W: Oh my god! N: It's not even moving W: We are joined by a very special guest W: He is a big-time director. N: So I have to ask what is your technique for having people act against imaginary things. [INTRO] W: Thank you Express VPN for sponsoring today's episode. Stay tuned to the end to learn how you can get your first three months free! W: Hey, what's up everyone, welcome back to another episode of visual effects artists react Today we are joined by a very special guest, David F. Sandberg. D: Hello! Also knows as "ponysmasher" N: That's right! W: He is a big-time director. He's done three Hollywood films on top of being a director You're also a visual effects artist. D: Kind of yeah. Yeah, I mean Shazam... There's not a lot of finals but for everything, I've done a lot of temp works. W: Well, I think we'll be taking a look at some of those today. [Growling] W: I am a big fan of like smoke simulations and those are some really cool smoke simulations D: The thing was that they were actually supposed to always have a bit of steam or smoke and I actually found this reference of, like, a warm horse on a winter-cold winter day [Laughter] D: That was sort of steaming the whole time. W: Yeah, totally. D: But then as you get closer and closer to deadlines is just like smoke simulations take forever to calculate W: Dude, yeah, if you kind of like to choose your battles D: It was really hard actually... getting that look right because I didn't want it to seem like It's geometry that just smoke comes out of when they turn into smoke. Like I wanted to feel that "No, they actually turn into smoke" [Growling] D: The boardroom scene was actually a reshoot they had to really hurry to get that done in time and and it was that thing I'm like, okay We have to shoot that first give it to the VFX house so they can start working on it right away.... And you don't have time for a lot of revisions you in that shot Greed in the back there. His animation is not great W: He's just sort of kind of like standin' D: He's just doing this thing. but it was just like we don't really have time because again you know... animation takes forever because first you have to lock down the main animation and then you have to do all the secondaries-the flabby skin or the muscles or the drool in their mouths and everything. W: Visual effects to you who's never intend to make like bad effects It's usually- D: Running out of time. W: Exactly. [Screams] N: So I have to ask-what is your technique for having people act against imaginary things? D: Well here we had stunt guys in like well a kind of motion capture suits, but we didn't actually capture the motions They were just there for something to look at so you basically shoot things, uh, three times You know You shoot it once with an actor and then like a stunt double in a suit and then you shoot it with just the actor reacting to nothing and then you shoot a clean plate. What the visual effects folks would prefer is to add the monsters into the plate with just the actors right reacting to nothing, but their reactions Won't look as good as the shots where you have a stunt guy in there. W: Exactly. [Movie noises] W: You've made a video kind of talking about this scene on your own YouTube channel. It's a fantastic video I highly recommend you check it out. But there's one thing in particular that blew me away. You actually had your crew in the scene Unintentionally! D: Yeah. W: And you had to fix that in post. D: Well, because we Realized it so late that they were still in the shot and we'd forgotten to paint them out [Laughter] D: We came up with this idea of like, well, Let's paint in little shopping bags in their hands and like one of them There you know, it has a little mop bucket. You can see a little later They still don't really react to a man flying in a super Shopping-mall certain things you just get blind to because of course we're looking at him. Is he looking all right? N: That side shot of him flying, if I really look closely. It looks like it's a 3d double there, right? D: Oh, yeah him-him- Him and Sivanna flying and sac. I mean his entire body is CG when he's you know Trying to jump, they've matched-moved- N: Really? D: his actual movement because we had him in a big rig that's kind of like a seesaw W: Uh-huh. D: Right? Even if you paint the rig's out you can still tell like okay This is where he was attached and you can like, it, you don't get that fluid movement So you have to often just recreate the motion and do a CG double instead. W: Interesting, okay. D: So it's sometimes it's like well, maybe we should have just not shot it with him and just done it all CGI but at the same time you do get a lot of Reference for lighting or everything so N:Totally. W: Yeah, yeah- you know exactly what it should look like because you filmed it for real even if it's not being used D: Yeah I think they were able to actually take his real head and put it on there because the CG head didn't look quite right. W: Okay. N: It's funny how you can have a CG body and it doesn't look fake but just the head like just the head stands out So this scene here, you know, I just take a look at it. I look at your thoughts [Wind, yelling] D: Mmm-hmm looks like it floats around a bit. N: As a still frame, this looks completely real. D: Yeah I've been in that situation many times where you're in a visual effects review and it's like this doesn't look real but I don't know what notes to give because it's like that shadow looks right, that looks right but, but as a whole Something just screams fake about it N: If I were to try to figure out what it is that makes this shot look fake Well for one it's the Rock's head is filmed separately from the body So he's trying to mimic a movement in that you know the compositor is trying to animate a doll to fit but they're not actually all moving the same way in motion is one of those things That like everybody's so finely tuned for it's hard to always express. What looks weird but like we can always feel it if the motion is that weird because we're also familiar with Physics and gravity and how things should move in inertia. But the other one is that the lighting on his head, the angle of the lighting on his head doesn't actually match the angle of the lighting in the world. On the left there that backpack strap is pretty much getting direct light hitting it from the front left a little bit but his face is in shadow on the front left and then the collar isn't putting any shadow on his neck and that's always one of those challenging things of like a CG costume or something fake like touching somebody's in that? Contact shadow and everything W: If you aren't already please consider subscribing Because that will help you actually see whenever these videos come out when they come out so that you can be the first to tell Your friends about what's in these episodes! [Giggles] So speaking of heads There's this character in a TV show called Watchmen-a show that I adore by the way, it's amazing- There's a character named mirror guy. Technically, his name is looking glass- N: Mirror guy, that's my superhero name! W: He has this mask on that's very reflective and the effects here are Kind of invisible but also super in-your-face. Looking glass' head-that mask-100% Computer-generated, but what makes it work so well are the reflections! The one shot out of this entire show that blew me away The most is when he takes out that yellow rag any wipes his head. N: That's a perfect reflection. W: But it's the proximity of that reflection D: Yeah, how do you... W: It's like you actually got like that surface contact when you put your hand up against a mirror You can actually see the underside of your hand against the mirror and you kind of get that same effect here. D: Mmm N: Yeah, that's crazy. W: First off. They get a 360 image for the reflection of everywhere, but that's not everything they also actually Reproject all of that information on to 3d geometry because the problem with a 360 image is that everything is the same distance from the center of that sphere and if you're trying to do interactive reflections where you know he's actually moving through space the reflection of a desk in the background is gonna be the same size as someone standing next to the camera, at least in terms of depth. So they had to project the images onto that to get proper, like, parallax of the reflections. In addition to that They actually put a GoPro on his face. N: really? W: for all of like the actual high detail close-up reflects. So that's whats actually in there. N: So when he's leaning in- W: Yeah, exactly D: That is so much work. You were almost like what would have been better if you just paint out the cameras But I think a part of it is that you can't- W: well that was- D: Create a map W: They initially, when they planned this show they wanted to actually have it for real and do it practically and just paint out the camera except for the fact that they couldn't get a material that could do both be stretchy enough to fit over his head and also be Reflective enough to be that mirror-like effect that they were going for. Character: Sorry, uh, I got like a seed stuck there or something D: Being a director, of course, I'm just thinking like, "oh, I wonder if they had to cut scenes with looking glass because it was his studio was like, oh this is too expensive" less scenes with him. Who knows? Maybe he was the star of the show and they were like "nope" [Laughter] W: Yeah, they did a lot of cloth animations and simulations to get that mask to fit to his head But again, they also had an actual mask form fitted around his head so they knew exactly how to make it look! N: So usually we ask for comments for scenes or shows or Movies that we should react to but I'm gonna ask for something different this time. If there's a guest that you think we should get on the show Please leave that in the comments below. D: Because they've obviously run out of ideas [Laughter] W: Don't say Captain Disillusion! We know! We're trying! We'd love to have him on! What would you say is probably like the best VFX shot you've done on a feature movie? D: I like the the end credits of Annabelle creation. Did that in Blender-just scanned in a whole bunch of, uh, Bible pages and then sort of modeled them So they looked right and did the camera move. W: You just did that in your bedroom at home? D: In blender, yeah N: That's in Blender right there? D: This is real, like a real photo that's projected And then as soon as the camera sort of turns here now, this is all CGI N:Ah yes. D: It was a long.. took a while to render on my laptop [Laughter] W: You did feature visual effects on a laptop. N: How did you learn Blender? What got you into it? How did you train yourself? D: Blender guru, and you know? YouTube! I mean that's where you can learn all the software and all these guys making great stuff. It's really inspiring N: All right. So to wrap things up here gonna look at one more clip. It's uh. So there's Jaws. There is Jaws 2 and there's Jaws 3D. [Laughter] N: So yeah, let's take a look at that. Let's see. Let's react to that [Movie screaming] N:There it is. W: Oh my god N: [Laughing] It's like, it's not even moving. W: You're supposed to be like scared but I just can't help me be pulled out of it doesn't look like the shark's there at all D: The shark also just stops as soon as he hits the glass. He just becomes motionless It's almost like you freeze-frame look. Yeah, I mean look the comps W: Yeah that black edge. That black outline you're talking about is from the track mattes not perfectly aligning, right? N: Yeah in our Star Wars VFX artists react we talked about this some more and if you want to give an idea of how visual Effects are done back in the day before computers. Definitely go check out that video N: That looks cool. W:Woah. Okay N: I dig it. [Overlapping] D:There are the jaws [Laughter] W: Way too literal! N:Dude just like hey, [incomprehensible] like a quake3 character Look at the guts. Look at your lower intestines. W: Wait a minute. Is that a liquid simulation? D: I mean a really almost looks like they paint it like it's animated or something like it hand Animated or almost it looks very strange because it almost has a drop shadow. W: But it's got like that classic low resolution liquid simulation look to where it's all just kind of like globules. D: There's no way. In 1983? There's no way W: So you're suggesting that they painted it? D: I don't know. It's almost too smooth But I mean, yeah, it's almost like it's just 2d animation. W: Right. N: Those eyeballs? D: Oh, yeah. It is! N: Just two giant eyeballs flying out of the shark D: Yeah The size don't match though because the eyes are much bigger than the jaws there W: And the fact that the eyes are in the foreground But composited behind the jaws in the background N: and it's none of the frame rates match [Laughter] W: It's okay. This movie's almost 40 years old. N: Also shark skeletons are made out of cartilage not bone. So that's just another error [Laughs] in this movie. D: I Learned something today J: Hey guys, Brandy O'Daniel here And I heard that on this very show back in November Sam and the boys did a little expressvpn Sponsorship segment that I thought would be fun to go through right now and just see what happens when when I'm not in the brand Segment, so let's hop into it. S: Hi. My name is Sam Gorski, cofounder of Corridor Digital I'm here today to tell you about a word from one of our sponsors, expressvpn J: That's pretty good. That's really nice and smooth intro It's well lit and he kind of does a little point which makes me feel special and lets me know that This video is sponsored by expressvpn S: This VPN, it's for privacy it basically encrypts and helps keep your data safe J: This is good Sam immediately starts with what they call the talking points, you know He starts talking about what a VPN does how it gives you extra Security and how it gives you extra privacy when you're on the internet so that your information Isn't just out there to the open Internet. The first time I used it I totally noticed, you know, this privacy, the security, even the content unblocking C: Whether you're a Chrome guy, a Firefox gal, or a Safari... whatever, expressvpn has an extension for every single one S: And now I know that expressvpn can pretty much be found on any platform on any device C: Less than seven dollars a month with a 30-day money-back guarantee. J: This is my favorite part right here watch what Sam does this little bit. C-O-R-R-I-D-O-R-C-R-E-W AND you can go do E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com J: Look at that and then Wren comes in with a double tap because you never really hear information until you hear at 2 or 3 times So if you guys go to E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash corridorcrew You'll get three months free just by signing up with the link in the description below. Wow. That was really good I better be careful. He might almost put me out of a job here I mean town next time Brandy O'Daniel. Catch you on the flipside. N: Well, thank you so much for watching, and David, thank you so much for joining us. It's an absolute pleasure Honestly? Kind of an honor having somebody that has such a body of work that you have but also a willingness to share that information, come out here and talk to us and she won't break the process of creating this-this art form and that's super super cool I hope you keep it up. D: I will. Thank you N: Yeah, and best of luck with your future projects. D: Thank you. W; You're working on Shazam 2 now right? Like pre-production and writing. D: Yes, so that's coming out in April of '22. W: Oh dang, uh still two years away. D: I know it's- W: whoa D: I know what I'm doing for the next two years. W: We'll be seeing you in 2022 April D: Yes, and I'll be very tired [Laughter]
Mad respect for Sandberg for doing this.
God, I remember watching Jaws 3D for the first time and just thinking even for effects of the time that scene was so bad. Like, we can go back and laugh at the model in Jaws and think it looks and moves nothing like a real shark but it's a thousand times better than that motionless, flat, cutout slowly moving towards camera and that glass breaking... Also, Jaws still holds up as a film, Jaws 3D never really did.