The Joker Actually Used a TON of VFX

Get some cool drag & drop VFX here! ► ◄ Don’t forget to visit OUR SHOP here! ► ◄ Joker is one of those films (like The Revenant or Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) that feel like they don’t have Visual effects and that everything was done for real, or “In Camera“, as they say. But in reality, these films actually have a tonne of VFX. It’s just that they’re done so cleverly, you didn’t notice them. So, In this video, I’m going to go through the film Joker and point out those very FX you totally didn’t notice. Like the music in this video? I made it! Support me by getting it on any of these sites :P Get it on iTunes: ► ◄ Listen on Spotify: ► ◄ Buy it on Amazon: ► ◄ Like, this blood, for example. It’s not even there! Neither is this blood, nor this blood. In fact none of the blood in this movie was actually filmed for real! Although it may initially seem a lot easier to film real shots of fake blood on set, there was actually a very good reason for doing it digitally: -It actually made it quicker and easier for the filmmakers and more intuitive and relaxed for the actors. This was because they could repeat takes as many times as necessary without having to clean up fake blood from the set and costumes and reset special effects like squibs in between each take. However, the trade-off for doing it digitally meant that the VFX teams had to create an exact 3D digital copy of each set. And the reason why is this: if you have a static camera pointing at a wall or flat surface, a blood spatter can just be a 2D layer composited over the top. But if the background, or the camera itself, is moving, the blood spatter cannot be a 2D layer over a background layer or “plate“ because each will move independently of the other. Instead, the blood must somehow be anchored to the wall within the set’s 3D space. To do this they must know exactly where the “spatter point“ on the wall is on the set’s X, Y, and Z axis and they must track exactly where the camera moves in relation to that point. They can then put the CG blood on the same point on the axis and have a virtual camera mimic the real camera’s motion, but, in order to achieve this, the VFX teams must be able to accurately replicate the 3D set inside their computers. To create an exact digital copy the VFX teams must first measure absolutely everything on the physical set and they do this by using . Laser Imaging, Detection, and Ranging. This system scans everything around it by bouncing lasers off every surface and measuring how long they take to return in order to determine how far away they are from the sensor. Although it may seem like relatively new technology, LIDAR has been around since the 1960s and it’s a lot more common than you might think, It’s used in Agriculture, Archaeology, The Military, Autonomous Vehicles, Police speed guns, in fact, if you have a high-end android phone or an iPhone Pro, you probably have a LIDAR sensor incorporated. Anyway, the Movie Joker required a lot of LIDAR scans, not only for the CG blood that had to appear on the walls of the train but also for the CG blood that had to appear on the “Murray Franklin show“ set and in Arthur’s mom’s apartment but LIDAR scans weren’t just needed for adding CG blood, they were also used to add more trash and graffiti. This is the train they filmed in principal photography and this is how it appears in the movie. Although, on the face of it, the addition of graffiti might seem a frivolous use of VFX. When comparing the two you can see that it adds to the deterioration and oppression that surrounds Arthur. VFX were also used to apply this depressive feeling to the city of Gotham itself. They wanted to give Gotham a “New York“ feel without actually being New York, so they shot it in New York, and then removed the things that were too iconic. To add to the oppression felt by Arthur, VFX were used to make everything appear in decline, jaded, and weatherworn. They also made the buildings appear taller so that they’d loom over him. Everything was raised to tower above him, dwarfing and suffocating him. This continued even to the point where they filled this space right here with buildings, just so there would be no breaks as they ran by, no little glimpse of blue sky to alleviate the oppression. In films like Joker, The Revenant, and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, the visual effects were invisible because they focused on the imagery that you feel and perceive, but don’t necessarily see! #joker #batman #dc #dccomics #vfx #vfxbreakdown #makingof #behindthescenes #filmmaking #filmmaker #movie #film The above ActionVFX link contains a Special Fame Focus Discount. We also earn an affiliate percentage of each purchase. Read more here: Follow us on Twitter: