This Invention Made Disney MILLIONS, but Then They LOST It!

[@RustyGellerSteadicam]

I was one of the last people at Disney to use the Sodium Vapor light system. It was on "Something Wicked This Way Comes" in 1982 or 3. I was an vfx AC at the studio. The prisim was held under license from Rank. It was a hallowed object. It was kept in a steel box and it was studio policy that 2 AC's had to be with it at all times when it was removed from the storage locker. We both carried it to the stage, then carefully inserted it into the 2-strip camera. It was never left alone on stage, we took turns leaving for lunch, the john, etc. It hadn't been used for years but we had a series of tough matte jobs to shoot so they dusted off the old gear. I was aware I was watching a bit of history. The key was the didymium filter in the prism. That thing has to be around somewhere. Technically, Rank would still own it.

[@adamhock8801]

Wow, thank you for the utterly fascinating info about the wild life that crystal has had.

[@slampest]

Woha interesting!

[@topio]

Who is/was Rank?

[@panicraptor2837]

@@topio developed in England by the J. Arthur Rank Organization

[@richardemerson8075]

Super cool story!!

[@Nighthawkinlight]

FYI, your sodium lamps should be upsidedown or sideways for longevity. If you have the electrodes on the bottom they'll get dripped on by sodium which will eventually cause the bulb to fail. If used properly LPS bulbs will last pretty much forever. This is a very clever technique. Well done

[@BrandanLee]

G&E Wizard Wisdom.

[@robertheinrich2994]

I remember, they were present pretty much everywhere. tunnels, street lights, etc. they were pretty long lasting and surprisingly efficient. you get just one wavelength, but that with a very high output, illuminating a large area.

[@nj1255]

@@robertheinrich2994 Last time I saw one used outside here in Sweden was when I was a kid in the early 00's. It was in a pedestrian tunnel under a road, and I remember it was always so trippy walking through that tunnel. Everything looked black and white (or rather black and yellow).

[@hoon_sol]

@@robertheinrich2994: Those lights were so warm and comfortable (not thermally, but emotionally), real shame they stopped using them much.

[@PJ-oe6eu]

​@@hoon_sol For me those lights remind me of cold sketchy places, and stinky bathrooms so that "junkies have a harder time finding a vein"

[@lukegordonharris]

Just want to point out for people who don't know, Paul Debevec is one of the researchers responsible for a whole bunch of modern VFX techniques, just check out his resume and website, it's like reading through the origin story of most of what we use today.

[@HelamanGile]

Yep he is awesome learned about him In film School

[@LuisSierra42]

He's been in Corridor before

[@vke6077]

what an amazing man

[@GoblinAU]

I spent many hours playing with that Rendering With Natural Light demo back in 1998 and had no idea Paul Debevec was behind it. Great stuff.

[@KategariYami]

Oh, well met Luke

[@patrickvalentino600]

Niko, I've been watching CC videos for years as a non-filmmaker who is intrigued by the craft of filmmaking. Everyone on the videos seems very intelligent, curious, and skilled, but you always stood out as having that little extra curiosity, knowledge, and desire to try to realize an effect or technique as best you can, and so I'm very happy to see you have gotten a sandbox to geek out and explore. keep it up!

[@kyoopihd]

You know, despite the fact that you guys have simply re-created something that was invented more than half of a century ago, it really feels like new ground was broken here for some reason. Kinda gives me that real heart uplifting feeling watching this. Loved it!

[@deadplthebadass21]

Well if you think about it, they did, like they said the other one was hard to recreate and it only had three, this one is easier to recreate, if you ask me I think that's pretty special

[@HerbaMachina]

​@@deadplthebadass21they could have just done a very similar thing to what they did here back then too, the whole custom diffraction crystal was overkill in the first place. It's really just the difference between operating budgets and how far money could really go back then.

[@KironX1]

We still can’t replicate some of the stuff divinci made so…

[@JohanMemoris]

​@@KironX1but they already replicate it, just have to share it lol

[@JinKee]

@@deadplthebadass21and it is better because you can use different band pass filters to choose other colors and use lasers to illuminate the backdrop

[@aycoded7840]

Award for the least clickbait video with the most clickbait title. This is so cool.

[@St4rdog]

Ignored this video in my feed for 6 days because I thought it was clickbait.

[@TheBanancer]

@@St4rdog same

[@vintage-radio]

​@@St4rdogI ignored it because I had smth else to do, and then i forgot this channel existed for 6 days. also, I think the clickbait is working since they almost got 3 mil views in 6 days. Last video that got even close to that was the AOT one 2 months ago that got 2.5 mil

[@Ciboullete]

Fr

[@tomsmarkovs1946]

I avoided this video because I thought it was clearly clickbait. Cristal, forgotten magic?. . sure. :D

[@unitNitro]

those original 3 prisms are, like, the closest things to ancient magical artifacts that exist. *wisened old sage voice* “This crystal has the power to alter Reality itself, using the light of the dawn”

[@michaelmoore7975]

It was wise not to reveal the arcane practice of _Blackfire._ Blackfire can be accomplished by igniting alcohol while illuminated with low pressure sodium lighting. The normally invisible alcohol flame is pure black....and creepy.

[@maverickstclare3756]

sat on someone's shelf somewhere as "cool crystals"

[@Corpomancer]

Reality is far closer to having ancient artifacts littered all around us, only matters how we look at things like in this case a Room for one colour.

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

*MacGuffins for the next Marvel/Star Wars/Pixar movie.*

[@lawrencefrost9063]

CRINGE ALERT

[@machiii7394]

Not only does it allow for otherwise complex greenscreens to be done in (almost) a single composite step, but the fact it does transparency so well really filters the composition well! If this WAS to be done with a greenscreen there'd likely be a bit of bleed that would have to be feathered or filtered out further complicating the composition! This is awesome.

[@KnitterX]

I love how the quest for this forgotten technology involved a search for long lost prisms of which, according to legend, only three have ever existed. If this was the plot of a video game you would call it absolutely unrealistic and uninspired.

[@BrandanLee]

That's how I feel about light field cameras, haha

[@kumble2687]

The legend of Zeldzaam - The invisible cloak

[@IIARROWS]

Yes! Totally! 3 prisms... boring.

[@vast634]

Raiders of the lost Prism.

[@uberfu]

I mean ... think about how much physical property and assets Disney owns. Then think about having to track and catalog the sheer logistics of maintaining data on literally nall of it and somehow not losing anything over the course of 100 years. Yeah, you try not to lose anything. OF COURSE if they'd patented the process - there would be records of how to reproduce the prisms on file at the USPTO. And ironic that they fight tooth and nail over Mickey Mouse copyright variations but were lackadaisical about something like this.

[@eujuneca]

This feels like the end of a cycle. They have talked about this prism sooooo many times. I'm happy for them to be able to replicate it, even if the original prism is lost in Disney's vault

[@RamDragon32]

As a guy that was raised around engineers and artists, I'm sure it's sittin on some guy's mantel or computer desk collecting dust with other random knickknacks and the owner having absolutely no idea of its historical significance. it's a pretty glass cube. Or in a vault kicked under a rack somewhere. Sure.

[@41illusion]

Apparently, the actual prism itself is located at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco on display for all to see, from what I discovered through research.

[@allio3459]

its not lost at disney. its in safe keepings

[@mrcydonia]

@@41illusion But there were two others. Where are they?

[@chadsmo]

@@RamDragon32I feel like you missed a good chance to use the word tchotchke instead knickknack. Next time.

[@batsukamuro]

In just over 12 minutes, I went from zero awareness to thoroughly impressed.

[@SamKramer]

Same. I had no idea I would love this video so much

[@One.Zero.One101]

I actually avoided this video because I thought it was gonna be clickbait, but I was wrong. This video is legit. I think that's one of the downsides of clickbait culture, a lot of legit videos are getting avoided because the viewers are weary of their time getting wasted.

[@kitschking]

same here

[@Alistair]

@@One.Zero.One101 I think you meant "wary", but impressively, "weary" is also correct here..

[@andrewqsmith]

Yeah reall agree. I never questioned how Mary Poppins was made compared to newer technology. I learned a lot and really impressed with the execution of this. It would be cool to see this used more.

[@truespica]

Just imagine just having one of those crystals just sitting in your attic collecting dust and never knowing that what you have is worth MILLIONS today

[@heheimlai]

who cares about the monetary value though? is that all you got from this video?

[@deotaerd3572]

​@@heheimlaiwhy nitpick about obvious stuff?

[@MonsieurDoge]

The ancient dark arts of video compositing... the prophecy has been fulfilled.

[@matthewboire6843]

This is somehow true

[@jaimefenger3730]

Lissan Al... you know the rest

[@darosamath]

That`s exactly how the Lisan Al Gaib would do video compositing

[@1zymn1]

@@darosamath LISAN AL GAIB!

[@SameerN23]

THIS PROPHECY IS HOW THEY ENSLAVE US!

[@MoofyYT]

Actually incredible. This has probably got to be in the top 3 if not 1 episode on Corridor.

[@rosumparat]

I was just about to say that.

[@leoelliondeux]

It’s definitely one of the episodes of corridor crew.

[@VAKZ23]

Yes, a fitting word “discovery” yeah its an age old forgotten tech but mannn , they just revived it and now the possibilities are now endless at this point

[@TypicalBlox]

not enough wren brings the ranking down

[@ShaakunthK]

This is probably my favorite non-Vfx artist explains stuff video. Wren's videos just hit different. Primarily because they do what they say. Use visual medium to dumb down things people should have an idea of. I can't imagine being able to share this as someone's first Corridor video, which I can do with Wren's videos. But I can share it to someone curious about old school vfx.

[@ChasFink]

I've read that the quality of the original sodium vapor camera/prism was something of a happy accident, and two attempts to make new ones were not 100% successful. The fact that you could make such a great recreation relatively easily and cheaply is amazing. I do hope the original is not lost. It belongs in a museum.

[@RicardoMusch]

I read this as well! I guess we live in a day and age now where things that took a lot of precision and skill are now just more reachable and less costly to produce :)

[@maih600]

@@RicardoMusch I find it a little funny that they failed to recreate the highly technical filtered beam splitting prism and never considered that they could just filter the outputs separately rather than doing so within the prism, as they did here. Or maybe they did and the trouble was with creating a narrow band filter at exactly 589nm, which would make more sense, and because of laser sciences we just have a more mature understanding of the processes involved.

[@OriginalUnjustifier]

Indiana Jones? That you?

[@zteaxon7787]

​@@maih600The chances are real that these techniques were appropriated by "secret" services and used for propaganda. Deliverately kept from the industry and public.

[@pharlock]

they just used a normal beam splitter then filtered the output of it.

[@1AmGroot]

And the award for the most "seems like clickbait but actually delivers" video of the year goes to:

[@heckensteiner4713]

The thing I love about this channel is the massive appreciation for the old techniques. I worked on a couple of Avengers movies and it was a nightmare when both Nebula and Gamora were onscreen at the same. One is green and the other is blue, so you can imagine the problems that would arise. This 60 year old technique would have fixed that!

[@surbhi7968]

what about hulk and captain america how did you managed to do that because they came together onscreen many times in the movies .

[@rilus]

@@surbhi7968 Hulk is computer generated. It's not like Hulk is in front of a green or blue screen.

[@surbhi7968]

@@rilus Oh ! yes you are right , it just escaped my memory , thanks for reminding that .

[@bildbusyt9633]

hm, not really. working with sodium vapor is very limiting, you really can't have any spill whatsoever. How would you light any of those crazy camera moves if you can't spill onto the screen or spill into the beam splitter? I recently shot with a beam splitter / filters and two cameras with a sodium vapor screen. works perfect for static shots for elements. Complex camera movements? no.

[@RMeow]

Damn i never thought about that

[@KweenOrion]

I became absolutely OBSESSED with the idea of this ever since that episode of VFXAR, the history behind it, the science, the movie making process, EVERYTHING about it was fascinating to me! I'm excited to see how this could maybe even change the entire industry! Also JC's dress is adorable~ 💚

[@samfiles8909]

Same here bud. I was HYPED when I saw the results. Its 2 am and I'm tryn so hard to hold my excitement!

[@bread-lover69420]

​@@samfiles8909 another Aussie bloke?

[@morfy2581]

If this can become an affordable method, it might just be a budget option for smaller productions but big industry films are probably better off with LED video backgrounds.

[@nhiko999]

Likewise. As someone else mentioned in the comment: even a 10k investment for actual perfect compositing is nothing for a big studio, it's insane the tech wasn't recreated...

[@skyscreamstudios]

@@nhiko999 I've handled lenses worth more than that. 10k is literally a drop in the bucket for a big studio.

For those interested in the original (and often uncredited) people behind the process: Vic Margutti was a key participant in Rank Films travelling matte work- possibly with or under Bryan Langley. Vic left Rank to form a sometimes volatile creative partnership with Les Bowie as Bowie-Margutti Films. In 1956 Margutti was lured back to Pinewood UK to develop the new sodium vapour matte process - which proved very successful and would be adopted Stateside by Ub lwerks and Eustace Lycette at the Disney corporation as their travelling matte methodology of choice for decades.

[@biffmercury]

I read that when presented with the script to THE 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER (1960), Ray Harryhausen insisted on doing it in England, where he could get access to the sodium vapor process. Even then, Harryhausen didn’t want to fool with the often unreliable blue screen process. He used the process on GULLIVER, THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961), and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963). Apparently it was no longer available to him for THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964), which utilized blue screen. Oddly, the technique was used on Herman Cohen’s KONGA (1961), and about the only impressive thing about that movie (and apparently the VFX person responsible for it, wasn’t credited on it, perhaps by choice). I wonder if it was used on THE CRAWLING EYE (1958).

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

@@biffmercury The Crawling Eye was among my first Laser Disc titles. It was black and white if that matters. I remember smoke and flailing tentacles, etc. It was decades ago, so I could not reflect on which scenes may or may not have been matted, or if it was every scene that had the eye in it.

[@biffmercury]

@@cosmicraysshotsintothelight Actually, I later read that they most likely used bluescreen and not sodium vapor mattes on THE CRAWLING EYE. I cringe thinking of how much money I spent on laserdiscs back in the 90s.

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

@@biffmercury I had everything I spent 35 years of my life working for stolen from me and that included $40k worth of LD CD DVD HD DVD and BR DVD, and albums, etc. and about ten computers and every stitch of clothing I owned as well. Later on, I find out from looking online that I could replace every title in the wrapper for a third of what I paid for them. (except for certain titles) I even had 2k1ASO on CAV at $125. The Crawling Eye was one of the 6 free discs that came with the player. The other pain is that things like my NASA discs are irreplaceable. BUT all the content from them is out there on the net, and even better in some cases. With $40k out under my belt, I store hard drive files now for my titles, and the logistical issues with discs goes away when a thumb drive and a port on your TV solves everything. Well, the search feature is impeded a bit.

[@stalman]

I can't thank you guys enough for the service and inspiration you provide to filmmakers everywhere

[@ghost_ship_supreme]

Someone somewhere has one of the prisms on their desk and don’t even know it. Congrats on rewriting the future of films!

[@Aelux5216]

Using it as a paper weight no doubt

[@chilly456]

I have a tiny one!!!

[@ElveeKaye]

There are glassmakers who could probably make these things. They just have to shop around for them.

[@MisakaMikotoDesu]

More than likely it's in storage at some warehouse for some company that owns the rights to it. I do warehousing for a living and it's incredible how much stuff just gets outright lost, even important stuff. You'd think bigger companies are better at not losing stuff, but the bigger the company the more stuff that gets lost.

[@MCXL1140]

@@ElveeKaye Disney tried for years to replicate the original, and gave up. It's incredibly hard to make a perfect light rejection prism.

[@raccoon9951]

This has got to be one of the most impressive things on all of KZbin actually! The footage is so perfect with the sodium vapor, actually unbelievable

[@baptistoriginals]

I agree, i'm often wrong but i really think these guys have stumbled on to something big for the industry of filmmaking

[@smittyvanjagermanjenson182]

The only thing more unbelievable is the fact that Disney built this technology 60~ years ago and apparently decided to stop using it.. this is the holy grail of keying footage!

[@fabfourdub1284]

This is a bit sad to see that people think this is impossible to do this, cause in fact it was done by many company other than disney and there is plenty of patents in the last 60 years to proove it. I guess the problem is not the technology itself, but that no one put money into pushing aside greenscreen, to help movie making to move forward and put to garbage this greenscreen keying create in the 1930's. 😢

[@raccoon9951]

@@fabfourdub1284 it’s still impressive

[@GweiTheLeafChild]

It's probably by the economics of it, green screen is much cheaper to mass produce, and it was probably a matter of logistics. The results to cost must have been acceptable enough to push the compromises onto the creatives.

[@edwardchester1]

Slightly mindblowing that a relatively simple alternative solution like this can be used and thus proves the worth of the process yet the process was dropped. It's so clearly superior.

[@my3dviews]

Too much reliance on digital effects in modern movies. A big part of why old techniques that worked were lost. Most modern cinematographers wouldn't know how to use the old tech even if they had access to it.

[@liamnehren1054]

@@my3dviews not really an issue in this case, they were digitizing it. The issue seems to really be a "Disney dropped the ball" issue. They already had the superior tech but they failed to realize and perfect what they had.

[@my3dviews]

@@liamnehren1054 Except that it wasn't a digital effect. They could have used two film cameras and got the same result. The effect was a result of the type of light used and the filters and prism.

[@crossroadswanderer]

It sounds like it was too expensive to be a widespread technique. Green screen is cheaper in terms of gear requirements, because you just need a big green screen and whatever camera and stage lighting you were going to be using anyway. The interesting part is apparently the prism they used in this video was made with off-the-shelf components. Maybe that means it'd be cheaper to make those prisms today. It really depends on how much labor it takes to produce and whether there would be sufficient demand to create an economy of scale. It still probably wouldn't be desirable for home use because you need to have two cameras with the setup they have, and the lighting is very unusual and energy inefficient compared to modern LEDs. If a nearly-as-good design could be made with LEDs, it might make it more likely to be adapted by amateur filmmakers, but that would require a different prism, so it's unclear whether it would be worth the extra R&D to design. And nearly-as-good, rather than just-as-good will mean that more work needs to be done in post to make it look good. Still might be able to get a better result than green screen, though.

[@liamnehren1054]

@@my3dviews that is where you are wrong, the science was splitting using a crystal which had the filters integrated, to get the same effect they split the light equally and had the filters on the cameras, this means it is a less efficient method but works equally fine. Both can be digitized just as simply but one of them uses two cameras and the other would just be two arrays used for capturing images, in the past this was film, now it's photosensitive circuits. Guess what was never lost to time? using filters. This is something well know just a type of it Disney buried which was wildly superior to green screen.

[@johnabreu6753]

Videos like this are the reason why I’ve been watching you guys for more than a decade at this point. Keep doing good and amazing and truly creative works like this!

[@ChanahAngelicaKamen]

This was like getting a magician to reveal the exact details behind his/her best illusion. What a freaking incredible invention, amazing that you guys were able to recreate it.

[@sterlthepearl1000]

"Search and you will find." Jesus Christ

[@kcdsTM]

The crazy thing is, they took the research and actually simplified and thereby improved on the design - this was made with off the shelf parts!

[@GS-td3yc]

@@kcdsTM its also that off the shelf parts are now way better.

[@joelcaporalemedia7471]

"if you think your rig is janky, they're all janky" gave me so much hope for my rig

[@Maddolis]

Good luck with your janky rig Joel

[@bielanski2493]

If there were such a thing as a "universal rig" we would all rent it like a panaflex.

[@TransistorBased]

Top gun used a drill to do a shaky cam effect, that's pretty janky but genius

[@EthalaRide]

This feels like a really good example of pre-production saving SO MUCH TIME in post-production. By finagling and getting all the lighting right, reducing spill, getting the camera set up, post is Infinitely easier. The greenscreen was probably lit as best as they could too, and yet still needed all that work. It really is magical.

[@Sacomoponycam]

I'm gonna be the grammar police, sorry in advance. Infinitesimal means a Very Very small amount. If post is infinitesimally easier, then it barely changed at all. "All the extra pre-production work made post Infinitely easier" would make much more sense.

[@howyhowitzer13]

Definitely has the same feeling of analog photography and all the setup and lighting versus digital photography where it is all post for sure.

[@thewisewolf768]

@@Sacomoponycam Nah, get'em grammar police are annoying, vocab police are needed. Words are important!

[@Appletank8]

It's biggest achilles heel is that it only works in a limited area, indoors, with no outside lighting. Maybe it'd be fine in caves or buildings where a few characters barely move, but any big action scene wouldn't work. It'd be great for streaming though.

[@AndresArosemena]

​@@Appletank8 did you not watch Mary Poppins? With the rig they created here they just need bigger sources of lights to light a bigger background and more space in front to stand the actors and light them. In essence, a bigger studio. They can rent a studio and do all sort of shots to keep testing this technique

[@XianJaxxon]

Considering the hundreds or even thousands of hours of keying and roto that go into making a VFX tent pole, spending $20-60K on a bespoke prism really doesn't sound like a bad investment, even of your roto team is non union or an intern pool.

[@thundercat_pumyra]

Especially these days when a movie budget is in the millions. And it's not like you can't reuse these for every movie. For a company like Disney, $50,000 is pocket change. They can buy 100 of these and never even miss that money.

[@ExhaustedElox]

As someone that studied optics, I can tell you that building the crystal back in the day had to be so hard without modern micro and nanofabrication methods. Losing them probably set movie making back decades. It's so great to see this technique available again.

[@mewmew32]

they weren't lost. elsewhere in this thread someone said one is on display at the Walt Disney museum.

[@nicknorris100]

How do you know it is the real deal​@@mewmew32

[@timothyblazer1749]

In the 60s there were still people who could make custom, precision optics by hand, leftover from WW2. That's likely how those prisms were made, and also why they haven't been made since. It's the same reason we can't make the F1 rocket anymore.

[@storiesfromtheabyss9808]

Instead of micro nanofabrication methods, now you can use...😎Nico nanofabrication methods.

[@marcmann100]

Is it still hard to create a prism like that today? I feel like saying it‘s not possible is the same as saying „we couldn‘t build the pyramids today“

[@4RILDIGITAL]

The science and innovation behind filmmaking is so fascinating. The sodium vapor process is evidently remarkable. It's surprising we don't hear much about it despite its clarity and quality.

[@IllusionSector]

I'm stocking up on sodium bulb manufacturer shares because there is no going back to chroma.

[@Chriswallace0405]

🤣

[@flyingelephantwalrus]

Ray Harryhausen used it for all his Sinbad movies

[@DisorderedArray]

Astronomers used to rely on the fact that sodium vapour lamps were used in most street lighting, and they could just notch it out of their images. It's surprising it wasn't used more widely for vfx.

[@TheCatBilbo]

I LOVE the meeting of art, science & artisan skills: making those prisms must have been like a science-informed dark art!

[@Eric_In_SF]

Props for a big KZbin channel that actually marks where their sponsorships are so you don’t feel like you’re being fed valuable information and realize you’re being tricked into advertising.

[@zaicol850]

Tbf a lot of big channels who use chapters do this. But yeah, it is always appreciated

[@ralfclearsky4193]

Sometimes the fact that I developed a nose for such things scares me.

[@i.t.y1140]

You sound like you're new here

[@alexmehler6765]

sponsor block addon will show you where ads begin and end

[@Karaon]

@@alexmehler6765 nice

[@thomasjohnson8121]

Part of the reason that this works is that the wavelength light emitted by the sodium vapor is not in sunlight.

[@ritinkornas5336]

As an astrophysicist, I found this super cool and interesting as we also use the sodium doublet at 589 nm for the characterisation of our Sun and other stars! And very similar optics, etc. to use :)

[@rufusmorris9160]

Everyone should be aware that this isn’t just any regular recreation, it’s a restoration of a long lost technological marvel, this is history in the making, everyone should spread this vid worldwide for everyone to know. Congratulations on restoring and refining one of Disney’s greatest cinematic techniques. 🎉🎉🎉

[@LightSourceTemple]

they just changed the vfx game

[@LuisSierra42]

@@LightSourceTemple *restored

[@ThePCeristas]

The Omnissiah is pleased

[@eugenetswong]

I would rather keep it a secret, but yeah, this is cool.

[@generalgrievous2202]

​@@eugenetswongwhy?

[@thegamedevcave]

this legit blew my mind. Both on how well the greenscreen footage came out (seriously, that by itself was impressive) but then seeing how clean the sodium shot was, holy damn

[@virkots]

that was my reaction too, haha

[@tidel32]

@@virkots Until you realize the dress is transparent....

[@mnomadvfx]

The green screen footage only looks clean until you notice how b0rked the color of the dress is and the fact that when she turns the wrong way it causes her torso to disappear. It's a good effort, but one that took a fair bit of clean up to get vs this sodium yellow screen technique which basically just works well out of the box. The only thing missing now is to make the entire system more compact and to replace the dated sodium vapor bulbs with yellow 589nm emitting quantum dot leds.

[@falleithani5411]

@@mnomadvfx What's wrong with the bulbs?

[@JinxedPixie88]

@@falleithani5411 Expense and storage - LEDS are much more compact and easier to store and move around. sodium vapor bulbs are, comparatively, quite fragile.

[@brandonq5577]

These are some of my favorite types of videos from you guys. This and the ones where you show us a bit about how to make the effects.

[@yehudalanger]

I originally read about this sodium vapor technique a few years ago, and after having been blown away by this ingenuity of having a perfect matte filmed simultaneously, I was super disappointed to learn that Disney lost this technique. As soon as this video popped up in my feed I was like “NO WAY..” but you guys actually did it.. time to bring this back to the filmmaking masses and rid ourselves of the cumbersome chroma key affliction. Well done.

[@TheMongooseOfDoom]

I had the same reaction. I new immediately what the video was about when I saw the thumbnail. I don't even do video production or anything.

[@MegaLokopo]

It isn't a lost technique it was retired, Disney decided it was no longer worth the effort, and it provides no benefit while having massive draw backs. Disney is simply so good at green screen this lazy technique isn't worth it. It also doesn't look nearly as good as good green screen.

[@GustavoOliveira-hq2dr]

What I got from the video isn't that the intent of bringing this back would be to use it as a mainstream technique but to use it as machine learning feed in order to improve the current green screen tech. There are other things to consider such as cost, accessibility, user friendliness and so on, but you can only do so much with an early prototype.

[@maih600]

@@MegaLokopo it’s difficult to set up, impossible for large sets or complex geometry, and requires an indoor studio and no natural lighting. That said, it lacks that sharp visual edge that screams effects and can easily do transparencies. If the technique was developed over the decades instead of retired, I think it would have a place in filmography, likely in creating background elements outside cars, windows, etc on closed sets that they want to appear to be outside/in space/wherever.

[@OriginalUnjustifier]

@@maih600 Exactly, this technique is a new tool(outside of Disney, at any rate), with use cases we haven't even begun to consider. Find those use cases, make a case to the major filmmakers, and develop it's place not as a replacement, but as a new option for shots that are not possible with existing techniques and tools.

[@FabioAneto]

Guys this would be such a game changer for beauty commercials! At the beginning of April we were shooting a lot of footage in the back of a car in a tiny space and it was a nightmare putting the green far enough to avoid spills. Production WANTS this to come back! ❤

[@boring7823]

You still have to be sure not to get leakage. You will also have to exclude sunlight of course. Or put notch-reject filters on your Sun lights so you don't get the 589+/-1 nm wavelength.

[@spdcrzy]

@@boring7823 it's a lot easier to manage that than it is to manage green screen spill in a tight space. In fact, with the right compact lighting, you could achieve in-car footage mattes MUCH more easily.

[@harleyjo4875]

If production wanted this to come back, people like Cameron, Lucas, or Spielberg would’ve invested into it decades ago.

[@franzrogar]

how about using a "the blackest black" screen instead, as it absorbs 99,99% of light? It might be interesting to see a test of it ;-)

[@boring7823]

@@franzrogar It'd have the same problem with "fuzzies" that any "colour" would. The pixels at the edges would be a mixture of black-black and something else so they would not be black-black. Using a sodium flare means you can filter that "wavelength" physically before it ever gets pixelated. Because the different wavelength photons don't mix in flight as they don't interact with anything until they hit the sensor (or emulsion). The black-black would remove the need to carefully light the backdrop flatly, but you'd still get almost black edges.

[@GarageBandSuperheros]

"One of the coolest, the most high tech things we've ever done." As he's holding a piece of a cardboard box. That made me chuckle.

[@janthran]

cardboard is kind of high tech

[@TopatTom]

THE ALMIGHTY… Cardboard???

[@jzero90921]

idk man cardboard is kind of a miracle. Most things arent shipped in crates or barrels now, instead its cardboard boxes. Obviously some things will still be crated, but the majority of consumer goods are gunna be put in a cardboard box. Its as high tech as we got right now.

[@jakewilferd6093]

@@TopatTom my dad used to tell me one of our greatest achievement's during WW2 was when the Japanese sent us the world's smallest drill bit and we sent it back with a hole drilled through it. sometimes the smallest thing's or thing's we don't think are impressive are the most impressive.

[@GarageBandSuperheros]

As I'm looking into a rabbit hole of cardboard, I'm actually stepping my brain back a bit. Just imagine them: Paper towel tubes, foil tubes, sheets, business cards, cereal boxes, Cracker Boxes, Everything Little Debbies, Birthday cards, Playing Cards, Egg Cartons, Literally anything bought online over 2 pounds in weight, Jigsaw puzzles, Poster Boards, Printer papers, Hardcover Books, Election cards, Testing Punch Cards, Milk Cartons!, Cardboard Furniture?! [which is a thing apparently], 3D Display Models!, School STEAM projects, Cigarette packs, A Oyster Pail for your Chinese Food!, Freaking Juice Boxes, THE FLIPPIN PIZZA BOX! It's everywhere, lol. It haunts me now. :P And pretty much anything modern electronic/technology based comes in a petite little..... CARDBOARD Box

[@W.L.Campbell]

This was easily the most fascinating VFX videos I've EVER seen, and top 5 best 'splainers I've watched this year. What a gift. Thank you! ❤

[@Todd_Manus]

This is a great moment in my professional life. Paul Debevec, was one of my influences from over 30 years ago. He is one of the people that came up with the idea of using HDRIs to light a scene. We owe the domelight to him. I remember emailing him about HDRI, and his film Fiat Lux... so awesome guys.

[@baptistedelplanque8859]

My brain froze for a second when I recognized him! Apart from that the optical setup doesn't feel special if you're versed into hyperspectral imaging 😅

[@vailias]

I was like "Wait, THAT Paul Debevec? No wonder he's doing more optical wizardry"

[@Daft_Ideas]

Whats really cool about this is your open sharing of a technology that surely has immense commercial value. Respect for taking the high road rather than lining your own pocket.

[@frottery]

they didn't cover the drawbacks of using this very well and why the last use was Dick Tracy in 1990 / forgotten about: it's ridiculously limiting and expensive where you can avoid doing this with simple art direction.

[@TransistorBased]

​@@frotterybut sometimes the art direction would necessitate elements that are difficult to key. So it's dumb to say that this shouldn't be used at all simply because in some circumstances it can be difficult to use.

[@xMaugrex]

@@frottery Just another tool for the box, not a one-size-fits-all solution.

[@d.-nf6lb]

Things like this is why youtubers in every corner of the internet have talked about their love of corridor

[@HahaHumon]

Yeah this is such amazing stuff.

[@BeamFiend]

Yeah, I remember back when they did that stuff with Ai, people started badmouthing them, but they could never make me hate corridor.

[@ፔ̇̈]

It’s impossible to hate Corridor.

[@lxlMrSatan]

Is that a movie?

[@kraken2844]

dude I've been watching corridor for many years. They never dissapoint, but this video was almost emotional for me. y'all stumbled across a gold mine here

[@cc_snipergirl]

This is game changing. I actually hope Disney or some director or something sees this and brings it mainstream. The amount of time and money this could save means lower budget films could do way more with special effects

[@RichardHartness]

As an engineer who just appreciates the amazing things that were invented in the age of analog, I have to say that finally seeing this technique come back to life nearly makes me cry. I've honestly waited and hoped to see this tech come back to life for years. Hats off to you guys an thanks for working on this remarkable project.

[@karlmuster263]

The idea to use an "off-the-shelf" beam splitter and filters is one of those brilliant ideas where you're like, "why hasn't anyone done this before?"

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I'm guessing that there weren't that many people trying. Especially in the digital age when you can mask things based on any channel of the image. There's no inherent reason why you have to use green or blue for the masking, those are just the most commonly used ones.

[@Appletank8]

According to wikipedia, well first off only 3 were made, so if you wanted to use it, you better get in line. Second, it seemed that computers got good enough they were able to composite well enough, and tech advanced towards fixing it better and better. Software, once perfected, can be replicated a functionally infinite amount of times, along with the person who trained on it. A hardware solution needs to be made one at a time, and unless they acquire one for themselves, is probably stuck with the film company.

[@filanfyretracker]

off the shelf filters exist because LPS lamps are often used around observatories for street lighting, the same reason they are used in this effects shot. An extremely specific frequency of light. Meaning it can be filtered without losing what one is looking for.

[@VisibleReality]

@@SmallSpoonBrigade with digital cameras, green is most often used for marking because it is often has a higher quality than red or blue due to how the sensor is designed

[@mrblah02251]

If I understand correctly (which is a big if), the original method uses all of the light and just redirects the sodium line. I think this setup is splitting all of the light and filtering the two halves. The advantage is that you don't need special prisms, but the disadvantage is that you cut your light in half. I don't know if low light is a major problem or not.

[@randyt2500]

Thank you! Lighting designer for 35 years and I had heard about Disney "magic" on Mary Poppins since my undergrad days. So fascinating to finally know what they used for the secret sauce. You guys rock!

[@benwarped7272]

Literally the FIRST EVER time I have watched a squarespace ad. BRILLIANT

[@BraddMcBrearty]

I knew about the splitting process used on Mary Poppins, but I had no idea that it was such a cleaner solution than green screen, and it blow my mind to learn that no one has tried to recreate the effect until now! Great video.

[@jabezcrisp7899]

I can't believe how rare it is to see something genuinely cool on the Internet

[@protips6924]

Yes, I feel like a boomer, im 20-21 and when I go through the internet I feel like im going through a mind field of junk. I can barely even open up my computer anymore, unless I am studying for UNI. Its a breath of fresh air to open the internet and actually watch someone that adds to my IQ. Magic mushrooms are the only thing keeping me sane.

[@Dagoth666Ur]

So true, these days mostly just clickbaits or stupidity.

[@UltraSuperDuperFreak]

LOL , then you need to freaking wider your search horizon mate . Plenty of actualy cool, insane, and wild things to watch here.

[@henrivlot]

@@protips6924 There's definitely gems out there still, but I see what you mean.

[@tappajaav]

@@protips6924 Sounds like you're on good tracks. Internet is wonderful but it's best used in moderation

[@Messiahgaming_Inc]

“Disney would like to know your location” 😂

[@Mfdoorway]

Is Mickey in the room with us right now?

[@Tajarim88]

Especially if you're a minor and on your own.

[@635574]

And probabaly pay a lot to get these made

[@foxthroat3410]

Disney rn tryin' their best on how to sue them 💀💀😂

[@ConfusedOctorok]

DISNEY wishes to DISable your spine.

[@Binxalot]

This is how you get a new subscriber, no click bait, actually delivering truly awesome content. This technique is really amazing.

[@brandontylerburt]

Watching a visual-effects artist drink from a perfectly matted bottle of water literally brought tears to my eyes. No more need gauzy materials and long hair be the bane of compositors! Such great work. Thank you all.

[@jensenraylight8011]

RIP for the VFX Artists who Spent 10.000 hours manually Rotoscoping frame by frame, it's as if their effort was unnecessary, just because Disney decided to hide the tech from the world.

[@michaelkupfer3723]

Green screen is obsolete... and so is this (way to hardware depended, way to complicated, try to light a marvel set with sodium lights). The future is The Volume

[@jensenraylight8011]

@@michaelkupfer3723 yes, The Volume is the future if your dad was Bill Gates or Bezos. Studios can barely pay their expenses, let alone invest in super expensive tech It's also very limited, because of the space restriction, Not to mention it's hard to use a flashy practical VFX like explosion or car crash with the volume While Green screen and sodium, you can do a large scale VFX and practical VFX, You can put it everywhere including outdoor, like vfx that require you to jump from building to building It's more versatile, you're not limited to just doing a static dialogue with minimal action cause you don't want to break the illusion from the Volume

[@keiyakins]

​@@michaelkupfer3723 If the volume is all software how do I set it up in my basement

[@michaelkupfer3723]

@@jensenraylight8011 Yes, that's why you rent it. Just like productions rent cameras, lights, rigs, dollys, guns etc etc

[@BknMoonStudios]

This is actually incredible and extremely useful, specially for low and mid-budget film productions. This technique severely cuts the amount of work hours necessary in editing, while also giving higher quality results. This can drastically improve the quality of videos and movies at a relatively low cost. Massive props to everyone involved in this project.

[@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken]

It'd be worth it in high budget too. They could utilize the effort of having to change 400 different settings constantly to make it "perfect" into other portions of the film. CGI would probably be drastically improved in film compared to what it is now.

[@christie_brown]

The only giant limitation I would say is when it comes to shooting outdoors. Earlier in the video, they needed to block the skylight. Like, filming with natural light is already a pain (trust me I’ve been there). But now you have to make sure All of that natural light doesn’t spill into the lighting of both your foreground AND background . It’s basically all the difficulties of controlled green screen lighting times 10

[@koiyujo1543]

YES DUDE THAT"S WHAT I THOUGHT THIS COULD REVOLUTIONIZE ALL OF FILM PRODUCTION!

[@ariDeMon7479]

@@christie_brown why would you need to film outdoors if you're replacing the background anyway?

[@sophiadebar382]

@@christie_brownthe thing is, you only ever film outdoors on a set when you DONT need to replace the background. Everything else is filmed indoors over a green screen. So you wouldn’t need to use this technique outdoors because you’re already getting what you want

[@DaduM282]

I want to sincerely thank you for this video. Right now, my students are learning about wavelengths and frequencies of light, and this is EXACTLY the sort of thing I was hoping for to get them interested. I could never have the time, funding, and skill to do it myself; you’re doing amazing things that go way beyond the film set and art! You just made a video that I'll be sure to play in my classroom for the rest of my career. THANK YOU!!!!

[@itsmederek1]

Very happy for you guys. Being able to do something so cool as an independant youtube channel without the resources of a large company is something you guys really should be proud of. You have built something very special in such an unconventional way.

[@matthiasklein9608]

Long time ago I read a book on special effects cinematography by Raymond Fielding. It had a short chapter on Sodium Matte and I always asked myself “Why isn’t everyone using this.” (I also kept talking about that process to everyone who wasn’t interested) Now I know. And I’m very grateful that you made this video.

[@jsl151850b]

As used in the The Invisible Man.

[@usbobthefunny]

When I was in college, got to see a presentation by Paul Debevec where he was showcasing his research on being able to put actors into any scene and match the scene lighting exactly. Absolute leading professional in film and lighting.

[@Caveyacht]

his light stage research is truly amazing

[@Camy256]

This is actually so sick! I hope this is picked up industry wide because it looks so much cleaner than greenscreen, makes it more immersive!

[@sion8]

I'm just trying to stick didn't try other methods to recreate in the meantime. It just seems green/blue screen somehow became too powerful. Yet, they always knew there was a better easier method.

[@GabrielSantosStandardCombo]

What's more likely to happen is what they mentioned at the end of the video. This technology can be used to produce top-quality examples of complex masking situations, which you then use to train an AI. The future is AI masking.

[@E-Lazarus]

At the beginning I thought that the title was clickbait. But no, they absolutely really tell an amazing thing about what is stated. Wow.

[@13lood13ath]

"If I wanted to make a movie about a clown wearing all the colors of the rainbow getting married on Mars, I can't. That bothers me."

[@jttech44]

"And I took that personally"

[@XliverXD]

And. He proceeded to resurrect long lost revolutionary photographic items just to make that huge respects

[@vyor8837]

@@XliverXD Revolutionary... for 60 years ago.

[@XliverXD]

@@vyor8837 but it wasse losttt

[@dorugora]

It sounds like something from Death Stranding.

[@IMightBeBlu]

I don't think I've ever sat down, looked at an image, and audibly gasped in a long time. This is incredible stuff to get to see!

[@RobertPatrician]

Gotta love when Cooridor makes a video that'll be shown in filmmaking classes for decades.

[@kneeofjustice9619]

And we’re all watching them for free

[@jr2904]

1:40 in southern California most of the street lights were sodium lights; allowing the nearby Palomar Observatory to filter out the light pollution with a sodium filter. I'm not sure what they do now since most lights have been replaced with LEDs.

[@quilleymemory]

The moment he said "they were using a bean splitter prism" at 1:50 I was like "THEY'RE FILMING A MATTE RUN AT THE SAME TIME!!!" My god this really is absolutely ingenious.

[@MGmirkin]

Splitting a lot of beans were they? Maybe a few Black-Eyed- Peas?

[@Klaaism]

Back when Disney actually Fing innovated... They innovated!

[@scoobertmcruppert2915]

@@KlaaismDisney didn’t even develop it, so there’s that and what do you mean they are the ones pushing volumetrics forward…Don’t get me wrong Disney is and has been a horrible company but they’ll keep innovating or pushing others innovations to make that sweet profit. Generally innovation in any industry is just finding new ways to reduce labor and costs of labor unfortunately.

[@kazioo2]

@@scoobertmcruppert2915 Unfortunately? This is literally the same mechanism why 95% of society doesn't work in agriculture anymore and has more interesting and less health impactful things to do.

[@AndyDo]

I am absolutely gobsmacked. Like, this made me emotional in a way I can't describe. I've spent nights sweating, cursing, hating everything. Roto until my eyes are bleeding. And I've never come close to anything this good. This was an Arthur C. Clarke moment. It was indistinguishable from magic. Thank you so much for sharing. Now I just need to convince Ian to do the next episode of Dynamo Dream like this...

[@GrandHighGamer]

I have to imagine there's a little more tweaking than they're letting on, you can definitely see light spill in their BTS footage. 7:22 shows their sodium footage and his face is clearly illuminated by it as well as part of his arm. So either he's slightly see through in the footage, or they'd need to do a bit more tweaking to make sure he stays solid. Would probably still be far less work than regular chroma key though.

[@Shadow__133]

Dude, find a shrink!

[@bronsoncarder2491]

@@GrandHighGamer This was also the first time it's been done in decades. There aren't books full of tricks about getting this right. This is technically the first time anything has ever been filmed using this process (since it differs from the original in several important ways, most importantly the prism being swapped for a filter, and the two cameras). The fact that they got this good of a result first try, even if you can nitpick a few moments (that I honestly didn't notice), is pretty amazing.

[@straak]

And the technology was 50 years old.

[@monkeysfromvenus]

@@GrandHighGamer when they converted the orange shot into a transparency mask, they probably just adjusted the gain/curves so the reflected light on oblique angles got crushed to black. I wish they would have shot some more specular/shiny objects, though even that shiny water bottle looked pretty great

[@anthony_horton]

This is fascinating. I work in astronomical research and can say that astronomers regularly get beam splitters of exactly this type (separating Sodium light at 589 nm from everything else) custom made for use in our instruments. Our use case is obviously completely different (laser guide stars for adaptive optics) but it's the same optics.

[@AlexReynard]

This is so cool. Like you're reaching a hand down into the past, digging around, and rescuing something that should never have been lost to time. Bravo!

[@panathentic]

YOU DID IT! And using off the shelf components means that for the right price, anybody can do it.That means you don't need to manufacture prisms for new digital cameras to simply do a key shot, ANY production with a budget can probably utilize this incredible setup! This is very exciting, I am so glad that you got to try it out first.

[@thebigitchy]

I’m sure there was a lot that needed to be fabricated. If the two digital cameras aren’t perfectly in sync, the footage would never line up. And especially with cameras with rolling shutter, they would need to be scanning perfectly simultaneously. So probably not just “anybody” can do this. That being said, I think that they proved that the technique is feasible with modern technology and digital cameras. It sounds like they originally did this with existing synchronized film camera technology. I think one of the key advantages of modern chroma key is that everything is done with a single camera. So despite its limitations, except for the software, no specialized equipment is necessary.

[@Leeki85]

@@thebigitchy This is fairly simple to do on the hardware level. Film makers often create their own technology and there are small companies that do such projects. Within a year there will be a ready to use product. It's easier than you think. With 3D printers, microcontrollers and whole DIY market it is fairly simple to prototype and develop such tech. However like Paul said in the video. This will be mostly useful to train AI. Within few years there will AI solution that will be capable of perfectly removing background from any object.

[@Hamachingo]

@@thebigitchysyncing digital cameras is easy, the professional ones all have a connector for just that.

[@aphaits]

Paul Debevec is the OG father of HDRI, I remember back in 99 trying to learn and figure out image based lighting for the first time. Thank you Mr. Debevec for your contribution to modern VFX!

[@rolandwfleming]

His light probe image gallery helped launch my academic career...

[@leestuart2653]

Pouring salt in that shot has got to be the biggest Flex Disney has ever given

[@edorbit89]

Having watched you guys since the beginning, and knowing a bit of your story, you guys deserved this moment and every amazing moment, inevitably coming. Bravo

[@TheMostInspiredFool]

This is a revolution in the industry and the fact that this is portrayed as “deep dives into classic visual effect technology” being an average week at Corridor messing around with old technology is hilarious lol. This is an absolute game changer, we need to reignite it and who knows what further research with it will allow us to do! Amazing work 🙌

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

Now the only other thing we need is to bring back the CGI quality that existed in the original Jurassic Park trilogy. Instead of the crap that most studios uses nowadays.

[@txorimorea3869]

This is the first step. We now have cheap LED technology that is really good at producing monochromatic light that can be filtered out/in by that technique.

[@sion8]

​@@txorimorea3869 True.

[@Linkatchu]

@@tovarishchfeixiao Well, theres alot of good CGI nowadays, the good one you don't notice. Tough the Original Jurassic Park did use mostly practical VFX, didn't they?

[@McHobotheBobo]

I think this could be extremely difficult for larger scale shots

[@sarakajira]

As a digital artist, photography enthusiast and film buff this is amazing. This needs to become available for hobbyists.

[@ICantStopMakingNoise]

"If you ever think your rigs are janky - they're ALL janky" is such a perfect statement.

[@SentinalSlice]

Dolbe or dobe lord of jank.

[@lnazumaKanon]

This video did a lot for me that I can’t ever express to you two … I was here since the Minecraft video back in 2010 … you guys are a blessing to the creation space … transformative and very informative

[@howtodrink]

This is so incredibly cool. I've known *about* the Sodium Vapor Process for years, but never actually had the clearest idea of how it worked. LOVE seeing this. In the front-screen projection that was used on 2001 and, also Aliens because Cameron is James Cameron, there was a special 3M reflective material that was necessary for the projection surface. Did the original sodium process use a special reflective backdrop, or was it basically just a cyclorama?

[@Ephemeral_Style985]

Eyyy a wild Greg has appeared in the tall grass!

[@benbot5173]

Seeing a lost technique discovered, with the people who know it’s significance and are in a place to use it (not to mention passionate as alll hell about what they do)? Magical

[@davidhalpern605]

I came into this video thinking this would be your typical youtube hyperbole , but you really actually undersold it, wow, what a great piece of history and than recreating something that was lost. amazing.

[@lunarfifthstudios]

Adding white and color mask layers on top in overlay and stuffs and we got some real cooking here, whoa this feels like the future! Incredible work.

[@justafoon]

This reminds me of them putting sails back on ships. Like, we had it right the first time, and it ended up being better. I love this new age of finding the best thing to use, despite it’s age.

[@thepapschmearmd]

lol what? Sailing ships are not better. They are different, but they are absolutely inferior for many things.

[@lastwymsi]

​@@thepapschmearmdThats not what theyre talking about. Suggest googling this cause its a cool topic, but in TL;DR Modern tankers and cargo ships have been utilizing giant modern sails to effectively eliminate fuel consumption while travelling with the wind, thus saving a TON of money and resources.

[@RyTrapp0]

@@lastwymsi OP said "we had it right the first time" as if we're going back to something - yet these sails aren't in any way, shape, or form traditional sails, they're airfoils, and they aren't used in any traditional way. They have more in common with a modern race boat than they do with anything that ever strung up cloth. Really wish we could stop making these false equivalencies just because we're putting the words "ship" and "sail" in the same sentence again. This stuff doesn't have anything to do with the age of sail. Also, sail boats never stopped existing, so I don't know what this "rediscovery" idea is that people have(OK, I do, it's so we can make dumb memes about "lol the boat engineers just discovered the wind again lolol" by misrepresenting what this is entirely).

[@Crazyclay78YT]

@@RyTrapp0 no, people were literally talking about putting cloth sails on cargo ships again to reduce emissions. and no one is saying that sailboats dont exist anymore, its more like "huge transport ships are going back toward the path of sails again"

[@RyTrapp0]

@@Crazyclay78YT Feel free to post the name of the concept or organization behind it

[@zvorenergy]

This is so awesome how a literal lost art was not only resurrected but discovered to be a key element to improve our most current cutting edge tech. Truly impressive😯

[@BrandonCMaximum]

This is actually incredible. Seamless keying of translucent objects is still very difficult to attain, even with the tools that we have available. The idea of it looking THAT good even before putting those tools to use could save countless hours of labor and headaches.

[@fabfourdub1284]

I know someone who built a company with a technology that does this 14 years ago... so ironical that everybody NOW understand how meaningfull this could be... working like this 😮

[@greggv8]

Even better is the video shot with this is ready to use with little tweaking. Just create the matte and crop out the foreground then drop the foreground over the background with the black matte in between. Flatten and it's done, if you're not adding effects or doing color grading etc. Mush less work than how film would need additional processing and more film to make the black matte and cropped out foreground to multiple expose onto the finished film, with the losses that come with analog tech. What often happened compositing multiple elements in film was something would have to be underexposed so in the finished film it would be lighter and washed out. One example is in the second "Evil Dead" film when two mini Ash's pinch Ash's nose shut to force him to open his mouth, Bruce Campbell's head is much lighter and it really stands out. Another one is the fire dance scene in "Labyrinth". The saturation of the puppets, background, and Jennifer Connelly are all over the place and it's obvious they were pushing what could be done in a very complex scene with chromakey before digital processing was available. A 4K Blu-Ray release of "Labyrinth" with a ton of cleanup would be very nice to see. If the original separate elements for all of it still exist, that would be even better since it could all be scanned and digitally composited where exposure and saturation and color grading would be easy to match up and make consistent.

[@trolledchaos6531]

Nico out here answering the questions I never knew I had. Bless you homie😢

[@KoiKittenVA]

Every time I'm given a history lesson on early film making, I'm always so amazed by the thought of just how much science and innovation went into these processes.

[@johnwenzel2003]

You did my favorate thing; you took a problem and literally turned it inside out. This is proof positive that VFX should never disguard the tenons of optics and that old technology is never invaluable technology. Bravo!

[@globalizer]

It's amazing to think how many great ideas are lost to the specific components. Kudos to Paul for realizing all you really needed was the concept and finding a way to recreate it.

[@devinnall2284]

My favorite example is something called Fogbank it was a top secret material used to make nukes the problem was it was so top secret they forgot how to make it

[@RipliWitani]

Nobody forgets, you are not allowed.

[@hectorescobar9450]

Crazy to think we can not replicate this digitally

[@shimoricha]

3:47 i shouted "WOW" out loud. since the first time i saw that specific react episode i always wanted to see it in modern time, this is amazing

[@Onestringpuppet]

One of the reasons I like this channel is the learning about the history in the industry, as well as seeing the interesting new techniques and methods used today in film production

[@oncydium]

This is phenomenal. Laypeople (and artists) often forget that photography - in any setting - is as much a science as an art. Disney developed some fascinating optical systems for both film and some of their amusement park rides and exhibits. Thank you for showing how fascinating things can be on the other side of the lens.

[@steventurner8428]

If something from the 60s is " STILL " better than modern technology then it really really sucks.

[@PeterRichardsandYoureNot]

This blows my mind. And to think that Disney imagineers figured this out back in the day of no computers and simply just knowledge gained from engineering school or some experiment…it’s just amazing.

[@npcimknot958]

Honestly.

[@Fallenfaefolk]

"PETER ELLENSHAW DID THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!"

[@samuelagboola]

It wasn't invented by Disney Imagineers. It was invented by Brits in the UK at RANK.

[@TheHvkCorp]

So what I get from this is that there's an old timer at Disney, golluming in a cave looking at a cube ?

[@orbofpondering]

That’s probably what Walt’s up to these days.

[@computernoise2209]

@@orbofpondering Walt hid them in secret. He died normally, but he was forced into cryo until we have the tech to retrieve this memory from him.

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Horde your lostech before Comstar finds it

[@billfred9411]

@@computernoise2209 He died from lung cancer and was cremated two days after death. I assume you are joking but sadly i can't be sure because people are so gullible nowadays, they will believe anything.

[@jedironin380]

mmmyyyy pprreecciioouuussss!! 😆

[@storminormin3419]

I don't usually get emotional about stuff, but this had me in complete open-mouthed-awe as I witnessed this piece of history come to life again- I love watching you guys!!

[@nopointshorts5373]

So sad to hear they all went missing in a year

[@nyengster]

THis... THIS!!!! is the perfect example of, WHY we need to study history, and old technology, just because something new, dosnt make it better! this was SOOOO amazing to watch!

[@michaelkupfer3723]

It was a nice history lesson. But green screen is way easier, less hardware dependent (try to light a Marvel set with sodium lights) and too complicated. And it still doesn't light the actors correctly. The future is called the Volume

[@bladddeesa]

@@michaelkupfer3723 He addresses that

[@Gunth0r]

@@michaelkupfer3723 yeah the lighting was off and is probably painful to get right on set, but these are techniques that can be rediscovered and refined. Ideally, you would use multiple channels, not just sodium.

[@keiyakins]

​@@michaelkupfer3723 True, green screen is easier and *usually* good enough. It's a great tool. But sometimes it's *not* good enough and for those times something like this is useful.

[@mattkidroske]

Ever since they first discussed this process, I've been waiting for them to do it themselves! Excited for this video 😁

[@owenssubchannel]

I don't think people are appreciating just how mind blowing this is - Corridor Crew/Digital just recreated (with help) what Disney have not been able to do for years. A youtube channel that made goofy funny video game sketches with cool Special Effects has just casually reintroduced one of THE best cinematography techniques ever used and but a billion dollar company to shame! Wow, round of applause!!

[@MatRDR]

I mean it was actually Paul Devebeck, he gave it to them to test it, but the credit should go to him for making it and corridor for testing it

[@brutuslugo3969]

Tbf , I don't think Disney "have not been able to" do this . I think they just haven't wanted to . The technology has its drawbacks I'm sure thats why they stopped using it .

[@alamcho]

@@brutuslugo3969 Exactly. Also, it's not like they "need" to recreate it anymore, since it's all digital now

[@Coconut-219]

He said it was all made from 'off the shelf components' - so apparently he didn't "invent" anything and both of these filters already existed this entire time. I know that sodium lamps are used commonly still and so the blocking filter is commonplace, but I didn't think that the passthrough filter would have been something that wasn't unique to that filming process so it would be hard to recreate, apparently not.

[@ChrissonatorOFL]

I remember watching a Star Trek VFX feature where they explain in TNG, they used orange screen occasionally instead of blue or green screen, which allowed them to film a model using black lights to light the model, and a special filter on the camera to ignore that black light and only produce a matte, so they didn't have to use the traditional ways to create a matte pass.