DEATH BECOMES HER Recreating Meryl BTS Special Edition

Sometimes our retrospectives have been a bit narrow in scope, so here is the first of a few "special edition" videos you'll see that will include footage not previous shown for specific projects. It also seemed appropriate to begin with our build of Meryl Streep's "headtwist" animatronic puppet from DEATH BECOMES HER as our friend, Brock Winkless, passed away recently after a battle with a long illness. Brock was instrumental in programming the lip-sync animation for this film, as well as puppeteering on other ADI projects throughout the years.

[@0megacron]

Imagine how awesome it would've been to be an F/X guy during the 1980's and 1990's. Those two decades (along with the latter years of the 1970s) are practically the Golden Age of special effects - animatronics, props, set design, model design, costume design, you name it. Fantastic industry, and great, great, totally EPIC stuff came out of it during those years.

[@cjames22dox]

Meryl Streep was actually a robot, so many questions answered

[@SincerestSawa]

Christopher Doxtator right?! how funny is that

[@TheTurkaderr]

Only a robot could have that work ethic !

[@soulwork8391]

I had no idea!!!!

[@Undefeated92]

Ernest... Erneeeeeeeest.... you pushed me down the stairs! LMAO!! Gotta love this movie. I watch it about twice a month with my mum in the livingroom after dinner, hahaha

[@FlyingV3rd]

AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

[@waymire01]

I watched this movie in the theater and have seen it multiple times on video.. I had no idea it was an animatronic.. kudos to you guys, you are amazing.

[@Panquernic]

waymire01 I think they finally went with CGI for the frontal takes, I saw it like two days ago again and seems like CGI, also because it's a long take since she gets up and walks backwards towards Bruce Willis... Still, this guys are amazing, no denying that

[@SincerestSawa]

found they used bluescreen

[@SoSoSeriousAB]

For real. The did a dang' good job👌👌👌

[@TheTurkaderr]

They ended up using cgi and blue screen because they could never get the animatronics to look realistic enough on camera. I think they made the right choice because that thing looks creepy as shit and not lifelike ( no pun intended) enough )

[@Dave-te5bs]

@@Panquernic it was used for back takes. Like when Bruce screams and ran away from her

[@Knightess]

That was both incredibly awesome and incredibly creepy!

[@andrewtodaro2874]

You bet it’s creepy, it’s a perfect example of what Freud calls The Uncanny! Something that looks human but isn’t.

[@magica1355]

This is actually insane for the time. Well done!

[@DoktorHenkenstein]

the animatronic head can speak,looks hyper realistic! great artwork!

[@doncotton]

Wow! My all time favourite movie. Thank you so much for uploading this, there's so little behind the scenes footage out there for this gem. I've seen a couple of stills and a few short clips of this particular animatronic, but never this much. So good to still be surprised by new video material 24 years after the movie was released. And you even get a short glimpse at the Goldie animatronic with the hole in stomach. Stellar work on both of them. The CG, practical and animatronic special effects work was rightfully awarded an Oscar back in the day, and it has aged so well and still manages to impress, even by today's standards. Many thanks again for sharing this!

[@jessmontes8129]

Earnest You pushed me down the Stairs. LOL!

[@FlyingV3rd]

AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

[@marlonnartea7825]

freakin love this movie, its creepy especially the floating nuns but at the same time the movie is sending a message about life not to mess with it

[@amazedathai]

Hnl

[@Constavlos]

That nun part i never understood what that was all about?

[@ysabellabrave]

Same here, it seemed to differ from the theme - even the DR suddenly dying/heart attack in the same part - I felt I was 'missing something'. I chalked it up to Willis' character being overwhelmed, maybe even an idea of an influence of 'normal' things: death, mourning, religion as the movie deals a lot with the idea of The Natural Law being 'screwed up'. Who knows?

[@JadeEyes1]

Constavlos Originally, when Ernest entered the morgue, the body of a priest was going to roll out on one of the slabs and interrupt him looking for Madeline. The nuns were probably supposed to be there to identify him (they just made them look creepy for that extra weird touch).

[@jimmbobb]

Yeah there nun part was weird and random.

[@TomRipley7350]

"You're in the shit house now, pal!"

[@ameliacatlover1985]

Tom Ripley that's one of my favorite lines

[@jessmontes8129]

Bwahahahaha!

[@Danoneeno]

Oh, that's one of my favourite movie! I thought that that part was the real actress with some montage magic, I would never guess it was an animatronic puppet!

[@Minuet888]

+HumbleRumble itwasn't they went with cgi for the final production

[@UmiDelMare]

the animatronic is still visible here and there though :D

[@leejones8582]

@@UmiDelMare In the long shots it is still visible

[@nellyluscious]

One of my favorite movies of all times!

[@blackamericanlesbianprofes4357]

One of my favorite movies since I was a child (I am age 32 going on 33 this year)! So cool to see the animatonics. Thank you for posting. :)

[@SoSoSeriousAB]

This movie is definitely legendary. The craft behind it is empicable.💛💛💛

[@FlyingMonkey3115]

Those 26 dislikes were the people at Ernest's funeral.

[@TheGreekPianist]

Wow I didn’t know they had to go through all that trouble! I heard they eventually resorted to CGI because the animatronics were too obvious in the film. The movie won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects!

[@Dave-te5bs]

It was used when Strep’s back was turned

[@ChistopherMoonlight]

...and that's how you win a #Oscar .

[@andrewtodaro2874]

Shame they didn't use this animatronic in the final cut, This would have been creepy as fuck, having an inanimate object move and walk up to you and talk to you. Seeing it in action it genuinely looks like a walking dead entity.

[@cushe83]

They did use it for behind shots

[@RebirthOfMercyakaROM]

Aaaaaamazing work, just the detail alone... astounding. Now I really cannot wait to see the Scream Factory blu-ray of this horror classic!!! Studio ADI are the best there is. #screamfactory

[@ameliacatlover1985]

this is one of my favorite Meryl Streep movies I literally just got done watching it... This is an awesome Recreation

[@Mzmissy215]

Amelia Smith really? I figuratively just got done watching it 😌

[@maxkim7352]

Love this movie!! Didn't know this much work though. Great works guys!!!!!!

[@quintonthevillain2745]

Damn, this shit is eerie... then again so was the movie.

[@scouser2010ify]

I thought it was just done in post production in editing I never would of guessed it was a robot good job

[@Deva7]

When Meryl dies, her relatives can have this, so she stays with them forever!

[@HjCrawford]

Lol yeah, that wouldnt be creepy at all 😂😂

[@Kiki-qh1vu]

Kinda dark

[@TheGreekPianist]

Or they can just rewatch movies of hers....lol.

[@Joshua-dc1bs]

😰

[@AllanFWalker]

Eeeernest...

[@eddystronger]

Haven't seen this backstage before! This is Awesome!!! I love this movie.

[@jimmbobb]

What a fun job!!!

[@dtw4437]

Absolutely amazing.

[@jaymiemcgregor9057]

brillant film ❤☘🍀❤

[@ThatsJustMyBabyDaddy]

Crazy that this movie ever got made. 😍

[@thedarksiderebel]

i'd love to see a full graded version of this scene with the animatronic as comparison.

[@NOTRUMPZONE]

this is so F'n cool!!!!

[@dusterdude238]

AMAZING! have always wondered how they did some of the broken neck effects :)

[@SincerestSawa]

wow amazing, sorry to hear mr winkless passed, he did some amazing work

[@Jude300c]

Thats just amazing!

[@lukasmunk5915]

Incredible!

[@Forever_OctobersJ]

This is amazing

[@celadaly7247]

I love it it's the best movie ever & who's watching in 2016

[@JUNGEUISOON]

92년의 헐리우드 특수효과 기술.정말 대단해요!!!

[@ajimachmudi1717]

I watched this movie when i was in elementary school and it was 10 years ago...

[@ozgeozge09]

Wow such a hard work 👏

[@leejones8582]

Wow it looks great

[@Moyet]

Das ist sooooo gruselig!

[@bebo632005]

0:59..... AHHHHHHH!!!!

[@SMMikey]

This is fascinating--and sobering. Unless I'm mistaken, 95% of what they're working on was scrapped and replaced by CGI. All of the Boop-Boop-Boops were wasted time as none of the robot lip syncing made it into the final film. The big question is: What happened to all of those artificial Meryls?

[@leejones8582]

They used CGI for the close ups but in some shots you can see the puppet still

[@tonystark559]

They live among us now disguised as normal humans

[@user-eo3kd5sj6k]

became Sophia, the artificial intelligence robot.

[@Cami-dc9iu]

@@user-eo3kd5sj6k that came to my mind Ngl 🤣

[@not_enoughmana]

So this is how she films 5 movies simultaneously... 🤔😂

[@ZeldasFinalFantasy]

Creepy but amazing!

[@bettydubose]

Genius!

[@perxky6132]

Great work

[@fromthetower3]

Kind of wish they used more of the animatronics, even if it didn’t look as realistic it would have given it a creepier atmosphere in a The Thing kind of way.

[@pedrobakale7180]

love will lead to the most precious shadow

[@jeeess9979]

omg I only noticed that their eyes were brighter and thought maybe they had contacts in these scenes. NEVER imagined this was going on lol

[@HuggyBear2000]

Still think they don’t have body doubles guys?

[@ladysnake8449]

Amazing but disturbing at the same time!

[@ibmsst]

00:53 lol I love how she yells at him throughout the whole movie. lol

[@tonystark559]

What a funny is Sophie was only made today. When the world already has androids living among us. This was way ahead of its time. We have been decisbes

[@court18]

Wait! So Meryl Streep was a robot? Wow, I just watches this movie recently and I couldn't tell wow!

[@Maddie-jb7bb]

Rainbow_Cat ik I’m late, but they actually didn’t use the robot in the end, Meryl did the acting backwards in a blue mask and they overlapped her face onto it. A shame they didn’t!

[@nambypamby2147]

@@Maddie-jb7bb They did use it... just not from head-on. They couldn't CGI her from over the shoulder camera angels, so it was a mix between robot and CGI.

[@iLikeTheUDK]

That weird chin-mointed contraption for controlling the mouth movement - Would mocap be used nowadays instead for animatronics too?

[@Clay3613]

They still covered most of this up with visual effects and motion control though. :\

[@ysabellabrave]

Yeah - there's nothing like practical effects!

[@kazaloolovesgames]

The made the right decision when they ended up mostly using CGI. The puppet doesn't have enough facial articulation.

[@tedjon4966]

The 2nd AI in movies for me back in the day , but these two AI’s robots went undetected. I saw the making of death becomes her on ET. My first AI robot experience was in an 80s movie I think named , deadly friend, when I girl was an AI and then Short circuit.

[@ithoughtthlovewasinthedrug4601]

Fucking fantastic man Jesus....

[@frozenwarning]

She’s kind of amazing I mean it doesn’t seem that far behind from what people are doing today with robot

[@themrsawyermonster]

hey studioADI I was wondering how do you get all of this footage to show on your channel?

[@ChistopherMoonlight]

themrsawyermonster They're the ones who create it. Check out www.studioadi.com to learn more about them.

[@themrsawyermonster]

Christopher Moonlight oh thank you!

[@HilaryoftheHood]

😍😍😍

[@TayWoode]

5:10 was there any need for that trumpet?!! My ears 😱😊

[@KnicolewithaK]

Excellent choice to not use animatronics and go with makeup, blue screen and CGI. The end results was something that has never been done and a dope AF movie. Feel bad though for all the engineers. Hopefully they used that robot on another movie.

[@dogthedoo]

So, I am guessing that they didn't end up using this animatronic for the speech parts in the final film? Mery's face in this scene in the film is definitely not animatronic. The animatronic is impressive but it seems like a really over-complicated way to do this effect.

[@rieriec.36]

This was in the 90s slick...not like it is now

[@seanpeterson9649]

wait I thought they used a green screen on her face for that scene. not a model. How did they make it so real? or did they put her face on it using cgi? then why did they need the face movements?

[@rubydarling7564]

So this was their original idea for how they were going to do the effect. But once they put the animatronic on set and did a few shots, they decided that it looked too obvious and not good enough... So then, they later experimented with blue screen and CGI and ended up going with that instead.... However in certain shots where you don't see Meryl Streep face, they still used shots with the animatronic

[@roudyorange]

That was so creepy i am dead 😂

[@icantakeit]

The creepiest part has finally revealed 😱😲😰😧😨😭

[@kkain123]

Ernest.....Ernest! lol

[@TheGekijouban]

Very scary

[@user-eo3kd5sj6k]

Early Sophia, the robot.

[@AndrewPRoberts]

That's creepy as fuck

[@sonercakld4714]

Adamların 90lı senelerde ulaştıkları teknolojiye bak vah ülkem vah diyesi geliyo insanın

[@sp2435]

Now a warning!

[@FlyingV3rd]

AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

[@mamieiffel9346]

Terjawab sudah pertanyaanku selama puluhan tahun.

[@erichill2690]

I read that they had to jettison these and use CGI

[@LoveDoctorNL]

All that work for it to NOT be in the movie!

[@Moon-ge8mc]

was thinking the same

[@mitsukami]

01:00 Meryl Screep 😂😂😂.

[@saratotaro1389]

Gli americani sono il popolo più super del mondo♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[@THE_GLAMOROUS_VISUAL]

😲😲😲😲😲

[@harold_excalibur]

The effort and talent. Considering this is 30 years ago. Wow. Today's cheap looking cgi could never

[@DannyTVoriginal]

you cant recreate meryl.......nothing can be as good😂

[@kiahjones1746]

So creepy

[@norijean3279]

Too bad the upper face didn't move at all, kind of ruined the effect.

[@moonboy2795]

That looks so fake!

[@GuildOfTheBlackCrow]

This doesn't look that great tbh. She's shouting, but her lips are whispering.

[@SarahConnor-nj7pq]

All this time I thought it was blue screen.