From bearded ladies to chocolate syrup.
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00:00 Cinema is all an illusion, actors are playing a part to locations fabricated, and dialogue
00:05 is written to sound snappy and engaging.
00:08 When the illusion works, it can result in truly immersive and deeply engaging experiences
00:13 that allow you to suspend the tedium of modern life.
00:17 But it takes more than just great writing and direction to transport an audience to
00:21 fantastical worlds of imagination.
00:24 Practical effects, in-camera tricks, and various other techniques are all used to fool audiences
00:29 into believing what they're seeing is real.
00:32 I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are 10 bizarre ways directors tricked audiences.
00:38 10.
00:39 Under the Shape of Water - The Shape of Water
00:42 Director Guillermo del Toro is known for favoring practical effects and elaborate set designs
00:46 over the use of CGI.
00:49 His approach to filming the 2017 romantic fantasy The Shape of Water was no exception.
00:55 The film opens with a wonderfully hypnotic camera move that glides through a subterranean
00:59 apartment, submerged beneath the ocean.
01:02 Sea animals swim throughout a collection of furniture, floating in the tranquil aquatic
01:07 environment.
01:08 The effect is dreamlike and highly convincing.
01:11 Immediately, one would think this could only be achieved through the use of highly sophisticated
01:16 CGI.
01:17 In reality, it was all a physical set.
01:21 All the household objects were suspended by a system of pulleys, which could be manipulated
01:25 to give the appearance the objects were floating.
01:28 The illusion of rippling water was achieved by casting light at different intensities
01:33 through various thicknesses of smoke.
01:35 The pulley lines were then removed in post-production and after a nifty bit of color correction,
01:40 the illusion was complete.
01:42 9.
01:43 Looks Awfully Cold for Vietnam - Full Metal Jacket
01:47 Stanley Kubrick was a filmmaker unshackled by genre and was able to tackle a range of
01:52 themes and styles with equal efficiency.
01:55 But he was known as something of a difficult director.
01:58 One of his most intriguing eccentricities was his unwillingness to travel.
02:03 Disliking Los Angeles and favoring London over New York, Kubrick spent the latter part
02:07 of his career in England, where he could make movies close to his home.
02:11 This posed some difficulties when it came to filming his Vietnam War movie, Full Metal
02:16 Jacket.
02:17 Transforming areas of London to appear like Southeast Asia was no easy task, and required
02:23 extensive and highly detailed sets, with hundreds of imported palm trees and other tropical
02:29 plants.
02:30 But there was another unforeseen issue that required a bizarre solution.
02:34 Much of the filming took place in the winter months.
02:37 The actors became so cold that their breath was visible on camera.
02:41 To counter this, Kubrick had an array of giant heaters positioned just off-screen, to blast
02:47 hot air at the faces of Matthew Modine and Adam Baldwin.
02:51 Although it worked for the most part, there are several moments where you can still see
02:55 Cowboy's breath.
02:57 8.
02:58 Dancing on the Ceiling - Inception
03:01 Christopher Nolan's movies often come with a fair amount of mind-boggling concepts, whether
03:06 that be narrative twists, ambiguous plot points, or his use of visual trickery.
03:11 At one point, the Inception crew are shown fleeing in a van while Arthur is unconscious.
03:17 The van crashes and flips, which causes the dream world to start rotating.
03:22 Arthur is then forced to duke it out with a bunch of dream henchmen in a spinning hallway.
03:27 In order to create this effect in-camera, Nolan got his production team to construct
03:32 100 feet of hallway suspended inside a giant spinning rig, with a camera attached to the
03:38 floor.
03:39 As the rig spanned, the actors were forced to move from the floor to the wall to the
03:43 ceiling, creating the illusion that gravity was being manipulated.
03:48 7.
03:49 I Drink Your Milkshake - There Will Be Blood
03:51 There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece of scriptwriting, acting, and set design.
03:56 It's perhaps one of Daniel Day-Lewis' most iconic roles, and includes a remarkable amount
04:02 of quotable lines.
04:03 But the "I drink your milkshake" line has far more significance than one might think.
04:08 Multiple scenes involved the characters being drenched in viscous oil.
04:11 For obvious reasons, the filmmakers couldn't use actual oil.
04:15 Not only could it be potentially harmful to have actors covered in the liquid, but not
04:19 even an artistic endeavor such as this was worth wasting gallons of the precious fuel.
04:25 So what did they use as a substitute?
04:27 Paul Thomas Anderson revealed it was the same stuff they put in chocolate milkshakes at
04:32 McDonald's.
04:34 Gallons of chocolate syrup were used as a base to make the sticky, thick liquid.
04:38 Depending on the scene, different formulas were concocted with varying consistencies.
04:43 Shots of the oil spraying into the air used a fairly watered-down formula, whereas a thicker
04:48 concoction was used when the actors required a good drenching.
04:52 6.
04:53 The actors weren't always acting - Platoon Oliver Stone's Platoon was hailed for its
04:59 harrowingly realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.
05:02 The film captures the desperate struggle of young men wrestling with the notions of lost
05:07 innocence, humanity, and moral ambiguity in a most inhuman environment.
05:12 To get the group of actors ready, Stone put them through a rigorous boot camp that lasted
05:17 several weeks.
05:19 During that time, they were tasked with digging foxholes, sleeping in the jungle, being subjected
05:24 to night ambushes, and surviving on army rations.
05:28 Not only did this create a sense of camaraderie among the cast, it gave them an insight into
05:32 the experience of the soldiers they would portray.
05:36 But towards the end of this boot camp, Stone played a pretty ruthless trick on his actors.
05:41 The cast was given a bunch of coconut moonshine to celebrate the end of their ordeal.
05:46 They all got stinking drunk in the jungle with the understanding that the next day they'd
05:50 be taken to a hotel to recoup before the shoot began.
05:54 The next morning, Stone had his exhausted and boo-soaked actors taken further into the
05:59 jungle, where they spent the whole day filming marching scenes.
06:03 Throughout the movie, the Platoon is shown slogging it through the jungle, exhausted,
06:07 covered in sweat, and generally miserable.
06:10 But that wasn't acting - in reality, they were all just hungover as hell.
06:15 5.
06:16 The Lord of the Forced Perspective - The Lord of the Rings
06:19 Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a landmark in the history of cinema.
06:24 Not only did it change how the fantasy genre was regarded, but it made leaps in filming
06:29 techniques, both in terms of CGI and practical effects.
06:33 With dwarves and hobbits sharing the screen with elves, men, and orcs, conveying scale
06:38 was exceedingly important.
06:40 Shots that didn't require close-ups often utilized the help of scale doubles, but several
06:45 more intimate scenes required characters like Frodo and Gandalf to be shown together.
06:50 Jackson used an in-camera technique known as "forced perspective" to sell the illusion.
06:56 If Gandalf and Frodo had a scene where they sat opposite each other, Wood would be positioned
07:00 further away from the camera and McKellen would be closer.
07:04 The actors would be given props according to their size - some would be larger in scale
07:08 and others smaller.
07:10 Providing the camera was positioned correctly, this would have the effect of making the characters
07:14 appear as if they were different sizes.
07:17 But as soon as the camera moved, the illusion would fall apart.
07:21 The production team therefore devised a motion-control rig which allowed them to pan the camera while
07:26 also moving the actors on a dolly and maintaining the sense of scale.
07:31 4.
07:32 Oliver Reed didn't film his final scene - Gladiator
07:35 Oliver Reed was one of the greatest British actors of his generation.
07:40 His overtly macho and domineering presence on camera made him obscenely watchable in
07:44 any role, but one of his greatest performances was also his last.
07:49 Partway through the production of Ridley Scott's epic Gladiator, Reed died.
07:54 Throughout his career, he'd been known as something of a hellraiser, and after taking
07:57 part in a drinking competition with a bunch of Royal Navy sailors - five of whom he beat
08:02 in an arm wrestling contest - Reed suffered a heart attack.
08:06 Rather than recasting the character, Scott made the decision to use a combination of
08:10 body doubles and a three-dimensional CGI mask of Reed's face to complete his movie.
08:16 Proximo's final scenes were mostly rewritten to utilise previously recorded but unused
08:22 lines of dialogue from rehearsals.
08:24 The final results are almost unnoticeable in the movie.
08:27 Considering this was done at a time where this kind of technology was still in its infancy,
08:32 it's one impressive achievement.
08:34 3.
08:35 The Lord of the Old Texas Switch - Return of the King
08:38 Peter Jackson had many ways to fool his audience into believing his Hobbit actors were the
08:43 size of children.
08:45 One of the most effective methods was by utilising a very simple trick known as the "Texas Switch."
08:51 This technique was usually used to trick an audience into thinking a character is performing
08:55 an impressive stunt.
08:56 By using camera blocking, a stunt performer is switched out with the main actor, without
09:01 the need to cut the shot.
09:02 Peter Jackson used this same technique when it came to selling the idea of scale.
09:07 In Return of the King, Denethor hurls Pippin from the houses of the dead when he attends
09:11 to burn Faramir.
09:13 Pippin is shown from behind as Denethor grasps and throws him.
09:17 He then rolls out of frame to re-emerge, facing the camera.
09:20 A scale double was used for the first half of the shot, and Billy Boyd was given the
09:24 direction to pop into frame when his double rolled onto his back.
09:28 If you watch closely, you can see the exact moment where this happens.
09:33 Number 2.
09:34 Giant LED Screens - The Mandalorian
09:37 Since the early days of filmmaking, directors have had the task of depicting environments
09:42 that simply don't exist.
09:44 With a franchise like Star Wars, creating the fantastical worlds of galaxies far, far
09:49 away has been essential in telling the stories.
09:52 But obviously, production crews don't have the luxury of shooting on location in an alien
09:57 environment.
09:58 In the past, a combination of physical sets and CGI-generated backgrounds have been used
10:03 to depict the many worlds in the story.
10:05 With The Mandalorian, everything changed.
10:08 Rather than having actors working in a green-screen environment, the production crew used huge
10:13 LED screens standing 21 feet high and 75 feet in diameter in an enclosed indoor space.
10:22 It's a similar concept to the projection technology used in the Golden Era of Hollywood.
10:26 However, the LED screens are able to generate an almost 3D-looking environment, which not
10:32 only can be captured on camera, but also allows for an actor to be lit by their surroundings.
10:38 Number 1.
10:39 The Return of the Bearded Ladies
10:41 Some of the most memorable moments in Peter Jackson's (yes, he's back again) Lord of
10:45 the Rings trilogy were the huge battle sequences during the War of the Ring.
10:49 CGI had reached a point where thousands of individuals could be depicted on screen, in
10:54 wide-sweeping shots that showed the sheer scale of the events.
10:58 No other moment was as awe-inspiring as the Charge of the Rohirrim during the Siege of
11:03 Minas Tereth.
11:05 Although many of the sequences required the use of CGI, Jackson still wanted to capture
11:09 as many live-action shots as possible.
11:12 In an instance of life-imitating art, a call was put out across New Zealand, summoning
11:17 every able-bodied horse rider to muster outside the town of Twizzle and take part in the scene.
11:23 Initially, around 250 riders showed up, but over time, many had to depart due to other
11:30 commitments.
11:31 The production was left with around 150 riders who appeared in the final film.
11:35 However, many of the riders were actually women.
11:39 Every day before shooting, they'd be fitted with costumes, which included false beards
11:43 to disguise them as warriors of Rohan.
11:45 That's the end of our list, but let me know down in the comments if you can think of any
11:49 other bizarre ways directors tricked audiences.
11:53 As always, I'm Jess from WhatCulture, thanks for hanging out with me.
11:58 If you're liking, come say hi to me on my Twitter account @JessMcDonald, but make sure
12:02 you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great lists.