10 Bizarre Ways Directors Tricked Audiences
From bearded ladies to chocolate syrup.
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00:00Cinema is all an illusion, actors are playing a part to locations fabricated, and dialogue is
00:06written to sound snappy and engaging. When the illusion works, it can result in truly immersive
00:11and deeply engaging experiences that allow you to suspend the tedium of modern life.
00:17But it takes more than just great writing and direction to transport an audience to
00:21fantastical worlds of imagination. Practical effects, in-camera tricks,
00:26and various other techniques are all used to fool audiences into believing what they're seeing
00:31is real. I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are 10 Bizarre Ways Directors Tricked Audiences.
00:38Number 10. Under the Shape of Water. The Shape of Water. Director Guillermo del Toro is known
00:44for favoring practical effects and elaborate set designs over the use of CGI. His approach
00:49to filming the 2017 romantic fantasy The Shape of Water was no exception. The film opens with
00:56a wonderfully hypnotic camera move that glides through a subterranean apartment, submerged
01:01beneath the ocean. Sea animals swim throughout a collection of furniture, floating in the tranquil
01:06aquatic environment. The effect is dream-like and highly convincing. Immediately, one would
01:12think this could only be achieved through the use of highly sophisticated CGI. In reality,
01:18it was all a physical set. All the household objects were suspended by a system of pulleys,
01:24which could be manipulated to give the appearance the objects were floating. The illusion of
01:29rippling water was achieved by casting light at different intensities through various thicknesses
01:34of smoke. The pulley lines were then removed in post-production, and after a nifty bit of
01:39color correction, the illusion was complete. Number nine. Looks Awfully Cold for Vietnam.
01:45Full Metal Jacket
01:47Stanley Kubrick was a filmmaker unshackled by genre and was able to tackle a range of themes
01:52and styles with equal efficiency. But he was known as something of a difficult director.
01:58One of his most intriguing eccentricities was his unwillingness to travel. Disliking Los Angeles and
02:04favoring London over New York, Kubrick spent the latter part of his career in England, where he
02:09could make movies close to his home. This posed some difficulties when it came to filming his
02:14Vietnam War movie, Full Metal Jacket. Transforming areas of London to appear like Southeast Asia was
02:21no easy task, and required extensive and highly detailed sets, with hundreds of imported palm
02:27trees and other tropical plants. But there was another unforeseen issue that required a bizarre
02:33solution. Much of the filming took place in the winter months. The actors became so cold that
02:39their breath was visible on camera. To counter this, Kubrick had an array of giant heaters
02:44positioned just off screen, to blast hot air at the faces of Matthew Modine and Adam Baldwin.
02:51Although it worked for the most part, there are several moments where you can still see
02:56Cowboy's breath. Number eight. Dancing on the Ceiling, Inception. Christopher Nolan's movies
03:02often come with a fair amount of mind-boggling concepts, whether that be narrative twists,
03:08ambiguous plot points, or his use of visual trickery. At one point, the Inception crew are
03:13shown fleeing in a van while Arthur is unconscious. The van crashes and flips, which causes the dream
03:19world to start rotating. Arthur is then forced to duke it out with a bunch of dream henchmen in a
03:25spinning hallway. In order to create this effect in camera, Nolan got his production team to
03:32construct 100 feet of hallway suspended inside a giant spinning rig, with a camera attached to
03:38the floor. As the rig spanned, the actors were forced to move from the floor to the wall to
03:43the ceiling, creating the illusion that gravity was being manipulated. Number seven. I Drink Your
03:50Milkshake, There Will Be Blood. There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece of scriptwriting, acting,
03:55and set design. It's perhaps one of Daniel Day-Lewis' most iconic roles, and includes a
04:01remarkable amount of quotable lines. But the I Drink Your Milkshake line has far more significance
04:06than one might think. Multiple scenes involved the characters being drenched in viscous oil.
04:12For obvious reasons, the filmmakers couldn't use actual oil. Not only could it be potentially
04:17harmful to have actors covered in the liquid, but not even an artistic endeavor such as this
04:22was worth wasting gallons of the precious fuel. So what did they use as a substitute?
04:27Paul Thomas Anderson revealed it was the same stuff they put in chocolate milkshakes at
04:32McDonald's. Gallons of chocolate syrup were used as a base to make the sticky, thick liquid.
04:38Depending on the scene, different formulas were concocted with varying consistencies.
04:43Shots of the oil spraying into the air used a fairly watered-down formula,
04:48whereas a thicker concoction was used when the actors required a good drenching. Number six.
04:53The actors weren't always acting. Platoon. Oliver Stone's Platoon was hailed for its
04:59harrowingly realistic depiction of the Vietnam War. The film captures the desperate struggle
05:04of young men wrestling with the notions of lost innocence, humanity, and moral ambiguity in a
05:10most inhuman environment. To get the group of actors ready, Stone put them through a rigorous
05:16boot camp that lasted several weeks. During that time, they were tasked with digging foxholes,
05:22sleeping in the jungle, being subjected to night ambushes, and surviving on army rations.
05:28Not only did this create a sense of camaraderie among the cast, it gave them an insight into the
05:33experience of the soldiers they would portray. But towards the end of this boot camp, Stone played a
05:38pretty ruthless trick on his actors. The cast was given a bunch of coconut moonshine to celebrate
05:44the end of their ordeal. They all got stinking drunk in the jungle, with the understanding that
05:49the next day they'd be taken to a hotel to recoup before the shoot began. The next morning, Stone had
05:56his exhausted and boo-soaked actors taken further into the jungle, where they spent the whole day
06:01filming marching scenes. Throughout the movie, the Platoon is shown slogging it through the jungle,
06:07exhausted, covered in sweat, and generally miserable. But that wasn't acting. In reality,
06:13they were all just hungover as hell. Number five. The Lord of the Forced Perspective.
06:18The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a landmark in the history
06:23of cinema. Not only did it change how the fantasy genre was regarded, but it made leaps in filming
06:29techniques, both in terms of CGI and practical effects. With dwarves and hobbits sharing the
06:35screen with elves, men, and orcs, conveying scale was exceedingly important. Shots that didn't require
06:41close-ups often utilized the help of scale doubles, but several more intimate scenes required characters
06:47like Frodo and Gandalf to be shown together. Jackson used an in-camera technique known as
06:53forced perspective to sell the illusion. If Gandalf and Frodo had a scene where they sat
06:58opposite each other, Wood would be positioned further away from the camera and McKellen would
07:03be closer. The actors would be given props according to their size. Some would be larger
07:08in scale and others smaller. Providing the camera was positioned correctly, this would have the
07:13effect of making the characters appear as if they were different sizes. But as soon as the camera
07:18moved, the illusion would fall apart. The production team therefore devised a motion control rig which
07:24allowed them to pan the camera while also moving the actors on a dolly and maintaining the sense
07:30of scale. 4. Oliver Reed didn't film his final scene. Gladiator. Oliver Reed was one of the
07:37greatest British actors of his generation. His overtly macho and domineering presence on camera
07:43made him obscenely watchable in any role, but one of his greatest performances was also his last.
07:49Partway through the production of Ridley Scott's epic Gladiator, Reed died. Throughout his career,
07:55he'd been known as something of a hellraiser, and after taking part in a drinking competition
07:59with a bunch of Royal Navy sailors, five of whom he beat in an arm wrestling contest,
08:04Reed suffered a heart attack. Rather than recasting the character, Scott made the decision
08:09to use a combination of body doubles and a three-dimensional CGI mask of Reed's face to
08:15complete his movie. Proximo's final scenes were mostly rewritten to utilize previously recorded
08:21but unused lines of dialogue from rehearsals. The final results are almost unnoticeable in the movie.
08:27Considering this was done at a time where this kind of technology was still in its infancy,
08:32it's one impressive achievement. 3. The Lord of the Old Texas Switch. Return of the King.
08:39Peter Jackson had many ways to fool his audience into believing his Hobbit actors were the size of
08:44children. One of the most effective methods was by utilizing a very simple trick known as the
08:50Texas Switch. This technique was usually used to trick an audience into thinking a character is
08:54performing an impressive stunt. By using camera blocking, a stunt performer is switched out with
09:00the main actor, without the need to cut the shot. Peter Jackson used this same technique when it
09:05came to selling the idea of scale. In Return of the King, Denethor hurls Pippin from the houses
09:10of the dead when he attends to burn Faramir. Pippin is shown from behind as Denethor grasps
09:16and throws him. He then rolls out of frame to re-emerge, facing the camera. A scale double
09:21was used for the first half of the shot, and Billy Boyd was given the direction to pop into frame
09:26when his double rolled onto his back. If you watch closely, you can see the exact moment where this
09:32happens. Number 2. Giant LED Screens. The Mandalorian. Since the early days of filmmaking,
09:39directors have had the task of depicting environments that simply don't exist. With a
09:44franchise like Star Wars, creating the fantastical worlds of galaxies far, far away has been essential
09:50in telling the stories. But obviously, production crews don't have the luxury of shooting on location
09:56in an alien environment. In the past, a combination of physical sets and CGI-generated
10:02backgrounds have been used to depict the many worlds in the story. With The Mandalorian,
10:07everything changed. Rather than having actors working in a green-screen environment,
10:12the production crew used huge LED screens standing 21 feet high and 75 feet in diameter
10:19in an enclosed indoor space. It's a similar concept to the projection technology used in
10:25the Golden Era of Hollywood. However, the LED screens are able to generate an almost 3D-looking
10:31environment, which not only can be captured on camera, but also allows for an actor to be lit
10:36by their surroundings. Number 1. The Return of the Bearded Ladies. Some of the most memorable
10:42moments in Peter Jackson, yes he's back again, Lord of the Rings trilogy, were the huge battle
10:47sequences during the War of the Ring. CGI had reached a point where thousands of individuals
10:53could be depicted on screen, in wide-sweeping shots that showed the sheer scale of the events.
10:58No other moment was as awe-inspiring as the Charge of the Rohirrim during the Siege of Minas
11:04Tereth. Although many of the sequences required the use of CGI, Jackson still wanted to capture
11:10as many live-action shots as possible. In an instance of life-imitating art, a call was put
11:15out across New Zealand, summoning every able-bodied horse rider to muster outside the town of Twizzle
11:21and take part in the scene. Initially, around 250 riders showed up, but over time, many had
11:28to depart due to other commitments. The production was left with around 150 riders who appeared in
11:34the final film. However, many of the riders were actually women. Every day before shooting,
11:40they'd be fitted with costumes, which included false beards to disguise them as warriors of Rohan.
11:46That's the end of our list, but let me know down in the comments if you can think of any
11:50other bizarre ways directors tricked audiences. As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture. Thank
11:56you so much for hanging out with me. If you're liking, come say hi to me on my Twitter account,
12:00where I'm at jessmcdonnell. But make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great lists.