All language subtitles for VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 192

Hey guys, new shirts are on sale.

I'm going to peel this couch dry, dude.

Reptilians making this movie, dude?
What's going on?

Get away from that.

Get out of there.

This is a movie that deserves its Rotten
Tomatoes 0 % score.

Here's what happened.

Did you guys see Mickey 17?

Bro, what?

I think it contains the best clone
effect in film history. In film history?

can see that.

Hey, what's up? Welcome back to another
episode of Visual Effects Artists React.

Today, we've got some drama to talk
about, so let's just get into it right

All right, Christian, will you pull up
the TikTok that I shared with you?

Okay, coming.

Video spice on.

What are we looking at here?

It's hard to tell based on how far away.
This isn't how small it is. This looks

like an AI takeover.

So you guys are thinking AI takeover.
Okay.

That's a good theory. Let's pull up the
full screen version.

Yeah. Reflections on hood.

A siege car. Wait. Oh, is this full
siege?

This is Blender. Is this a scan?

Oh, is this like a photogrammetry scan
of the city?

yeah it's more obvious on the bigger
screen it was really hard to see on the

tiktok screen but that looks really good
i was like this looks like drone

footage but i clearly see the shadow of
a car on the ground there it's like a

little too cohesive and good for like ai
you know that shadow of the car is like

a little too intelligent isn't that very
like realistic looking yeah

deviously realistic looking yeah it's
like when you focus too much on the

textures of the buildings you can see
they're quite low res freddy sent this

me and he's like how do you think they
did this and he gave me the same quiz i

was looking at my phone and like i could
not figure it out like this looks like

ai but like yet it can't be ai it's
everything like the smear on the glass

like perfect like haze like it just it
nails the dash cam footage camera motion

is nice too it's really impressive what
people can can do with blender these

days It's also just like, I was
distracted by Robert Downey Jr.

Yeah, where was he down there?

Go to his TikTok. He has one where it's
like the proof. It looks like AI.

He's like, nope, here's the actual shot.

Yeah? Wait, is that a, yeah, that's a
photo scan, yeah? Mm -hmm. Or like a

Google Maps or Google Earth thing.

Dude, the people were literally just
silhouettes.

2D silhouettes.

It's all you need to trick the eye.

So, I'm down to jump into mine.

Fantastic Four just came out.

So we're going to take a look at Not
That Movie.

Before any of the Fantastic Four movies
were made, the students at USC made a

fan film about the Silver Surfer that
came out in 1993.

Oh, what the heck? So a year after T
-1000.

Yeah, well, they were working on it
during 1992.

It took them a while. They're doing the
same effect as the Liquid Terminator.

So let's take a look at what some kids
can do in 1992.

Man, shooting on film is like instant
production quality.

Is that Terminator action figure?

Yeah. It is.

Dude, 90s bullies are the worst.

Oh, the glasses.

Dude, the lighting is really nice. The
kids' reflection.

Yeah, wow, they got like the intensity
of the highlights pretty dialed in.

2D cut out. You'll see why.

Okay,

you narcissist, calm down.

That's Back to the Future right there.

And that was it. Wow, that's ambitious.

If you look at it now with today's
perspective, it doesn't look good. If

expecting the Silver Surfer from the
most recent Fantastic Four film, there's

obviously going to be huge differences.

But the thing is that this was made 33
years ago. So first of all, this was

on a machine that cost about a quarter
million dollars.

Eric Fleming and Robert Letterman were
two students at USC. They got this whole

thing off the ground. Apparently, they
got it in front of Stan Lee.

So this was actually made with
permission from Marvel. Now, this is

before Marvel Cinematic Universe and all
that stuff. So at the time, they were

trying to get a Silver Surfer film made.

And so this was kind of like their spec
for that.

I think they kind of nailed the chrome
look.

Yeah, they did a really good job. If
you're just to pause on this, like,

actually a pretty good render. They
matched, like, the highlights perfectly

the black levels perfectly, and they're
really benefiting from the fact that

back then you take all this and you
print it all back onto film.

Yeah. And that's what gets... shown to
people and printed from. So like just by

nature, nothing's like too out of the
whack. It kind of gets all pushed back

into the film look. So I'm assuming they
got some sort of panorama of the scene

for the actual environmental
reflections, including a picture of the

front of the camera there. Right. If you
are doing a good job with your film

exposure.

and your color management you can get
this effect like i think this is why ilm

you know they had the abyss and they had
the t1000 yeah and everybody's pumping

out chrome 3d models is because back
then you don't have like hdri's you

change the exposure on the shot and have
like the bright spots and the silver

guy change exposure as if you're
changing exposure outside what's really

happening here is measuring the angle of
like a polygon on the model shooting

basically a sample array out to a bitmap
and then grabbing that pixel color and

mapping it onto that silver guy So
whatever digital image format they're

the color values in that image are
getting mapped exactly the same onto the

chrome shader, onto the silver server.
So there's no exposure changes. There's

no lighting changes. There's zero light
simulation. It's truly just grab a

pixel, stick it on. Grab a pixel, stick
it on. And if your original picture is

the right exposure, it will then match
once it's all combined into the shot.

it's full commitment. That's the thing.
It's full send commitment. Your picture

has to be perfectly exposed. It has to
match the exposure of your film plate.

And the white balance has to match. to
be the same, the film stock has to be

same, the time of day has to be the
same, clouds have to be the same.

You're really locked in. Also, we didn't
even talk about the glasses. I know.

The glasses shot is crazy.

So I'm assuming that's probably just a
composite of him on that fisheye image

background and then just animated
somehow.

You are getting slightly different
motion jitter in each of the lenses. So

don't know if it would be from one
render.

Or the lenses are each just 3D shaped.

I feel like you can almost see the
polygons and the edges.

Or it's literally just a guy trying to
cleverly animate just a 2D image in what

he thinks should be the response to the
tilting of the glasses and then rotoing

it for each lens.

That is crazy ambitious.

So Eric Fleming and Robert Letterman
were the two main guys on this piece.

Robert Letterman went on to direct
Monsters vs. Aliens and Detective

Oh, wow. Yeah. But the main guy, Eric
Fleming, whose channel this is on,

really direct too many movies.

After this? He directed a movie called
My Brother the Pig. I turned my brother

into a pork chop, and now I'm driving to
Mexico to see if my nanny, as her

grandmother, might be able to turn my
brother back into the monster he wants.

Pack up. We're going to Mexico. And then
last August, he was arrested.

What? Really? Because he was the one who
supplied ketamine to Matthew Perry.

Oh.

And now he faces 25 years in prison for
distributing ketamine.

What a twisted clip took, man.

Wow. Yeah, well, he made a great student
film.

We need something lighthearted.

Should we do a little palette climbing
and go back to the drama? Yeah, we'll

our visual smelling beans. Did you guys
see Mickey 17?

This time I wasn't scared.

I really

want to see this movie. I've just...

Not gotten around to it yet. I think it
contains the best clone effects in film

history. In film history? I can see
that. I think so. I think so.

But it takes place on an alien planet,
and that planet is replete with what

call creepers.

But there's some really cool interaction
with the aliens and Robert Pattinson in

one of these scenes, and I thought it'd
be fun to take a look at it. They're

very creepy cuties. They are, yeah,
yeah. It's a fine line. Not creepy

creepy cuties. Creepy cuties.

They're such little sweethearts.

This is a really cool shot. I imagine
he's on the back of five or six

people in green morph suits as they push
him up under the snow.

You're really close. Really?

Really? They had a full waist rig that
would hoist him out of the hole for some

of the shots. But for this shot in
particular, they had a team of stuntmen

white outfits instead. Oh, sure.

They're going to roto him anyway.

And they are literally hoisting him and
trying their best, bless their hearts,

not to cross over his body with their
hands to obscure him. But of course,

a rig around your waist and with a whole
bunch of stuntmen hoisting you up...

It's going to happen. It's going to
happen. Couldn't you just cover him with

little grub?

Well, that's the thing is they kept the
performance of Robert, right? It's just

that we're calling him Robert. Are you
going to tell me that legs and body are

3D?

You know, for a moment I can kind of see
the legs being 3D actually.

The vast majority of his body is full
3D. They were able to keep one arm, a

little bit of the shoulders, and a part
of the head. That's it.

Everything else was digitally replaced.

And basically motion maps in a way to
his actual performance. And then they

changed the animation of the grubs in
order to account for that performance.

Wow. But it's like, it's borderline
seamless. There maybe are some elements

animation that are a little visible.
Right before you said it, I was looking

his stomach and there was something off
about it. Maybe it was the carabiner.

Maybe it was like the stretchiness of
the lines on his stomach. But it wasn't

enough for me to be like, oh yeah, no,
that's CG. I was just kind of like, oh,

noticed something and I didn't really
understand it.

We interrupt this program to bring you
VFX Producer Reacts 2, Good and Bad

Mental State.

All right, I'm ready. Let's jump into
some scenes.

Oof, man, that guy's looking like he's
having a rough time. He looks like he

could use someone to talk to. Oh, look,
this guy's looking pretty happy.

He's probably in, like, therapy or
something.

So if you feel more like the first guy
versus the second guy, maybe you should

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Now that's it for VFX Producers React.

Now I'll get you back over to VFX
Artists React.

And as cool as these creatures are, I
think the real hero of this entire movie

are the twin effects.

Now, we looked at sinners not that long
ago. And Nico, I don't know if I'm

misremembering. Did you say that they
were the best clone effects that you'd

seen to that point? The working sinners.

Okay. And I really want you to take a
look at this. Okay.

Dude, that moving camera. Okay, so far
the camera's only panning and tilting.

It's not moving through space.

So, so far you're not moved. That's
okay. So far?

Yeah, yeah.

We're building, for sure.

Okay, camera's moving through space.

It's pulling back.

Okay, motion control.

He just grabbed him.

Oh, wow.

This could be a... Wow.

This is mild Mickey.

And this is habanero Mickey.

That's really impressive.

There's a lot of subtle tricks going on.

Interacting with both of them at the
same time. That's crazy.

Bleeding.

Mike, you weren't thinking of trying the
same thing.

I saw you sneaking up behind me.

Bro, what?

Come on now. At this point, I think the
only way they could do this is like full

3D head replacement.

Literally nobody cared in the theater. I
was losing my mind. I was like...

I'm always like, what are you doing? I'm
like, that was really good.

It's got to be a body double. How can
she interact with both of them at the

time? At the very least... Anything

goes, dude.

It's wild.

How is he twisting his own hair?

Yeah, it's that good.

The thing I'm looking at is, like, who's
there with her at the moment? And are

they swapping her out? Because, like,
she has to interact with both of them

the acting, and they're kind of
dependent on her. So, like, are they

clever wipes and swapping her out? I'm
going to tell you this.

VFX supervisor Dan Glass said they used
no motion control on the entire

film. Wow.

He says that when it comes to
performance, it gets in the way.

The sensible way to do something like
this is to get a body double that's as

close as possible and you're doing a CG
head replacement.

Depending on the shot will dictate whose
head gets replaced and who's actually

being the primary actor in the moment.
Traditionally, the twin effect is done

having one person do a take and then
having the same person do a separate

So those are two simultaneous things
existing separately.

When they start interacting is where the
real challenges come in. I think when

you push into the guy and his face is
all motion blurry, you get the original

actor. That's as close as we can get.
It's like a photo of Bigfoot. It's like

just a blurry, like, wait, that's him.

I don't even want to guess anymore. How
do they do it, Jordan?

It's obviously...

with all movies with colon effects mixed
bag all the above traditional split

screen as you guys saw in the beginning
something like this probably traditional

split screen there is uh 2d head
compositing going on specifically in the

the shoulders i've actually found this
very entertaining robert pattinson has

such a distinctive jawline that they
found that in the dirty over the

they couldn't leave the body double it
they needed to composite the jaw back

Because it's so sharp. So I was
literally watching all the dirty over

shoulders and going, oh yeah, that's
hilarious.

They just put his head back in there.
Typically when filming with, you know,

these two roles playing in the same
shot, whoever was leading the dance in

of camera motion dominantly would start.
They would run through it and they

would pick up the second pass. Now for
these more complex shots, VFX supervisor

Dan Glass said they used deep fake
compositing and they used volume caps.

crazy rig system is what they call it,
and they would do it in order to gather

the perfect training data for the AI
tool sets.

Every single lighting environment that
he was in where they knew they were

to replace them digitally, they used
this VoluCap system.

So kind of a similar thing to Sinners?

Similar thing to Sinners, but to me this
is like obviously the next level up

from that. That's the VoluCap.

crazy rig system.

That said, not that it's a magic wand,
but like it's the greatest deep faking

I've ever seen.

So they must be kind of doing something
similar to like what they did in the

second Matrix film where they're filming
Robert Pattinson doing the performance.

So you're getting a full high quality
performance and somehow putting that in

the right spot, tracked under somebody
else's head, doing a combination of that

3D rebuild plus a deep fake re -render,
so to speak, to kind of like bring all

the little details home.

It's very, very good. I really want to
see a breakdown of this.

Yeah. If any VFX teams are responsible
for this, please drop a breakdown. This

is so cool.

I know it's a great effect when I'm
super excited to see you see it.

Like, as it was coming up, I was like,
oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I'm so about

see it.

All right. Time for some drama.

Why is this drama, Nico?

All right. So War of the Worlds just
dropped. 2025 edition.

It's very poorly rated on Amazon right
now. It was shot during COVID, and it's

been in, like, re -edit hell for about
five years.

Ah! Always a bad sign. We're going to
kick things off with the asteroids, the

alien asteroids, hitting planet Earth.

Okay! Why'd you do that? But they're
portrayed as asteroids.

So I think the idea for this film is
like a, it's all from the point of view

Ice Cube working out like the NSA.

There was a jump cut on a Zoom call.

I'm going to peel this couch dry, dude.

She says outside.

She's holding a road bike with a dead
cat on it.

Insane video.

How do you upload that?

This is a tough problem. How do you make
everything from like a screen cap

interesting for an hour and a half?

You don't. You don't.

My coffee.

Oh, no.

What is this point of view that we're
in? Are we in his computer webcam or

Oh, no. My After Effects tutorial.

Ready for a math of day loss causing a
plane to no longer fly? Pull all the

data? Dude, and they even delete his
Facebook page from his, like, dead wife.

Oh. Oh, here we go. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

So it's a sufficiently janky movie. I
mean, yeah. All the

effects I've seen are...

They're fine.

Here's what happened based on what we've
researched.

It was actually supposed to be kind of
like this quirky, funny, like told from

the point of view of Zoom kind of movie.

After about a year of that, the
executive team was like, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no. This is way too niche.
We need a broad audience with this.

And then for the next four years, it got
re -edited and retweaked and redone.

But all the effects that we're looking
at are effectively the unfinished Temp V

effects. from that first year that had
been we're supposed to like filter to

look like phone footage and zoomed in on
macro blocks and all that kind of stuff

underneath a lot of like glitching
artifacts and they're supposed to be

small not full screen so they delivered
them to a degree of quality that they

were anticipating being covered up and
now they're just being played cleanly

us and it's pretty rough but this is
where the drama begins so we're going to

hit some slightly sensitive footage So,
forewarned. The directors and producers

are using footage in the film, and their
idea was like, let's take real footage,

real disaster footage, real war footage,
and let's comp aliens into it. No!

Yeah. No! It's so gross!

Field's burning.

Okay, cool, cool.

Now you're getting some wildfire stuff.

Getting kind of a little tasteless.

I'm feeling grosser as we go.

Now it's like Paris attack or military
footage? Was that real?

Little tasteless guys.

How about some like Middle East war
footage? Oh my, wait.

Guys. Bro, that's awful.

So back in Afghanistan, I think it was,
there was a C -130, I think it was, and

the cargo load didn't get strapped down
correctly or the straps broke and it

caused all that weight to shift to the
back of the plane and made the plane do

this. And when a plane's flying forward
and then it does this, all those wings

become walls.

and it slows it down and it falls out of
the sky. Six or eight service members

died. Very unfortunate that it happened.
And there's footage of it, and the

footage is pretty wild. They had put
that footage in this movie for a moment

when the aliens were making the
airplanes fall from the sky, and they

left it as it was in the film. Until at
some point, somebody was like, this is

crazy. I need to at least redo it with
CG and hope they don't notice. And

what we actually will see in the film
here. So there's real footage there in

left and the CG on the right.

What they've done is they've animated a
CG airplane to follow the exact same

motion, effectively object tracking the
real crash footage.

How does this make you feel, Jordan?

Well, first of all, I appreciate whoever
decided to recreate it in CG.

If you have a VFX artist who is likely
being overworked and underpaid, pull an

extra shift in secret.

to replace and fully rebuild your shot,
you're doing something wrong, man.

That's a major red flag.

If that's true, that's a level of
dissociation from humanity that's really

concerning. Yeah, and I guess the
director never realized.

I was talking with someone on Reddit who
apparently worked on it. It was a

throwaway account, so he's not revealing
himself, but he was saying that, like,

no, the producer -turned -director
specifically wanted this clip to be in

movie. He wanted that to be in the
movie.

It's not just a matter of, oh, I want a
plane crash.

That looks realistic. Oh, here's a plane
crash that looks real. No, it's like he

wanted this specific one. Yeah, if
that's true, that's really upsetting.

But, yeah, I mean, even a one -to -one
is like, I don't like it.

But here's the thing, though, is that,
like, I can understand the physics

of this. You know, it's like, oh, yeah,
if your cargo...

shifts in your plane and the plane goes
down, it's going to look like that. But

why did they match the camera angle? Why
did they match the clouds and

everything about it? Yeah, the camera
shake is also very offensive to me as a

VFX artist.

Yeah, it's offensive camera shake. Those
random fires with smoke plumes, one

thing. Wildfires, we don't know if
anyone was hurt in that one in

A little weirder. A little weird because
it's like... Still not maybe fully over

the line for me.

But the minute that you were talking
about people's homes being destroyed in

acts of war, and you're like, we could
probably make some money if we just comp

some aliens in there and make it a fun
flick for the summer.

Disgusting. Like, abjectly gross.

I feel like I can understand the idea
behind that desire to use real footage,

because there's legitimacy to the...

To that actually being real. Like,
that's a real dusty explosion of a

exploding in the middle of an actual
Middle Eastern town.

Whoever made that call is so detached
from, like, people.

That's the first thing. And, like, the
impacts of footage and images.

Maybe I'm totally off base here, but if
you replace that with aliens knocking

down the Twin Towers.

Yeah. If you replace that with an alien
roaming the halls of Columbine.

Yeah.

that's really a little extreme but
literally literally you're talking about

human tragedy and you're compositing
aliens in it for like the feel -good

like exciting yeah and it's like this is
devastating footage to lots of family

sorry i'm getting a little hot but a
couple caveats here context of a scene

matter if you're making a world war ii
film and you have a clip from a newsreel

of like a plane getting blown up or
bombs going off Okay. Like, it makes

It's within context of the film. And
it's, like, taking it seriously. It's,

like, being historically relevant. Or if
you're using footage for reference. It

literally ends with he needs to buy
something from Amazon so they can

the drone so it can bring him, like,
batteries or something that he needs in

order to save the world.

All right. Let me head to Amazon .com.

Flash drive.

Click on it. Buy now.

Address.

DHS.

Gross. Wow.

and on the way, the Amazon drone crashes
by a homeless guy, and so they buy a $1

,000 Amazon gift card to give to the
homeless guy to help the Amazon junkie.

my God.

No.

Rep Killian's making this movie, dude?
What's going on?

Sir. Please flip it over.

Oh, I guess there's explosions.

What? For a year?

Come on, guys. And he's like, what?

He's like, I'm... Wait, wait, give him
an Amazon gift card for $1 ,000.

Hurry. Oh, my God.

Amazon. That'll get him. He's like, all
right for that? Heck yeah, dude. Amazon

Prime Air.

Amazon Prime Air. In -flight GPS. It's
in smart mode.

Dude, look at this interface for the
Amazon drone.

Amazon Prime Air. It's just the DJI
interface and the different logo on the

corner.

The audacity of them to try to do this.

This is a movie that deserves its Rotten
Tomatoes 0 % score.

Yeah, rotoscoping someone's death and,
like, animating on top of it. Yeah.

That's weird. That's super weird.

Apparently, it was a team of around 10
VFX artists.

Bless them. For the whole movie.

Yeah. And they worked on it for about a
year, and that was back in 2021.

Yeah, what a ride.

Hopefully, lessons were learned from the
blowback from this, because I don't get

it.

No one sets out to make a bad movie.

Look, if you guys have any
recommendations, I need some visual

If you have any recommendations for some
visual smelling beans, please leave

them down below. Ideally, they have some
sick effects from them. Thank you for

subscribing. Consider checking it out,
the show on quarterdigital .com, because

we have extended reacts there, and I'm
sure there's some big goofs from this

episode on quarterdigital .com right
now. We'll see you guys next week. It

pleasure and a little bit painful this
time.

All right.

Bye.