this movie was also one of the first major movie to use blender, a free and open source 3d software at a time when it was basically inferior to the industry standards but also something no one took seriously.
Really! That's crazy! I think I saw Blender pop up in my research (I actually wrote this video months ago) but I never really thought twice about it because Blender is so much more common place now. But yea in 2015 that's actually quite a special usage of it 😅 - Thanks for mentioning this!
I've been using Blender since 2017 initially as a hobby - and now I'm a professional 3D artist, all because of it's free and open source nature!! It really warms my heart to be seeing it pop up in places like this because I remember just a few years ago when it was the runt of the industry and the butt of many jokes. I'm in love with it, and it's amazing community. Wooo go Blender!! :D :))
I went to see HCH in theaters. It was just me and a little old lady who obviously was either tricked by her very young grandson to take him or she was an enabler who took the kid to a movie knowing his parents wouldn't like it. Nobody else. Just us 3 at the showing. I was wondering what the little old lady was thinking as the movie progressed becoming more weird, violent, and over the top. At the climax of the movie I got my answer when lil old granny screamed out "F*cking kill them Henry!"
Wish my Grandma was an enabler, but it sounds like the experience of seeing the old lady be her young spirit must’ve made you laugh, definitely a surprise to hear what you’d thought was a sweet old lady
Same for me, when i was younger in highschool i took lsd and went to a theatre to see it by myself. I really liked the idea of tripping and watching a fully POV movie similar to Enter the Void. Think there was like only 5 other people at the theatre. Being honest, im not surprised the movie didn't get a popular showing. Definitely more of an experimental movie that i imagine most people got turned off from just the trailers.
_never occurred to me how many hidden cuts they had to create_ That's how we know they did a really, really good job. We don't even stop to ask "Huh, how did they even do that shot?" We just accept it.
I was fortunate to have worked on a part of this movie, specifically a handful of shots in the airship. You have described the process almost perfectly, however I need to add some corrections. - The lens distortion on the GoPro was/is very pronounced, but it was the same for every shot - so we created one lens distortion/undistortion profile, and used it for all the shots. The biggest problem was not the time to undistort the footage, but rather it's size after straightening, pixel dimensions were at least 2x from the original (if I recall correctly, this was a long time ago). So with the computers not having a ton of RAM (think it was 32GB at the time) we could work with only a few frames at once, simply because of the size of the undistorted plates. - We did 3d track on most shots, that helped us to retouch things and add new ones, because we could position objects and 3d planes where needed. We then projected the texture onto those 3d planes, receiving basically a stabilized region, super easy to retouch/change, and only put that changed part back in (after re-distorting), to not lose sharpness due to undistort/redistort combo. - The hardest thing to beat was actually the rolling shutter, which was super visible in quick camera motions. That, combined with motion blur, and lack of color definition (like you rightfully mentioned) made some shots extremely hard to track. Luckily, Syntheyes helped there, no shot remained "unsolved". - The shot splicing sometimes could be done with just the optical flow morphing - especially when the ends were quite similar, so that did save a lot of time compared to the full 3d projection workflow you mentioned.
How was it working with the insanely compressed GoPro footage? I'm not a professional VFX artist (a hobbyist who's done like 3 things in blender and after effects, my real job is as a film composer), but in my experience working with compressed phone footage, tracking is a pain because there's less detail for the computer to recognize.
@@TiagoNugentComposer It was surprisingly good. the bitrate was enough to not have macroblocks all the time, maybe only in super-quick movement moments. Also, the footage was shot in Protune "flat" color, which retained a lot more dynamic range than usual. So after converting to Rec709 (we didn't work in linear color back then) we had a pretty good picture to work with. The situation was worse with lowlight scenes, we had to do quite a lot of denoising. But still, it was surprisingly good footage, for the camera it came out of (I might be mistaken, but I think it was only second gen Gopro). Tracking is a whole other question - every shot required creating supervised trackers (semi-manual tracking option in Syntheyes). So no 1-click solution, but after you've got enough trackers going, the solve was usually pretty painless. Sometimes, when the macroblocking got really rough, we would need to guess the movement across several frames - but thankfully this was rarely the case.
Great video; I think on top of all that, it's Sharlto Copley's phrenetic performance throughout that elevates the entire movie to its "hardcore" status....and what exactly is going on with the "bad guy" having some kind of "super power" like an end-boss to a game, perfect
@@tomaspabon2484 I could have said "frenetic" but I said phrenetic, an adjective meaning "frenzied, filled with extreme excitement; excessively agitated; distraught with fear or other violent emotion." In your defense, they are synonyms.
12:08 My fiend worked on the set, he told me that lady got a broken rib and a head trauma in that shot. Her first words after the fall "Was the take good" she is a stunt actor. And she got hit in the face by accident, she should of just fall, but stuff happens. Also he told me that punches was hard to fake, so crew decided to just go for it. Btw 11:40 bridge is not that scary was running on it myself from police when I was 15
@@Bat0541 Not True! Dustbus has a brief Cameo during the sniper scene when Punk Jimmy is on screen, My Woman plays during the Chase scene and For the Kill is the credits song All three were done by Biting Elbows (Even if My Woman didnt release until 2020)
There's a scene in the abandoned apartment block were he shoots a missed shot with an AK. And they still cgi in the impact of the stray bullet around the door frame. The mini gun V van is well done to match the direction of barrels. Great movie. The rooftop fight is insane.
The reviews by audiences and critics were both literally as mid as you could get but I guess the people who liked it like the people watching this video (and myself) are just watching a different movie lol
@@Jumzaaa I really have no clue as to how someone could hate this movie, you have to at least respect its goal, and that it hit the nail on the head in that regard
"Nobody" by Naishuller is a great movie too. The Christopher Lloyd's appearance there was really just a cherry on top of all the fun idiotism that happened there. One should check this out too. As for HH, I saw it at the première and get loads of fun. It might be trippy while watching at home though.
Also, Ilya Naishuller, the director, is the guy who's band used this FPS format for two of their music videos. Biting Elbows are very rad, and even made the first song for the credits, "For The Kill". That's Ilya's voice you're hearing there.
i adore this movie. i remember seeing the behind the scenes and i was shocked to see that the posters in that one guy's apartment was fake. it just goes to show how much actual vfx was used for the movie. the minute sharlto copely had a musical number in the middle of the movie, i thought "wow...this movie really does have everything."
Hardcore Henry is beyond awesome, seeing it in a theater back in 2016 has been one of the most unique movie experiences I've ever had. Thank you for this essay!
This has to be one of my favourite action movies. It is absolutely up there with John Wick and The Raid. The team behind this is absolutely insane to have done it on so little budget as well. I wish this team got a bigger budget to make more of this.
Although this has little shelf life for me, I heartily reccomend it as a film to see before you die; incredible achievement---this is the sort of movie countless people dream of but don't think is possible. I was a kid when I fancied myself as a badass director who would make a film just like this, a POV movie that was like a first person shooter, and my mates would roll their eyes when I talked about it.
Get 4 months extra on a 2 year plan at nordvpn.com/CGY. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! I hope you guys enjoyed watching this video as much as I enjoyed researching it! It was really interesting to see just how much the GoPro affected the VFX process - Especially all the stuff to do with the camera’s lens. Overall I think this is just an absurdly underrated film, but what do you guys think?
finally someone who talks about this masterpiece of a movie. I rewatched it many, many times and i'm still amazed how they did this. The budget, the story telling, the charcter development, even the smallest details. When i rewatched the movie for the 3rd time i noticed, in the scene on rooftop, when he is in the cabin, out of nowhere he turns around to kill one guy in the window and i never knew how He knew about him until i noticed a small mirror on bottom left corner of the screen.
when you started talking about chaos i realised how much more fun are shooter games when there is chaos, you sometimes dont even understand whats happening on your screen but you still having fun
Hardcore Henry is one of my favourite action movies ever, it has that bit of flavour from the 70s and 80s of whimsical and over the top yet simple/plain plots that just allows you to enjoy them like a little kid without grinding your gears with deep and complex moralities and lessons. I just hope the whole team involved were happy and satisfied with the end product because this is just the type of movie that can only happen once, lightning in a bottle, you need passion, talent, luck and that point of recklessness only people who value the results over the means can get sometimes, i.e. the scene where they run over the bridge with 0 safety measures under them. I'd sure love to see some other good POV movies, but i doubt they'll ever happen unless the right people get together under the perfect circumstances for it again.
NGL The whole musical dance sequence with the Doctor dude is the best movie sequence of ALL TIME. It was absolutely magical to see the dude fall and another with the same exact face stand up and move from the otherside of the room, to get that so smoothly is almost impossible.
Essentially it's half video game, the "fake stitched footage" is just the same material you could use to make a game, it's the perfect solution. Make a film about a game by making a game and filming some bits to put in it, it reminded me of those old point and click adventure games where it was all using filmed footage and real live actors, it's quite cool how they pulled it off in this film.
I'll never forget the time I would always see the trailer for it during commercial break on Comedy Central. I was watching South Park at the time when this movie came up
I loved the movie my only issue with it is with all the movement sometimes things can get disorientated but that’s to be expected and you get over it pretty quickly
These were wonderful times, Russian and Hollywood artists created this wonderful work. So sad because it was a period of only 30 years. This director also shoted "Nobody"(2021) and clip Serj Tankian - Elasticity (with russian atress Aleksandra Bortich). Peace everyone.😊
Corridor Crew recently did a video on the motorcycle chase scene, pointed out how in post production they made the camera perspective adhere to the gopro style, seamless in the transitions and consistency Also the soundtrack kicks ass
One of my friends I marched drum corps with was part of the camera and visual effects crew. Everyone he drummed with over the years were so stoked when this came out.
Great video! You covered a lot of the issues and awesomeness! One comment- the text you put up for quotes from the director/vfx/stunts etc. were very fast. If you're going to use them to support your narrative give them an extra few seconds on screen so we can read them and not have to keep pausing.
The scene in the concrete, run down building where there's a shootout wiht an AK and a grenade (haven't watched since it came out) that entire scene gave me deja vu from some old YT channel from around 2010+-. I swear I've seen it before, shot by shot, long before the movie came out
Finally I see someone giving love to a such an underrated movie. For me it was beyond awesome, didn't get the chance to watch it on cinema but watched on netflix a lot of times. I follow Illia's work and he's a mastermind in his craft. He worked on "Nobody" and it was a blast of a movie, directed a the weeknd music video "false alarm" true to his style of filming. Also has a rock band. An awesome guy. Back to the film it was absurdly gruesome, extremily fun and considering the visible low budget it was incredibly well done, not to mention showcased in cinemas around the world. 100/10
I remember seeing this film and just being absolutely mesmerized by the parkour the makings of a indie Video Game that I can see in the story. The lack of dialogue executed by so much visual dialogue instead is just something we will rarely or never get anymore.
I completely forgot about this movie until I played Payday 2 and randomly had Jimmy selected as my heister. After a while of using him as my main heister I learned that his heist came with a trailer and that he was actually a crossover character from Hardcore Henry. I remember watching the movie mainly for coked up afro Jimmy, but I ended up loving the entire movie more than I thought I would. I want a 2nd movie so bad.
I still remember coming across this movie for the first time and i was so enthralled by it that i watched it again like a week later. There is just no other movie that comes even close to this
You ever enjoy a movie so much you also enjoy any video made about it? Some movies are a one and done, others you get something out of each viewing and learning how it was made is just fascinating and sometimes educational
I watched this once when it first came out and can't remember anything from it, I only remember that I loved it, when I eventually rewatch it, I'll come back to this video👍
As a vfx artist, and being a kid in highschool when it was announced, it blew me away, it definitly deserved more praise than what the critics and people have put this down for, it was so insanely amazing and a project I wish I could take on.
I had watched the original music videos so many damn times and I was so excited they were making a feature film. It was worth the wait. Still watch it now and then. Just an incredible piece of cinema. I love it. Not just incredible cinematography but the story is actually compelling and anything with Sharlto is automatically a must-see. I just thought to add. In case you're reading this and didn't know. The creator/director of this movie also directed Nobody with Bob Odenkirk. If you haven't seen that movie for some reason, go watch it now. The music videos I'm talking about are from Biting Elbows(his band). The first is "The Stampede" and the second part is "Bad Motherf***er"
I watched Hardcore Henry when it first came out, and I have never had a movie experience like it since. As a big fan of roleplay and dungeons and dragons, I love immersing myself in the story and lore of what I watch. Hardcore Henry was the first movie to which I could truly lose myself in the process of watching thanks to it's first person POV. I'm so sad this movie doesn't get the love it deserves.
Unironically Hardcore Henry is one of my favorite movies of all time. It has its flaws but when you are on its crazy rollercoaster you just enjoy its crazy ride and every second is just fun insanity. Finding out how much blood, sweat and tears went into it only makes me love it more.
Very underrated movie nobody ever wants to give it a chance cuz of the shakiness which only lasts just until the Dmitri chase. Which is only 20 mins in.
- Not Overbudget - Awesome VFX - Great Acting - Solid Story - Brutal Actions - Create something new no movies ever made Hardcore Henry is a very definition of "underrated"
This is always going to be one of my favourite movies, It just makes you want to go do some chaotic shit. It's just a fun movie, and that's all I want.
I wish there was a petition or something to get a sequel to the movie. The director already said that he is willing to make the 2nd one and I am dying to get a sequel to it. Hardcore Henry is one of my all time favorite movies because of how unique it is and how no one has done full on movie like this.
I find it interesting that the director of this movie, Ilya Naishuller, also has a band called Biting Elbows. They made the song Bad Motherfucker which appeared in a Payday 2 dlc trailer in which you could play as Jimmy, there were also a couple of heists inspired from the film called the "Hardcore Henry" heists.
Not as commited to the first person view as this, but 2 movies from the ‘90: Requiem for a handsome bastard (1992) and Yes sir, Madame (1994) have the camera as different character’s pov for most of their runtime They are amazing and dark, and aged very well imo
Hardcore henry should be regarded in the film industry as a gold standard in taking a major leap forward in a completely new way of storytelling and action. The method of first person films should be explored and perfected
Fun fact: The guy who directed Hardcore Henry, Ilya Naishuller, also directed the movie Nobody (2021) featuring Bob Odenkirk ( saul goodman from Better call saul)
Hardcore Henry is one of those goat movies. It's stupid, over the top and just downright insane but somehow manages to spin that into something great. Still one of my all time favourites
I've watched this film several times, because the film was so fun to watch. Ilya Naishuller's work is some of my favourite content, from his films to his band Biting Elbows.
Aw this is a nice love letter to all the work me and the team at zero vfx did. That said we did lose money doing the vfx for this movie. Its not easy or cheap to stitch that much gopro footage together , let alone add bullet holes , paint out crew and rigs, in like every shot. So its budget is deceiving as a few companies payed out of pocket or took reduced rates for the "cool" factor. You notice there are not many of these kind of films around
Wow - That's crazy to know. It's a real shame stuff like this always happens. I assume it was because of the "race to the bottom" VFX bidding process? It's amazing work however - thank you to all of you for all your efforts on this :)
I always loved this movie because its kind of like a found footage film in a way. Its cool to learn that nobody has ever attempted something like this since.
After all these years and me being a hardcore henry fan from day one I have to say Im suprised its only getting the attention it deserves now The movie from my POV was a blast, Something so unique I could stay and watch it for 5 more hours, In fact other than star wars it was the only movie I have rewatched so many times, All the other movies getting a oscar etc, This movie should be in its own category Im sad to wait so long for another movie, I really want to see a second version of this or a different take from a different company, I felt like I was apart of the main character the whole movie was immersed in his story his actions, While sitting, Something no other movie or series got me to feel. 1000/10 would recommend this movie, Honestly as well would want to see a massive investment to this movie genre and change everything once and for all.
This is a movie that I love but always forget about til something reminds me of it. Time to go back and watch again. It’s such a ridiculous and fun time.
