superheroes in the Marvel cinematic universe thanks to that red costume and his dirty sense of humor. Though before the CGI is added, it's the actor playing Colossus that draws all eyes on set. Based on the comic book character, this giant Russian X-Man is a supersized, shiny, soviet savior.
But no actor on earth is nine feet tall, has muscles that huge, or sports, you know, metallic skin. So, it's probably no surprise that, in the "Deadpool" films, he's mainly just a digital render. Though on the set, they needed a huge six foot nine-inch performer in an unflatteringly gray tracking suit to interact with the other cast members in each scene.
But as intimidatingly tall as he was, he wasn't big enough, and so had to wear either huge platform boots or an extra headpiece to reach Colossus', well, colossal height. Sure takes a big man to turn up on set looking like that. Although, it didn't take just one big man.
Alongside the tracking suit actor, four more performers provided the motion capture for his swagger, the jawline of his face, his dialogue, and animations for his facial details. All up, that's five performers just for one character. No wonder he's so big.
Sinister Scooby. For anyone that loved the live-action "Scooby Doo" movies when they were a kid, I've got some bad news for you. Firstly, Scooby Doo wasn't a real dog.
He was actually a CGI animal added into the film post-production, all while the actors on set just pretended he was there. And as that settles in, take a look at the creepy headpiece they used instead. Sure, it helped the actors focus on where the imaginary animal would be in relation to the rest of the set, but did it really have to look so disturbing?
Admittedly, that's nothing compared to the full, furry centaur suit they needed to represent Scoob prowling around a busy airport. Although, there's one pre-CGI scene that looks like it was plucked straight out of a horror film. Yep.
That green-masked marauder is actually Scooby pretending to be Grandma. But, to make the dress and Scooby's hind-legged human performance look as believable as possible, they used an actor bumbling across the airport clad in that monstrous green-screen mask. Though, I'm not sure which looks worse: that mask, or that dress.
Bizarre Beast. If you've seen Disney's live-action film "Beauty & The Beast", you'll know it's a beautiful piece of cinema that stays true to the animated version it's based off. The thing is, even if you haven't seen it, you can probably tell that the Beast is a CGI creation, right?
So, how did actor Dan Stevens embody the movements, shape, and size of the Beast before all the visual effects were added. Turns out, the figure of the near seven feet fiend is based on Dan hilariously dressed up in a bulking grey onesie. To give Emma Watson, who played Belle, something accurately sized to work with, Dan had to perform the role while wearing this muscled tracking suit.
It was bulked out to the rough shape and size of the beast and weighed a whopping 40 pounds. To top it off, he also had to don a set of steel stilts or spring-loaded shoes to give the Beast a bit of a spring in his step. Mastering this movement took Dan three months, where he practiced moving and dancing in the stilts alone for a tiring two hours a day.
As impressive as this commitment is, it leaves me with just one question: how on earth did Emma manage to keep a straight face throughout scenes like this? Now that is the sign of a true professional. Wacky Wolves.
Just by saying the word "Twilight," I can almost hear an entire generation of tween superfans rushing to the comments. The five-movie saga based on a teenage love triangle between a girl, a vampire, and a werewolf is perhaps the most polarising film franchise in existence. However, it also contains one of the funniest pre-CGI scenes ever filmed.
In this scene, the character of Bella, played by Kristen Stewart, is with the werewolf Jacob, played by Taylor Lautner, in his wolf form. Because there was so much interaction between Jacob and Bella in this scene, the directors chose to have Taylor on set and acting with Kristen to get the tone right. But then, like the non-reflective morph suit wasn't funny enough, the director told Kristen to rub Taylor's head, as if she was giving his wolf a scratch between the ears.
And the result is priceless. If you ever wondered why Kristen acted so awkwardly in this film, I think we just found the answer. Even though it was a last-minute direction, the producers thought the shot looked so good that the tech team made it work in post-production.
Although the side-by-side comparisons are no less hilarious. So, whether you love it or hate it, I think we can all agree that without CGI, "Twilight" is definitely cursed. Super Stand-Ins.
When it comes to superhero team movies, "The Guardians of The Galaxy" is one of the most well-loved film series in the, well, Galaxy. This unstoppable squad of clashing characters had movie-goers crying with laughter when the first film was released in 2014. But two of them in particular formed a cosmically comical pair: Rocket Racoon and Groot.
- Don't drink that water, you idiot. That's disgusting. - [Narrator] While they work together in the films as one super funny duo, things actually get funnier when you turn off the CGI that brings them to life.
Groot, for example, is about 12 feet tall in the films. That means no human in the world is tall enough to play him. So, to give the other actors something of the same height to accurately look at and interact with, a guy in a blue bodysuit with a hysterically huge head prop was used instead.
Like green-screen suits, blue-screen suits like this are also used for Chroma Keying. But because less light bounces back off the blue, it's better for filming scenes set in darker spaces. As technically impressive as this is, I can't help but think we should rename this character Bloot.
Although, you probably noticed that that wasn't the only blue suit on set. Although Bradley Cooper was the voice actor for this character, the guy at the bottom crawling around on his knee's is actually Rocket Racoon. Or, more specifically, Rocket's motion reference actor, Sean Gunn, Director James Gunn's brother.
By waddling around on his knees to emulate Rocket's three foot tall frame, all Sean's movements were used as the basis for Rocket's acting. It also meant Rocket could believably interact with other characters, like in this scene with Drx where he gets a comforting scratch between the ears. Heart-warming as this finished scene looks, without the CGI it suddenly appears unbearably awkward.
I mean, just look at Sean's face. Although, I reckon I'd look just as unnerved if that massive hand was planted tenderly on the back of my head. But hold up.
How did they shoot the scenes were Rocket and Groot act together like this? I mean, Sean didn't clamber onto the shoulders of Groot's actor for this shot, did he? Well, in this case, it was actually easier to replace Sean with this hilarious abomination.
It's a life-size model version of Rocket that looks more like a taxidermy animal gone horribly wrong. Creepy as it is, this measured model was essential to the whole CGI process. Its physical presence gave the visual effects team a good indication of whether Rocket would be able to reach certain items in shot, and what the lighting should look like on his fur.
Even so, when I next watch this film, this is a before and after I'm not going to be able to unsee. Cowboy Drx. As one fifth of the original "Guardians of the Galaxy," the lovably literal Drx the Destroyer certainly looks like he belongs in the Marvel cinematic universe.
To transform this massively muscular actor, Dave Bautista, into the tattooed character, it took a team of five makeup artists five hours each day to apply 18 prosthetic pieces to him. No CGI necessary. That came in later, when Drx's destructive character was unleashed during the final fight of "Avengers: Endgame.
" As badass as he looked leaping onto the back of a huge monster and stabbing it with all his might, Dave was actually filmed jumping onto a big green punching bag. The bag was being stabilized by a guy in a green screen suit below, allowing Dave to stab away to his heart's content without actually hurting anyone. Is it just me, or without the CGI does this look like a scene from the world's weirdest rodeo?
Avengers: Size War. Marvel's ultimate supervillain, Thanos, goes by many names: The Dark Lord, The Mad Titan, The Perpendicular Grape in Need of Chapstick and a Heart. While I really appreciate that last one, out of character he only has one name: Josh Brolin.
This actor was able to depict the crazy, world-ending baddie thanks to huge leaps in CGI-facial enhancement. Facial mapping like this required the use of two puppets calibrated from Josh's performance as a reference. The dots mapped certain sections of his face, allowing the effects team to capture Josh's nuanced emotions by tracking how much each dot moved and in which direction.
This was then mapped onto a human model, and then onto the Thanos model to accurately render every inch of Josh's performance. But as great as his face looked, Thanos was much larger than many other characters. This made interactive fight scenes, like this one at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War," much harder to act out, because Josh just wasn't as big as his purple counterpart.
So, in one shot, he donned a hysterical purple foam helmet in the shape of Thanos' head. This allowed actors to believably work with Thanos' massive purple melon, and the facial performance was edited in later. But Josh wasn't the only actor in "Infinity War" who had side-splitting size issues.
Peter Dinklage was drafted in to play the role of Eitri, the Dwarf King of Nidavellir. Now, in this cinematic universe, dwarves are well over 10 feet tall, though they still sport dwarfish features. However, Peter, who most of you probably recognize as the dwarf Tyrion Lannister from "Game of Thrones," is famously only four foot five.
But putting him on a set of stilts and slipping him into a padded tracking suit, like the Beast or Colossus, just wouldn't work. Instead, Peter's scenes were filmed entirely on a bluescreen background, without any of the other actors present. What he got to work with instead was a series of small, cardboard cut outs showing where the actors would be edited in by the CGI team.
This certainly made Eitri look larger than life on the silver screen. And to make it better, if Peter wasn't happy with his co-star's performances, he could just throw them in the trash later. Mother Of.
. . Potatoes?
Daenerys Targaryen's trio of dragons are three of the most iconic creatures born out of the epic fantasy series "Game of Thrones. " From the first season where they hatched from their eggs to the huge, hulking beasts that dominated the screen in the final season, they transfixed viewers all over the world. But as real as they seemed, they too were a total fantasy, although one so good they almost made up for how bad that final season was.
Although back in the earlier seasons, the dragons were much smaller, so how did the actress behind the famous Mother of Drgons, Emilia Clarke, work so believably with them? The answer: big green potatoes. The visual effects teams created rough, green chroma keyed dragon shapes, or sometimes just balls on sticks, to represent the presence of a dragon in the scene.
These gave Emilia and the other actors focal points to stroke, grasp, or just look at. Though before all the fancy effects were added, it did leave her looking like she was crooning over a big green potato. But it wasn't cheap.
The quality of the effects that were rendered in "Game of Thrones" took so much detailing, that just 10 minutes of CGI involvement cost producers around $800,000. Now that's one very expensive potato. Drll Davey Jones.
Disney's "Pirates of The Caribbean" is the 14th highest grossing film series of all time, with the franchise raking in more than $4. 5 billion all up. But even with all that money, the actors couldn't escape the fate of the dreaded gray tracking suits.
Looks like these pirates didn't get the fashion memo. The character of Davey Jones in the swashbuckling second film, "Dead Man's Chest," was incredibly memorable, and not just because he was played by Bill Nighy. With the exception of Nighy's reference acting, all of Davey Jones was CGI, although there's one scene where he becomes human again, for all the nerdy nit pickers out there.
To capture Davey's mannerisms, as acted by Bill, the tracking suits were necessary. But for close up scenes of Davey's face, Bill also had to don a little green make up. This helped highlight tiny lines around his eyes and mouth so that none of his emotions were lost during the edit.
As important as it was, it did leave him looking a bit like the Hamburglar of the High Seas. On The Nose. When it comes to fantasy villains, very few can match up to the immortal Lord Voldemor - ah.
Sorry, sorry, He Who Shall Not Be Named. Don't want to get on the bad side of the Potterheads. As evil as he is ugly, the villainous actor from the "Harry Potter" Franchise, Ralph Fiennes, has a very specific, snakelike aesthetic.
By which I mean it looks like he ran headfirst into platform 9 ¾ and didn't get through. The sneaky snake slits of this notoriously nose-less villain were designed to enhance his serpent-like manner. But regular Ralph isn't wearing any sort of prosthetic in this performance.
Instead of taping down his face, they let the actor breathe and edited his nose out in post-production. Though it wasn't easy. His human nose had to be painstakingly edited out frame by frame in every single film.
Then the snake slits were added in, with the placements tracked very carefully using a series of dots put on his face for reference. All that work certainly made him look like the wickedest wizard alive, but in my opinion, he's somehow more terrifying with the nose. Tweedle Derp.
When it was released back in 2010, Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" was hailed as a feast of computer-generated imagery. Adapted from Lewis Carrol's classic fantasy adventure novel, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," the film takes place in Underland, a world filled with curious creatures and creative characters. But one, or should I say two, that really stand out are the Tweedle twins.
Performed by the lone Matt Lucas, he managed to play both twins with a little help from the CGI department. To match the pudgy proportions of the twins, Matt was strapped into a suit that made him look like a big, green blob. He then played one twin alongside a double for reference, and then switched roles with the double so that the twins could have believable interactions.
Now, the twins were designed to stand about two and a half feet tall. But because Alice grows and shrinks throughout the film, their perspective height changes. This meant that to perform alongside Alice's actor, Mia Wasikowska, Matt Lucas and his double had to don a set of stilts while still dressed in those bulbous bodysuits.
However, stilts are hard to master even without all that extra bulk. So, Matt and his double needed two more people in green screen suits to steady them as they wobbled forward. Odd as they look, that weird waddle is nothing compared to their final form.
I mean, my god, they look like a pair of sentient eggs. Weird Woola. No one will blame you if you don't remember, or even know of, Disney's attempt at the live-action space opera that was "John Carter.
" Released back in 2012, the film was an utter flop thanks to a pretty terrible marketing campaign and a very vague title. It ultimately lost the company around $225 million, making it one of the biggest bombs in box office history. But as ambiguous as it was, its alien origins were definitely present in the character of Woola; a weird Martian-dog hybrid.
If you ask me, it looks a bit like a pit-bull crossed with a sandwich made out of teeth. Acting as John's quick legged companion, Woola frequently interacted with John, so it needed a physical presence while filming. But because Woola's size and shape was so unconventional, the effects department had to get creative.
And that's where this hysterical monstrosity came in. Strapped onto puppeteering legend William Todd Jones, the hilarious head of Woola was often worn about his waist to keep the creature's height consistent. William wore a green screen suit underneath so his body could be easily edited out in post-production.
He also used a working Woola puppet head for scenes that required more detail and angles. The head was only used as a reference, but it really helped develop the creature's realistically doggish demeanor for the big screen even if no one was watching. The Elephant In The Room.
The live-action remake of Disney's "Dumbo" really made the famous flying elephant feel real. Although, there's more to this sweet little pachyderm that meets the eye. Stripping away all the layers of CGI reveals Dumbo is actually played by several performers in green screen suits, like stuntman Paul Lowe here.
Tumbling around on set like this gave the CGI department a reference to work off, which helped make the final CGI creature in this feature more believable. Though Dumbo doesn't just tumble about like some sort of a sentient washing machine. He's also realistically portrayed by a specialist creature performer called Edd Osmond.
Green screen suits with stilt-like arm extensions allowed Edd to move around the sets on all fours just like a real baby elephant. These specialist suits were used when Dumbo's scenes required him to interact with the actors, something that's hard to get right without a reference. While one suit set up was quite basic for reference, others had a full-sized elephant head attached.
One that was used in a bath scene was even made completely waterproof so that Edd could dunk his head under the water as Dumbo was being washed. I don't think I could convincingly act as an elephant on dry land, never mind being underwater for half a scene. Which of these reveals made you laugh out loud?
Let me know down in the comments below, and thanks for watching.
