VFX Artists React 96: Dredd, World War Z 

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5:06 Fun fact about that. Gavin actually worked on Dredd as a slow-motion camera operator which means that he filmed both of those shots.

Its an eternal shame that there has not been a sequel to Dredd! Karl Urban would be down for it too...

Dredd is one of the movies that make you think „Why aren’t more people talking about how amazing this is?“

As you said In the 1930s, compositing objects in films was typically done through a process called "double exposure." This process involved exposing a piece of film twice, with the first exposure capturing one element of the scene, and the second exposure capturing the other element of the scene. The two elements would then be combined in the final image. To achieve the semi-transparent effect, a semi-transparent object (such as a piece of glass in this case or a sheer curtain) would be placed in front of the camera during the first exposure. The object would be removed for the second exposure, allowing the second element of the scene to be captured without interference from the semi-transparent object. When the two exposures were combined, the semi-transparent object would appear to be partially transparent, allowing the second element of the scene to be partially visible through the object. This technique required a high level of skill and precision, as the two exposures had to be perfectly aligned in order to create a seamless composite image. It also required careful control of lighting and exposure times to ensure that the two elements of the scene were captured with the appropriate levels of brightness and contrast.

FINALLY they talk about Dredd. It was SOOO awesome.

Okay that ballerina shot in Bride of Frankenstein is mind blowing. There is almost always some part of older VFX which your mind picks out as unnatural so even if you can't explain it you can tell something is off, like the dark and light fringing Niko was talking about in the Shrinking Man shots. The ballerina shot is flawless and it is doing my head in a little bit! Oh also Jordan is a great addition to the couch!

I like to think the creators of these classic special effects scenes and sequences would be really proud and happy to see that so far in the future despite all of the tools and abilities we have now that people still look at their work with awe and respect for what they achieved.

John P Fulton was the guy in charge of the ballerina, head of special effects for Universal (where he worked on the iconic Frankenstein), then for Paramount (where he worked with Hitchcock on Rear Window and Vertigo), nominated for 8 Oscars, won 3, his final for parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments.

Dredd has no right to be as good as it is

The ballerina's plate also includes the base of the bottle, so you get her shadows in there too. I think that especially sells it. They're also using multi-directional lighting on her to emulate the reflection of the light off the inside of the glass, which makes the shadow even more realistic.

The entire Homunculi scene in Bride of Frankenstein is ingenuity and artwork on a level DECADES ahead of its time. Still incredibly impressive to this day.

Häxan from 1922. There are a lot of different special effects. Post-production took a year and was the most expensive Scandinavian film in history. It's pretty amazing.

I can’t believe they are almost reaching 100 episodes of VFX Artists React

There is a 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland that you guys should check out. It has some really bizarre effects especially for the shrinking and growing

The fact they were able to replicate the scale and "river of bodies" feeling of the WWZ zombie swarms in the WWZ game so well is just so impressive and insane

The ballerina in the jar has a replaced floor as well. Look at her feet when she spins and you can tell they used the real floor around her in the final shot. All the pedestal shots are cut outs with forced perspective to match pov. They recognized mating feet to the floor was a problem with compositing and animation so they used set floors as the pedestals in frame. The forced perspective also means the vanishing points on both elements will match, making the composite image much easier to produce.

You guys need to do more from Dredd. That film has so many great moments to break down.

Dredd is one of two movies i've watched, where I thought 3D added something that you couldn't get anywhere else (the other being avatar). And it's honestly better than avatar's in a lot of ways, because who ever did the shot composition for Dredd actively thought about how the 3d was going to be used, and tried to do interesting things with it. All the slomo scenes in particular are just stunning in 3D. I went through a ton of stupidity finding a 3d copy of the film just so I could watch it again on my PSVR (PS5 doesn't support 3d films, only the PS4 does, be aware) again. It was totally worth it.

It was me that suggested The Bride of Frankenstein clip! I recommended it last October after seeing it at a Halloween Film Festival. So I can attest, they really do read through the comments and make our suggestions! I'm glad I didn't miss something obvious. Love reading through everyone's theories in the comments too.

I was watching the bride of Frankenstein for the first time some days ago and my jaw dropped when this scene played. And you guys pointed out even more stuff than I thought there were that make the effect unbelievably smooth

Gavin from slow mo guys actually worked on judge dredd. He was their guy doing all the slow mo, both as an adviser and running the rig

Im surprised they didnt mention that Gavin Free actually did the slow mo for Dredd. Could have called him and asked him how it was done.

I love when there are guests on the show, definitely expanded my knowledge, but also love the episodes with just a couple members of corridor, it's just a different type of geek out session and I love it

Cant believe after relentlessly asking them to do a VFX breakdown on Dredd they did. Much love

I really hope that someone soon discovers books and films from the best video effect people from the early days of movies. That tells all their secrets of exactly how they did these incredible effects. It is such a great thing that a lot of the current people are starting to document their processes. So, hopefully, in another hundred years of filmmaking, they will be able to look back and see exactly how they did it.

What I think is happening on Bride Of Frankenstein: the jars are definitely there on set with the background actor, but notice the background is mostly black, so the actors playing the tiny characters could be positioned on a dark set with their props and filmed, then lined up with the jars later and just double exposed over the top of the background one by one. A travelling matte will only be needed if the tiny people go over anything light behind them but the dark edge that leaves will rarely show up because of the dark background, plus the bright highlights on the jars will stay ‘over’ the tiny people (because they won’t darken in this process of double exposure). Finally, the dark vertical lines in front of the tiny people look like they were drawn on glass, either as they were being filmed or as they were being added in via double exposure, to give more of a sense of them being inside jars, but they also kinda work as foreground ‘reflections’ (notice they don’t darken the actor behind). In close ups of the little ballerina it’s also possible some rear projection was used. There was a means to generate extremely precise travelling mattes via a yellow phosphorous lighting technique back then, as in not hand drawn, but auto created, that would work very well here. How it’s all so stable for this era, though, I don’t know.

I think I've figured out how the shadows were added in that shot featuring the king character, it's a little complex. For the scene where the king runs across the table, it could be that he was a filmed on a grey background and two high contrast prints were made from the negative of this shot. One would cut out all but the highlights of his coat and the other all but the shadows. These two mattes could be used to expose the shadows from the shot of the king onto a negative of the "plate" and a the highlights seperately onto a resulting print struck from this negative.

Dredd is too damn good. The opening scene with that badass music! Goosebumps.

"But maybe it's real" 😂😂😂 the timing and delivery was perfect

Jordan channeling All Might: “I AM HERE!” Love the look at old school visual effects techniques. Fascinating stuff

glad you're looking at INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. one of my all-time favorite movies. no other film so completely delivers on its premise. tremendous effects all the way through it's not a crusty forgotten b-movie, it's in the criterion collection

Long time listener, first time caller! Love your work, and I'm sitting here rewatching Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with the family and wondering how this wonderful movie has been overlooked! It has some great VFX storytelling and think it would be worthy of your time and attention. The worst that could happen is you're introduced to a movie you and your family can enjoy! Thanks again for everything you all do for our entertainment!

The small person stuff just reminded me! I would LOVE to see you guys react to the VFX of Thomas and the Magic Railroad. I’ve always wondered how they get the people to look small so they’d fit to scale in the Island of Sodor. Basically, before the transition to 3D animation, they used Gauge 1 (1:32 scale) model trains and filmed them using a 35mm camera with a periscope lens and I have always wanted to know how they married the live-action people into an environment that small

The World War Z are possibly the scariest zombies in a film since they were athletic enough to climb on top of each other to get over a wall, they are incredibly fast & strong enough to take out armed soldiers, & are able to bring down a helicopter.

I loooved the World War Z video game. Implementing the huge crowds of zombies and them using each other to climb up surfaces IN A GAME was insane and it was so much hectic because YOU have to stop them. So upset it wasn’t that popular.

It's amazing to see that corridor crew are only 6 episodes away from 100 on VFX!! I'd like to say THANK YOU for all the amazing work you all do!!

For bride of Frankenstein that shot with the dancer, could it be a real set with a giant glass jar and a projection like with the cat in the other movie? I can’t fathom how they could have gotten the distortion of the background and have her outline be so clean. I can’t believe they cut her out because her outline is flawless.

One of my favourite movies ever - Dredd. I was a massive collected of 2000ad comics since the early 80s. Through to the late 90s.

I love the episodes where it is just the Corridor Crew talking about fun films instead of industry people joining the couch and sharing insights.

My favorite crusty old effect is the opening of the door in the end of The Birds. There is no door there, theyre just moving the shadow, but its so effective

Jordan has great charisma wth these guys, and has a really good sense of humor for the show.

Need a whole Dredd episode.

I begged for this Dredd scene for at least 3 years glad to see it!

Jordan had really refreshing energy. Good to see him on the panel.

I’d love to see a stunt men react to “Yes, Madam,” one of Michelle Yeoh’s first movies. Produced by Sammy Hung. It’s so cheesy but the action rocks😊

Speaking of Dredd, you guys should check out the scene where the guy catches on fire in Dredd (2012) on stuntmen/stuntwomen react. One of my favourite fire stunts in film.

Out of 17 minutes Dredd only gets 2 minutes??? Really?? Smh

7:01 Whoa, so the dollhouse curtain (and I guess the entire dollhouse set) are being projected on the background screen? I had thought that the dollhouse set might've been a practical foreground set and that only the window part was the screen projection.

Wasn’t Gavin the one doing slow mo for the Dredd? Could’ve asked for how it was done.

The "small ballerina in a flask" scene, I don't know how they did it, but the simplest way, IMHO, would be to have her dancing inside a "big flask", with a screen in the back projecting the scientist. That way, when you film the whole scene it looks like we saw, right? :D

My theory is that for the bride of Frankenstein scene, they had a life size window and for the shadows they use a cutout... And the reflections are clever painted on details 🤔

The old 1954 Godzilla movie has a lot of really clever, really sneaky composite shots. A bunch of just regular shots of people standing around talking and then you look at it a second time and you're like "wait a minute, there's a giant footprint in the background!"

Pretty sure Gavin Free did the slow mo for Dredd. Funny they used a Slow Mo Guys video for reference 😊

DREDD needs a damn sequel or whole line of movies!

If you're looking for old movies with fun visual effects, The Thief of Baghdad is a childhood fav for me

I love the slow mo guys mention. I'm guessing that the reference during the Dredd segment was intentional given SMG's Gav being the slow motion cinematographer on the film. Would love to see a collab between your channels

I would love to see a video where you guys attempt to recreate some of these 100 year old effects using the best approximation of the methods they used at the time but with modern equipment

Dredd was such an awesome movie

I am so pleased to see more of the Universal monster movies represented here. There really is something magical about those movies.

I love when they start nerding out on old Hollywood techniques. I could watch a whole episode dedicated to old retired Hollywood effects.

Just watched the original Mad Max and y’all have got to do it for your next stunt person episode! There’s a particularly gnarly motorcycle hit at the beginning of Max’s rampage, and a lot of other great guerrilla-style stunt work.

I love this kind of episodes, where you guys breakdown groundbreaking stuff. honestly it blows my mind

Dredd... One of my favorite comic book adaptation movies, why it bombed at the box office is beyond me. But it still became a classic after that, they so SO need to make a sequel.

I think the bride of Frankenstein clip was done like this: They filmed the tiny subject with a glass like structure in front of it then they cut out the people and put the black behind them. they cut out the details but didn't put a mat behind them to keep them slightly transparent.

Dredd is criminally underrated

Awesome episode, guys! You should take a look at the Robin Williams film, “What Dreams May Come!” Crazy gorgeous painterly visual effects for 1998. Very unique!

The king running across the table is crazy. Maybe he ran across an oversized set and they used the set without a holdout matte for his shadows then rematted him in on top? Ballerina in the jar, the distorted movement and shadows from the background plate only affect the highlights on the jar, so the smudges infront of the ballerina are all another matte on top of her matte (she is ontop of all the jars highlights, but the shadows in the foreground are another comp on her without a holdout matte for transparency or projected onto a dirty screen and reshot) Also, please check out the will reading scene in Knives out, Daniel Craig is replaced with a 3d tracked PNG.

Ballerina shot idea: A giant glass sculpture with the base of the vase to film her on, however there's no back. So basically it's cut in half. And then a small vase in front of the mans hand is also cut in half to get the shot without the front of the little lady.

Dredd is such a good movie. I've watched it loads of times. Now I've seen this I may have to watch it again!

So glad Dredd got some love!

In terms of old films with great effects, check out the plane crash scene from Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent. Pretty damn impressive. I believe there are actually some explainer videos available of how it was done too.

FINALLY a Dredd look. Been wanting this for years.

You should react to the goblin creatures from the film 'Unwelcome'. I thought they were really excellently done and genuinely couldn't tell a lot of the time whether it was CG or practical or a mix.

Love love LOVE when you cover older effects!

As far as I know, the body shots in Dredd was made entirely with air cannons (or similar). Practical enhanced with VFX. The perfect mix for me. Love that movie.

IMDb offers an explanation for that scene in The Bride of Frankenstein in the trivia section: "Special effects experts John P. Fulton and David S. Horsley spent two days shooting Dr. Pretorius' miniature beings. The actors were placed in full-sized bell jars set against black velvet. These shots were meticulously lined up to match them with shots of Ernest Thesiger, Colin Clive and the interior set." I'm not at all a special effects expert, not even in the slightest, but from this I can only assume that they had a set with the jars and then filmed actors in human sized jars against the black velvet and then they lined up the two images so the large jars perfectly covered the glass jars on the set.

The original Dredd wasn't bad. It just wasn't a Dredd movie. It was a Stallone movie.

YES! Dredd was a movie I stumbled upon last year browsing around on one of these name brand streaming services, It is definitely an under-rated action film. If you enjoy FPS games, or gritty war films, it might blow you away.

I was so excited you were going to react to Dredd and then it's just like one single shot :( Moar! There's so many great VFX-shots in that movie!

Dredd was underappreciated, should have got a sequel and one of the last great Sci fi actions

Gavin free from slow mo guys / rooster teeth is the one who made those dreed slow mo shots, u guys could bring him in the future!

If you’re interested in more older examples of practical effects, I’d highly recommend checking out the 4th Doctor’s intro from Doctor Who. It used a technique called slit-screen which I would highly recommend doing a little research on.

Omg you guys actually reacted to Dredd!!! I have been waiting for this for soo long it's such a good film and the effects are amazing!

I love that yous put a timer on the sponsered segment, makes it easier to fast forward through.

You should look at The Lost World from 1925. It's the predecessor to King Kong. It also had one of the first viral marketing campaigns where they showed footage of it to a group of magicians and they had no idea if it was special effects or actual dinosaurs.

I always thought the practical effects for dragonslayer (1982?) were really good. Haven't rewatched it in a while but growing up I thought the dragon looked awesome.

1937 “Witch” movie has an amazing transformation visual effect scene - definitely worth taking a look at 👍

The 93 remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman had an amazing big and small people interaction, the pool scene specifically.

I would love to see y’all update some of the old school FX using modern tools. Like cleaning up the matte shot in “The Incredible Shrinking Man” to make it look perfect.

Dredd is a gem of a movie!

My fav example of rebuilding sets is for the Laurel and Hardy sketch 'Brats', where they played themselves and their comically tiny children and recreated the sets. Highly recommend checking it out!

I found one description of the homunculi that said they were filmed inside life sized jars so they could be more accurately matted into the small jars. The rest was meticulous planning of set construction and camera angles

Love the content guys! With 96 episodes forgive me if I’ve missed it but the intro to the movie stranger than fiction with Will Ferrell is interesting and also the teeth brushing scene right after!

Rock-A-Doodle (1991) was an amazing movie when I was a kid. Recently re watched it and the combination of live action and animation in a movie musical is still awesome

11:50 Idk if this means anything that wasn't already explained in the video or not, but something I noticed is that if you look at the dancer's tutu as it crosses over that sticker on the glass you can see a bit of the black outline around her tutu.

I work close to those steps. Always an issue avoiding the zombie rush hour.

You should check Small Soldiers. Amazing cgi for such old movie

Dredd is one of my favorite action movies I'm so glad they're looking at it. I really hope they do another one because holy shit Urban was perfect

There is a 1942 movie called "The Palm Beach Story" that has the best golden age composite I have ever seen. It is not an effects movie but in the closing scene there is a composite that includes multiple actors doubled and a moving camera. It is flawless, I have seen many CG and compositing professionals try to deduce how it was done and so far no one has figured it out.