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Devastator from #Transformers Revenge of the Fallen was the biggest creature ILM had ever done up to that point. It was so complex and so heavy that it melted a couple computers of the artists at ILM. The first time they showed Devastator to Michael Bay he said that... it needed to be bigger and more detailed, so ILM went back and almost doubled him in size and complexity. ILM artists decided that the Devastator asset should be comprised of multiple different rigs, the two arms, the two legs, the torso, and the head. Exactly like it is in the final movie. Fun facts: • He was over 100 feet tall • He was made up of 52,632 individual parts • If laid out, all of his parts would add up to 14 miles long • Devastators hand travels at 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid • The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than ILMs previous largest rigid body simulation Devastator was the second most complex asset ever in the Transformers franchise, second only to the Driller Bot from Dark of the Moon. A lot of the projects I work on today are very large scale and complex and I still run into computation and data management challenges in 2024. This gives me a massive amount of respect for the work done by ILM all the way back in 2008-2009 for this film. Truly mind blowing technical and creative artistry! CREDITS Video by Paramount VFX by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)show more

Rassoul Edji

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1,107,644 views • 1 year ago •via X (Twitter)

Arts Science & Technology #Transformers

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11 Comments

John Draisey1 year ago

The new "crysis" benchmark should be "Yeah, but can your computer open the TROF Devastator Rig?"

Rassoul Edji1 year ago

I'd love to do that test on my computer :)

IndieWire1 year ago

Watch how the production design, cinematography, and score for #RingsOfPower Season 2 darkened Middle Earth for the @PrimeVideo series.

R 🏴‍☠️1 year ago

What it needed was to look like this . . .

obkatiekat🐾1 year ago

Wonder if it was the balls that fried the pcs 👀

Watcher Graphics1 year ago

When you use scale for cgi assets, are they actually that big in the project? Like its actually scaled up to be 1 to 1 if he was real? I always hear that you are supposed to scale your scenes in project as they are in real life is that all so they blend better to the footage?

Rassoul Edji1 year ago

Yes, we try to imitate real life as much as physically possible. Scale is a very important factor in that as simulations and light transport technology rely very heavily on correct scale. As you can imagine, things behave differently at 100 feet vs 100cm.

TFAdvanced1 year ago

Wasn't the whole "Melting the computers" thing just a bit in the behind the scenes footage.

Rassoul Edji1 year ago

They did a comedy recreation of it for the BTS footage but it did actually happen based on reports from people who worked on the film.

Bun Killer1 year ago

Devastator should have a place in a museum of VFX if that sort of thing exist, I mean, the Transformers original trilogy as a whole should be in since the 2007 movie was a stepstone in modern VFX right ?

Alaroons - Alien Day 4/26 Founder🥏1 year ago

Too many moving parts. That’s my main complaint about the Bayformers. I played with transformers as a kid and they didn’t need to be this complex. It’s a shame that we can never go back from here. The constructicons were so cool the way they were designed.

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The Driller Bot from #Transformers Dark of the Moon was the most complex asset ILM had done for Transformers by that point. It had 70,000 individual parts, over 7x more than Optimus Prime. This sequence where it is crushing the skyscraper took 288 hours per frame to render with all of the reflections and simulations. During the last weekend, ILM used their entire render farm, amounting to 200,000 rendering hours per day which is 22.8 years of rendering time in 24 hours.

The Driller Bot from #Transformers Dark of the Moon was the most complex asset ILM had done for Transformers by that point. It had 70,000 individual parts, over 7x more than Optimus Prime. This sequence where it is crushing the skyscraper took 288 hours per frame to render with all of the reflections and simulations. During the last weekend, ILM used their entire render farm, amounting to 200,000 rendering hours per day which is 22.8 years of rendering time in 24 hours.

Rassoul Edji

5,683,129 views • 1 year ago

The CGI used in this Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) scene melted a computer because of the sheer detail — they had to store it on multiple machines. Devastator had 52,632 parts, 30+ GB of textures, and millions of polygons, too heavy for a single system to handle.

The CGI used in this Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) scene melted a computer because of the sheer detail — they had to store it on multiple machines. Devastator had 52,632 parts, 30+ GB of textures, and millions of polygons, too heavy for a single system to handle.

Movies Scenes 🎫

536,615 views • 6 months ago

For the first time in any Transformers film, the human lead gets his own suit which he can use to fight the Terrorcons in Transformers Rise of the Beasts. This is of course Noah's Exo-suit. This suit was a lot of fun to work out and design. We tried to maintain a lot of similarities between it and Mirage since that was where the suit was coming from, but of course the pieces couldn't be 1:1 from Mirage. We ended up designing a lot of the pieces from scratch and the pieces that we could take from Mirage were massively modified to work well for the far smaller scale and tighter proportions of Noah. Because I had developed a procedural setup for all of our hero characters texturing and look development, the textures and look development of the suit were directly taken from Mirage and updated by our artists to work well for the suit through manual painting and tweaks. It was crucial that the suit still read as Mirage's body parts and not entirely new random metal parts. We handed the asset to WetaFX for the last sequence and they did an excellent job of integrating it beautifully into the live action footage and bringing the suit to life on Noah.

For the first time in any Transformers film, the human lead gets his own suit which he can use to fight the Terrorcons in Transformers Rise of the Beasts. This is of course Noah's Exo-suit. This suit was a lot of fun to work out and design. We tried to maintain a lot of similarities between it and Mirage since that was where the suit was coming from, but of course the pieces couldn't be 1:1 from Mirage. We ended up designing a lot of the pieces from scratch and the pieces that we could take from Mirage were massively modified to work well for the far smaller scale and tighter proportions of Noah. Because I had developed a procedural setup for all of our hero characters texturing and look development, the textures and look development of the suit were directly taken from Mirage and updated by our artists to work well for the suit through manual painting and tweaks. It was crucial that the suit still read as Mirage's body parts and not entirely new random metal parts. We handed the asset to WetaFX for the last sequence and they did an excellent job of integrating it beautifully into the live action footage and bringing the suit to life on Noah.

Rassoul Edji

1,954,667 views • 7 months ago

Stratosphere was our biggest and heaviest character on #Transformers ROTB. He was a real challenge to deal with on the Modeling, Texturing, and Rendering side. He had 1434 UDIMs due to his immense scale and was made up of tens of thousands of objects. His level of detail was truly something else. His vehicle form was also a behemoth. We had also built a mortar for his robot form and a cannon for his vehicle form but neither of these made it into the film as his part in the final battle was cut out. He was originally supposed to help out in the final battle, using both of these weapons against the Sweepers and Predacons. The decision to cut him from the final act came very late as all of his assets were final at that point. We were never told the reason why his role was cut from the film. I had to re-design my texturing system in Mari when working on him to ensure that it could handle such a complex and large character. I had to simplify a lot of the procedural systems and even had to branch off some of them into their own files to ensure that artists could work with somewhat decent performance. We ran into a lot of issues pushing him through our pipeline, both as a model as well as rendering him due to the sheer amount of objects and textures that had to be processed. For shots, it was requested by Lighting that we reduce his memory footprint as Google had complained he was taking up too much memory and their I/O for rendering on the cloud was being affected. The leadership team and I decided that the best way to do this was to half the texel density on the parts that wouldn't be visible in our approved shots and to also half the resolution of the textures in the parts not visible to camera. This allowed us to optimize his memory footprint both in shots as well as storage and I/O. It was massive technical undertaking working on Stratosphere, so much so that we had to delay getting him into shots as we simply couldn't push him through with our normal tooling. I really enjoyed the challenge that he posed for us as a team. CREDITS: Primary Modeling by Oscar Lowe Support Modeling by Arthur Grandjean and his team Final Texturing & Lookdev by Yaz Raji Video credits: Breakdown shot by MPC Film footage by Paramount

Stratosphere was our biggest and heaviest character on #Transformers ROTB. He was a real challenge to deal with on the Modeling, Texturing, and Rendering side. He had 1434 UDIMs due to his immense scale and was made up of tens of thousands of objects. His level of detail was truly something else. His vehicle form was also a behemoth. We had also built a mortar for his robot form and a cannon for his vehicle form but neither of these made it into the film as his part in the final battle was cut out. He was originally supposed to help out in the final battle, using both of these weapons against the Sweepers and Predacons. The decision to cut him from the final act came very late as all of his assets were final at that point. We were never told the reason why his role was cut from the film. I had to re-design my texturing system in Mari when working on him to ensure that it could handle such a complex and large character. I had to simplify a lot of the procedural systems and even had to branch off some of them into their own files to ensure that artists could work with somewhat decent performance. We ran into a lot of issues pushing him through our pipeline, both as a model as well as rendering him due to the sheer amount of objects and textures that had to be processed. For shots, it was requested by Lighting that we reduce his memory footprint as Google had complained he was taking up too much memory and their I/O for rendering on the cloud was being affected. The leadership team and I decided that the best way to do this was to half the texel density on the parts that wouldn't be visible in our approved shots and to also half the resolution of the textures in the parts not visible to camera. This allowed us to optimize his memory footprint both in shots as well as storage and I/O. It was massive technical undertaking working on Stratosphere, so much so that we had to delay getting him into shots as we simply couldn't push him through with our normal tooling. I really enjoyed the challenge that he posed for us as a team. CREDITS: Primary Modeling by Oscar Lowe Support Modeling by Arthur Grandjean and his team Final Texturing & Lookdev by Yaz Raji Video credits: Breakdown shot by MPC Film footage by Paramount

Rassoul Edji

268,448 views • 1 year ago

Mirage was the new human-buddy lead in #Transformers ROTB. The studio wanted a character other than Bumblebee to have that role and be in the spotlight with Optimus Prime. He was designed to look "handsome" and to be sporty. He was the only character in the film with more than 1 alternate form. He had a total of 4 that we built in 3D (1 of which was cut from the film) and 1 that was only in live action (the garbage truck). I served as the asset Lead and did the Primary Texturing & Look Development for him. I also modelled and designed his eyes, upgrading them from what we had originally in the concept and ref. We spent a lot of time getting his car paint to look correct in shots, matching closely to on set reference pictures of the Porsche. At the end of the film, Mirage gives up his life and becomes the Exo-suit for Noah. The suit was built separately, using the same tooling and systems as Mirage to ensure visual continuity between them for the transformation from Mirage to Noah Exo-suit. He was voice acted by Pete Davidson, a change which was made later in production. The animators tried to introduce some of Pete's mannerisms into Mirage's animations too. Overall he was a character which was a lot of fun to work on and I'm proud of the work the team did to get him to look the way he does in the final film. CREDITS Primary Modelling by Lilian Robert. Final Texturing & LookDev by Martin Kamminga. Various other artists supported the creation of Mirage and the Exo-suit. The Exo-suit and Mirage were sent to WetaFX for the final sequence. Video by Paramount, MPC, and WetaFX.

Mirage was the new human-buddy lead in #Transformers ROTB. The studio wanted a character other than Bumblebee to have that role and be in the spotlight with Optimus Prime. He was designed to look "handsome" and to be sporty. He was the only character in the film with more than 1 alternate form. He had a total of 4 that we built in 3D (1 of which was cut from the film) and 1 that was only in live action (the garbage truck). I served as the asset Lead and did the Primary Texturing & Look Development for him. I also modelled and designed his eyes, upgrading them from what we had originally in the concept and ref. We spent a lot of time getting his car paint to look correct in shots, matching closely to on set reference pictures of the Porsche. At the end of the film, Mirage gives up his life and becomes the Exo-suit for Noah. The suit was built separately, using the same tooling and systems as Mirage to ensure visual continuity between them for the transformation from Mirage to Noah Exo-suit. He was voice acted by Pete Davidson, a change which was made later in production. The animators tried to introduce some of Pete's mannerisms into Mirage's animations too. Overall he was a character which was a lot of fun to work on and I'm proud of the work the team did to get him to look the way he does in the final film. CREDITS Primary Modelling by Lilian Robert. Final Texturing & LookDev by Martin Kamminga. Various other artists supported the creation of Mirage and the Exo-suit. The Exo-suit and Mirage were sent to WetaFX for the final sequence. Video by Paramount, MPC, and WetaFX.

Rassoul Edji

130,138 views • 1 year ago

It's no secret that Michael Bay likes to shoot his films with as much practical effects as possible. In #Transformers (2007) there is a shot where Optimus Prime and Megatron crash through a building, this shot was done practically using a miniature at 1/4 scale by ILM. Doing this shot practically allowed them to get the randomness of the destruction without having to do expensive simulations. The CG robots were then added into the shot to merge the photographic plate with the CG elements. When doing live-action films, it is always a good idea to shoot physically as much as possible. This provides the VFX artists with real world reference to ground their work in and allows them to compliment the shot with CG elements. One of the reasons the original Transformers trilogy looks so good is because of the incredible blend of practical and digital effects. It is difficult to watch the film and spot what is real and what is CG. ILM VFX Supervisor Scott Farrar talks through how this scene was pulled off:

It's no secret that Michael Bay likes to shoot his films with as much practical effects as possible. In #Transformers (2007) there is a shot where Optimus Prime and Megatron crash through a building, this shot was done practically using a miniature at 1/4 scale by ILM. Doing this shot practically allowed them to get the randomness of the destruction without having to do expensive simulations. The CG robots were then added into the shot to merge the photographic plate with the CG elements. When doing live-action films, it is always a good idea to shoot physically as much as possible. This provides the VFX artists with real world reference to ground their work in and allows them to compliment the shot with CG elements. One of the reasons the original Transformers trilogy looks so good is because of the incredible blend of practical and digital effects. It is difficult to watch the film and spot what is real and what is CG. ILM VFX Supervisor Scott Farrar talks through how this scene was pulled off:

Rassoul Edji

512,825 views • 1 year ago

Water simulation has always been the holy grail of FX, requiring an incredible amount of computation to get right. For Battleship (2012), ILM had to reinvent their water systems to allow them to be able to deliver the show with it's plethora of shots in water. The alien ships are hundreds of feet long and therefore displace massive amounts of water. This, coupled with them making aggressive movements meant that hundreds of millions of droplets of water had to be simulated per shot to get a believable look of water interaction. Before their new water systems, artists were only able to get "1-2 simulations done per day", but with the new system they were able to "do many simulations per day", increasing the iterations and therefore the creative freedom and expression for the artists. ILM has since reworked their water systems multiple times, now being more powerful and accurate than ever, utilizing more powerful hardware and more accurate and efficient simulation algorithms. Today, water simulation is something that can be done a lot easier than before, even being able to do it in real-time with tools such as Unreal Engine and LiquiGen. Houdini is currently the most powerful tool for simulating water or any FX at very high fidelities. Check out some FX flipbooks from ILMs VFX breakdown showing their water work below:

Water simulation has always been the holy grail of FX, requiring an incredible amount of computation to get right. For Battleship (2012), ILM had to reinvent their water systems to allow them to be able to deliver the show with it's plethora of shots in water. The alien ships are hundreds of feet long and therefore displace massive amounts of water. This, coupled with them making aggressive movements meant that hundreds of millions of droplets of water had to be simulated per shot to get a believable look of water interaction. Before their new water systems, artists were only able to get "1-2 simulations done per day", but with the new system they were able to "do many simulations per day", increasing the iterations and therefore the creative freedom and expression for the artists. ILM has since reworked their water systems multiple times, now being more powerful and accurate than ever, utilizing more powerful hardware and more accurate and efficient simulation algorithms. Today, water simulation is something that can be done a lot easier than before, even being able to do it in real-time with tools such as Unreal Engine and LiquiGen. Houdini is currently the most powerful tool for simulating water or any FX at very high fidelities. Check out some FX flipbooks from ILMs VFX breakdown showing their water work below:

Rassoul Edji

86,674 views • 1 year ago

In my opinion the greatest Dragon ever put to film is Smaug from the Hobbit franchise by WetaFX. It is the most real looking and feeling Dragon I have ever seen. The incredible team at Weta spent a lot of time iterating and developing the character to make it what it is in the final film, even changing his design after the first film was released with a small snippet of Smaug in his previous form (they went back and re-rendered that snippet for the digital release of the first film to keep it consistent). He was changed from a 4-legged Dragon to his final form which is technically a Wyvern. He was voice acted and given reference performance capture by Benedict Cumberbatch which proved to be helpful for the animators at Weta. I have never worked on a Dragon before but it is definitely on my wish-list of creatures to work on one day as they are my favourite fantasy creatures. I highly recommend taking a look at how he was made in the below links, it is truly inspirational the level of detail and craftsmanship that went into making him. CREDITS & SOURCES: Video snippets are from WetaFXs breakdown of Smaug: Check out the full 3 part behind the scenes of how he was made from the Hobbit Appendices: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

In my opinion the greatest Dragon ever put to film is Smaug from the Hobbit franchise by WetaFX. It is the most real looking and feeling Dragon I have ever seen. The incredible team at Weta spent a lot of time iterating and developing the character to make it what it is in the final film, even changing his design after the first film was released with a small snippet of Smaug in his previous form (they went back and re-rendered that snippet for the digital release of the first film to keep it consistent). He was changed from a 4-legged Dragon to his final form which is technically a Wyvern. He was voice acted and given reference performance capture by Benedict Cumberbatch which proved to be helpful for the animators at Weta. I have never worked on a Dragon before but it is definitely on my wish-list of creatures to work on one day as they are my favourite fantasy creatures. I highly recommend taking a look at how he was made in the below links, it is truly inspirational the level of detail and craftsmanship that went into making him. CREDITS & SOURCES: Video snippets are from WetaFXs breakdown of Smaug: Check out the full 3 part behind the scenes of how he was made from the Hobbit Appendices: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Rassoul Edji

24,071 views • 1 year ago

Did you know that ILM built motion-controlled miniatures for #SkeletonCrew? One of the miniatures—complete with servo-operated engines and working lights—was the Onyx Cinder, built by John Goodson and Supervised by John Knoll and our ILM Miniature Unit. Not only was it used for in-camera finals, but it also informed our digital model, providing a seamless blend between the two. We have some excited stories on the way covering this work in-depth, but in the meantime, enjoy a sneak peek into this process, and then see ILM’s work in action in the first three episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, streaming now on Disney+!

Did you know that ILM built motion-controlled miniatures for #SkeletonCrew? One of the miniatures—complete with servo-operated engines and working lights—was the Onyx Cinder, built by John Goodson and Supervised by John Knoll and our ILM Miniature Unit. Not only was it used for in-camera finals, but it also informed our digital model, providing a seamless blend between the two. We have some excited stories on the way covering this work in-depth, but in the meantime, enjoy a sneak peek into this process, and then see ILM’s work in action in the first three episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, streaming now on Disney+!

Industrial Light & Magic

77,014 views • 1 year ago

By far the biggest and heaviest asset on #Transformers ROTB was Stratosphere. Tens of thousands of objects and over 1400+ UDIMs. It was a massive technical undertaking pushing this character through our pipeline and workflows. I spent a lot of time working with the team to optimize him and our methodologies for creating him. He originally played a bigger part in the films finale, but his role in it was eventually scrapped.

By far the biggest and heaviest asset on #Transformers ROTB was Stratosphere. Tens of thousands of objects and over 1400+ UDIMs. It was a massive technical undertaking pushing this character through our pipeline and workflows. I spent a lot of time working with the team to optimize him and our methodologies for creating him. He originally played a bigger part in the films finale, but his role in it was eventually scrapped.

Rassoul Edji

478,524 views • 2 years ago

Quentin Taratino said Lawrence Fishburne’s performance in King of New York was so incredible he thought - “he could be the greatest actor of his generation”. He explains: "As great as Christopher Walken is in this movie. To me, it's Larry Fishburne's movie - it was the rock that becomes a diamond aspect of the movie. It's why I could defend this movie against all comers, because to me, Fish's performance in this movie was comparable to a young Brando. It was the most exciting performance by an actor of his generation that I'd seen in a movie of that time. And I thought, well, that's it. There is a new Marlon Brando, and his name is Larry Fishburne - it was amazing, it was mesmerizing… He is the first hip hop gangster in movie history. That character had never been done before this. He invented that character. And he invented it as something to do. It wasn't in the original script. He came up with that himself… The three big Fishburne moments to me, is his opening sequence with…Tito. That's it, with Tito - black glove dude. And his reunion with Frank. And then it's the chicken scene (see below). Those are his three big arias. Not only that though - expressions that I would later hear for the rest of the decade, I actually heard for the first time in that scene. I'd never heard the expression; “I'll slap the black off you” before. That was the first time I heard it when Fish says it to Snipes. I've since heard it many times… And that was actually the first time I ever heard, “fuck you very much”. And I would proceed to hear that for the rest of the 90s. But those were the first times I'd ever heard those expressions… As terrific as he has been in other things - the level of excitement that I had over him when this movie was over, I have never had that excitement again. I thought, with this, he could be the greatest actor of his generation. That was an actual, real fucking thing. He could be the greatest actor of his generation after seeing this." Quote comes from The Rewatchables podcast

Quentin Taratino said Lawrence Fishburne’s performance in King of New York was so incredible he thought - “he could be the greatest actor of his generation”. He explains: "As great as Christopher Walken is in this movie. To me, it's Larry Fishburne's movie - it was the rock that becomes a diamond aspect of the movie. It's why I could defend this movie against all comers, because to me, Fish's performance in this movie was comparable to a young Brando. It was the most exciting performance by an actor of his generation that I'd seen in a movie of that time. And I thought, well, that's it. There is a new Marlon Brando, and his name is Larry Fishburne - it was amazing, it was mesmerizing… He is the first hip hop gangster in movie history. That character had never been done before this. He invented that character. And he invented it as something to do. It wasn't in the original script. He came up with that himself… The three big Fishburne moments to me, is his opening sequence with…Tito. That's it, with Tito - black glove dude. And his reunion with Frank. And then it's the chicken scene (see below). Those are his three big arias. Not only that though - expressions that I would later hear for the rest of the decade, I actually heard for the first time in that scene. I'd never heard the expression; “I'll slap the black off you” before. That was the first time I heard it when Fish says it to Snipes. I've since heard it many times… And that was actually the first time I ever heard, “fuck you very much”. And I would proceed to hear that for the rest of the 90s. But those were the first times I'd ever heard those expressions… As terrific as he has been in other things - the level of excitement that I had over him when this movie was over, I have never had that excitement again. I thought, with this, he could be the greatest actor of his generation. That was an actual, real fucking thing. He could be the greatest actor of his generation after seeing this." Quote comes from The Rewatchables podcast

Gangster Cinema Central

653,912 views • 1 month ago

The stunt in Scarface where Omar Suárez is thrown from the helicopter was by far the most difficult and dangerous in the film, because nothing like it had ever been done in Hollywood before. Veteran stuntman Dick Ziker, who built his career on some of the industry’s most dangerous stunt work, said it was “in the top one or two” most terrifying he ever performed. The effects team had to specially design a custom ratchet rig so they could control the line as Ziker fell. It was basically a carefully rigged bungee jump, except the line was attached to his neck instead of his feet. It had to be controlled very precisely. If the rope was too loose, Ziker would bounce back up and the stunt would look fake; but if it was too tight, the force would snap his neck. The challenge was to perform it in a way that maintained realism, without risking serious injury. Dick Ziker said that when he fell from the chopper, he hit the end of the cable so hard, “it almost pulled the helicopter out of the sky…” “That was the first time anything like that ever been done - people weren't even doing bungee jumps in those days off bridges. So it was kind of an exciting, very frightening thing. I had black and blue marks everywhere. I'm going, "I will never do that again as long as I live." However, Brian De Palma reviewed the rushes and immediately felt something was off, even though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He eventually realized the problem: when the stunt was filmed, Ziker’s arms were not tied behind his back. So the production had to do the entire stunt again, this time with his arms fully restrained. Ziker was furious and initially refused to do the stunt over, but he eventually agreed. The second version was shot at Universal Studios over a pond — “only about 300 or 400 feet up”, he joked, “so if the rope broke or anything, I’d still get killed, but they could find the pieces.” Quotes taken from the Biography Channel's documentary "Scarface: The Inside Story" (2013)

The stunt in Scarface where Omar Suárez is thrown from the helicopter was by far the most difficult and dangerous in the film, because nothing like it had ever been done in Hollywood before. Veteran stuntman Dick Ziker, who built his career on some of the industry’s most dangerous stunt work, said it was “in the top one or two” most terrifying he ever performed. The effects team had to specially design a custom ratchet rig so they could control the line as Ziker fell. It was basically a carefully rigged bungee jump, except the line was attached to his neck instead of his feet. It had to be controlled very precisely. If the rope was too loose, Ziker would bounce back up and the stunt would look fake; but if it was too tight, the force would snap his neck. The challenge was to perform it in a way that maintained realism, without risking serious injury. Dick Ziker said that when he fell from the chopper, he hit the end of the cable so hard, “it almost pulled the helicopter out of the sky…” “That was the first time anything like that ever been done - people weren't even doing bungee jumps in those days off bridges. So it was kind of an exciting, very frightening thing. I had black and blue marks everywhere. I'm going, "I will never do that again as long as I live." However, Brian De Palma reviewed the rushes and immediately felt something was off, even though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He eventually realized the problem: when the stunt was filmed, Ziker’s arms were not tied behind his back. So the production had to do the entire stunt again, this time with his arms fully restrained. Ziker was furious and initially refused to do the stunt over, but he eventually agreed. The second version was shot at Universal Studios over a pond — “only about 300 or 400 feet up”, he joked, “so if the rope broke or anything, I’d still get killed, but they could find the pieces.” Quotes taken from the Biography Channel's documentary "Scarface: The Inside Story" (2013)

Gangster Cinema Central

144,064 views • 2 months ago

Dwyane Wade said he wanted to earn Kobe Bryant’s respect when he got into the league: “To me Kobe was the bar — he was the greatest player in the game to me, he played the same position so I needed that respect from Kobe…a lot of my work throughout the summers was to get better so Kobe can pick me up…it was one point throughout that year where I grabbed the ball and he was grabbing me 94 feet…I got the respect of Kobe…I told everybody like ‘Kobe picked me up 94 feet!’…to me it meant something…” (via Wy Network by Dwyane Wade)

Dwyane Wade said he wanted to earn Kobe Bryant’s respect when he got into the league: “To me Kobe was the bar — he was the greatest player in the game to me, he played the same position so I needed that respect from Kobe…a lot of my work throughout the summers was to get better so Kobe can pick me up…it was one point throughout that year where I grabbed the ball and he was grabbing me 94 feet…I got the respect of Kobe…I told everybody like ‘Kobe picked me up 94 feet!’…to me it meant something…” (via Wy Network by Dwyane Wade)

The HEAT Realm

409,004 views • 2 months ago

Samuel L. Jackson explains how he landed the role of Jules in Pulp Fiction, and what it was like seeing the film for the first time on the big screen: “Pulp Fiction and I came together in a very strange kind of way. I remember auditioning for Quentin for Reservoir Dogs in New York (for the role of of Detective Jim Holdaway, Mr. Orange’s police contact). And apparently I didn't get that role. But I was at Sundance the year that he screened it for the first time. I was sitting there and I watched that movie - I was awed by it. I mean, there were people running up the aisles when Michael Madsen was cutting the cop's ear off. People were going, "Oh my God, this is horrible!" All these “auteurs” were running out of the theatre. I was like, "This is good. This is happening. This is different." So after the film, I walked up to Quentin and said, "This film's amazing, man. It's great." And he looked at me and said, "Hey! How'd you like the guy who got your part?" And I was amazed that he even remembered who I was - but he remembered me. A year or so later, I got a phone call saying Quentin Tarantino wants to have dinner with you, because he'd seen Jungle Fever and he liked that Gator character. When we had dinner, we were sitting there talking. We started talking about Hong Kong films and cartoons and foreign movies and obscure things that we watched, horror movies. We found out we liked the same kind of stuff. And he told me he was writing this thing, and he was writing this part with me in mind. He was going to send it to me. I went off to do another film. I was in the backwoods of Virginia somewhere doing a film, and the script came. A little plain brown wrapper from Jersey Films. And Jersey's got these gangster images on the logo. And it said, "If you show this script to anybody, two guys named Ernie and Luigi will come and break both of your legs." Whatever. I went, "Yeah, right." So I sat down and read it. Boom. I read this thing. It's like, "Oh my God. This is awesome." And then I said to myself, "Nobody writes a script this good. There's no way that this script is as good as I thought it was." I closed it. I opened it again. I read it immediately. Okay. This is great - If whoever produces this film lets him shoot exactly what I just read, if they stay away from it, they don't try to edit any of this stuff out - this is going to be a great film. It's going to be kind of audience-specific, because I like that kind of stuff. I have friends that I knew would like it. It was a generational kind of film. I never thought it would cross over and do all this stuff. We shot it. We had a great time doing it. And the first time I actually saw the film was at the Cannes Film Festival. That night, it screened, and I was sitting there watching the film. The audience was loving this movie, loving it. About halfway through, I realized there were subtitles at the bottom of it. So I said, "Hey, these people are reading it, and they're getting it. This might be special. This really might be something special." And actually, by the time it was over, there were tears running down my face. I was just so pleased that I was part of that particular film… I never felt that satisfied, and that kind of full about a performance and about being part of something as I was in that particular moment.” Quote comes from an Interview with the American Film Institute 2010

Gangster Cinema Central

83,875 views • 5 days ago

These workers spent the last day and a half redoing a roof that was leaking, missing shingles and in overall terrible shape. Every time they took off a section of shingles they noticed more and more unseen damages. So they had to constantly redo the estimate. By the time they got done, the estimate was almost twice the original quoted amount and the owner refused to pay, was it the contractors fault the house was in so poor condition and needed so much work? Should he have done a better job of estimating or was the damage foreseen be the owner more than likely knew about it?

These workers spent the last day and a half redoing a roof that was leaking, missing shingles and in overall terrible shape. Every time they took off a section of shingles they noticed more and more unseen damages. So they had to constantly redo the estimate. By the time they got done, the estimate was almost twice the original quoted amount and the owner refused to pay, was it the contractors fault the house was in so poor condition and needed so much work? Should he have done a better job of estimating or was the damage foreseen be the owner more than likely knew about it?

SonnyBoy🇺🇸

1,517,854 views • 5 months ago

~ Meet the hypocrite youtuber PJ ~ In his review of Ramayana, he said that it is a Hollywood level film, so there should be no flaws in it, people should criticize it And he was finding flaws in each and every frame. "Excessive nitpicking" But in the review of Odyssey he is saying that this is a modern adaptation, we should not go into such details, he's calling out people for nitpicking... Who can be a bigger hypocrite than him, he earns money from India and flatters the anglophones (angrej). When the VFX in Ramayana was a bit half-backed, he was criticising it a lot but when the VFX of a Hollywood movie is not up to the mark, he is defending it.... Here's the clip from both movie reviews.

~ Meet the hypocrite youtuber PJ ~ In his review of Ramayana, he said that it is a Hollywood level film, so there should be no flaws in it, people should criticize it And he was finding flaws in each and every frame. "Excessive nitpicking" But in the review of Odyssey he is saying that this is a modern adaptation, we should not go into such details, he's calling out people for nitpicking... Who can be a bigger hypocrite than him, he earns money from India and flatters the anglophones (angrej). When the VFX in Ramayana was a bit half-backed, he was criticising it a lot but when the VFX of a Hollywood movie is not up to the mark, he is defending it.... Here's the clip from both movie reviews.

Mr SP

37,045 views • 1 month ago

Pierce Brosnan on the lucky break that launched his film career: "I struck a vein of gold there. I was very fortunate. I was really lucky." Speaking during the third season of Remington Steele ("We're still making it. Yes. Hence this growth here. See, we've just finished our third season back in the States."), Brosnan looks back on how quickly things came together for him at the start. It happened almost by accident. As he tells it, in one slow week he managed to land roles in two films. The first was The Long Good Friday, where he played a small but memorable part: "I was the gentleman killer. I was the killer. I pick the fellow up in the swimming bars and then I stab him and then I pop up at the end of the movie and I point at Mr. Hoskin's head." The second was The Mirror Crack'd, alongside Elizabeth Taylor. His role there was brief, but the detail he remembers is a good one: "I was being cradled on Liz Taylor's bosoms." He plays down the depth of the part with a laugh: "It's very very very uh it's very brief. Um I mean my approach but uh it's just she looks into my eyes and says Jamie Jamie and puts a head and that was it." For all the Hollywood success, Brosnan stays rooted in where he came from. Ask him about his accent and he turns it into a running joke: "The Irish accent? Uh well, that comes and goes. It all depends on who I'm talking to. So, by the end of this interview, I might be back into the bro." He left Ireland in 1964, and what stuck with him from his schooling is told with affection and a bit of dread: "Christian brothers. They were fierce fellas. Fierce fellas. Yes." The bit of the language he still carries is small but fondly held: "All I all I remember is sig and dawia and sig she means sit down and dal means go home."

Pierce Brosnan on the lucky break that launched his film career: "I struck a vein of gold there. I was very fortunate. I was really lucky." Speaking during the third season of Remington Steele ("We're still making it. Yes. Hence this growth here. See, we've just finished our third season back in the States."), Brosnan looks back on how quickly things came together for him at the start. It happened almost by accident. As he tells it, in one slow week he managed to land roles in two films. The first was The Long Good Friday, where he played a small but memorable part: "I was the gentleman killer. I was the killer. I pick the fellow up in the swimming bars and then I stab him and then I pop up at the end of the movie and I point at Mr. Hoskin's head." The second was The Mirror Crack'd, alongside Elizabeth Taylor. His role there was brief, but the detail he remembers is a good one: "I was being cradled on Liz Taylor's bosoms." He plays down the depth of the part with a laugh: "It's very very very uh it's very brief. Um I mean my approach but uh it's just she looks into my eyes and says Jamie Jamie and puts a head and that was it." For all the Hollywood success, Brosnan stays rooted in where he came from. Ask him about his accent and he turns it into a running joke: "The Irish accent? Uh well, that comes and goes. It all depends on who I'm talking to. So, by the end of this interview, I might be back into the bro." He left Ireland in 1964, and what stuck with him from his schooling is told with affection and a bit of dread: "Christian brothers. They were fierce fellas. Fierce fellas. Yes." The bit of the language he still carries is small but fondly held: "All I all I remember is sig and dawia and sig she means sit down and dal means go home."

History Nerd

83,226 views • 21 days ago

🚨 NEW: Fox’s Brit Hume on today’s news that the Georgia election case against Trump has been thrown out: “It’s all part of the obstacles hurled in the path of Donald Trump as he sought the presidency the first, second and third time. A lot of it has fallen away and this case certainly deserved to.” “It was brought by a clownish prosecution team who had scandals in the middle of the case and I would add that the prosecutor who asked for the case to be dropped made the point that it’s not illegal to challenge the results of an election. So it was a misbegotten prosecution from the jump and there’s very little left of the lawfare that was brought against President Trump. I think that’s a good thing.”

🚨 NEW: Fox’s Brit Hume on today’s news that the Georgia election case against Trump has been thrown out: “It’s all part of the obstacles hurled in the path of Donald Trump as he sought the presidency the first, second and third time. A lot of it has fallen away and this case certainly deserved to.” “It was brought by a clownish prosecution team who had scandals in the middle of the case and I would add that the prosecutor who asked for the case to be dropped made the point that it’s not illegal to challenge the results of an election. So it was a misbegotten prosecution from the jump and there’s very little left of the lawfare that was brought against President Trump. I think that’s a good thing.”

TV News Now

67,489 views • 7 months ago

Why Elon didn't want to be CEO: "[Elon] is at core, an engineer and a product guy. He has this great line where he said: "I realized you couldn't be fully in control of the product unless you were also in control of the company." He says he made a moral error, early in Tesla, where he was trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to control the company without running the company. And that was the 2002 to 2008 era, where Tesla was just off to a really messy start. He was providing the funding. He was chairman of the board. But Martin Eberhard was CEO. Eventually, when Tesla was on the verge of death in 2008....Elon was pushed into the position of: "I have to be CEO. I don't want to be. It comes with a lot of chores. It comes with a lot of responsibilities. But if I want this company to be successful, I have to fully internalize and take responsibility for it." And that's what he did, even though he was also in the same position at SpaceX. The fact that these companies are improbable, iconic, and that he funded and led them both in parallel...it's like running a two minute mile twice at the same time. It is such a higher degree of difficulty than most people can conceive of, and the fact that it worked is still unbelievable."

Why Elon didn't want to be CEO: "[Elon] is at core, an engineer and a product guy. He has this great line where he said: "I realized you couldn't be fully in control of the product unless you were also in control of the company." He says he made a moral error, early in Tesla, where he was trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to control the company without running the company. And that was the 2002 to 2008 era, where Tesla was just off to a really messy start. He was providing the funding. He was chairman of the board. But Martin Eberhard was CEO. Eventually, when Tesla was on the verge of death in 2008....Elon was pushed into the position of: "I have to be CEO. I don't want to be. It comes with a lot of chores. It comes with a lot of responsibilities. But if I want this company to be successful, I have to fully internalize and take responsibility for it." And that's what he did, even though he was also in the same position at SpaceX. The fact that these companies are improbable, iconic, and that he funded and led them both in parallel...it's like running a two minute mile twice at the same time. It is such a higher degree of difficulty than most people can conceive of, and the fact that it worked is still unbelievable."

Ti Morse

47,497 views • 2 months ago

John Carpenter on how Howard Hawks's "Rio Bravo" (1959) inspired him to become a filmmaker: "As I got older I began to see that certain directors did certain things. One of the earliest examples of this was Roger Corman. I started going to see these exciting, fast, kind of cheesy but really fun monster movies, and there was one name that kept coming up on the screen: Roger Corman. 'It Conquered the World' (1956), 'Not of This Earth' (1957), 'Attack of the Crab Monsters' (1957), 'The Undead' (1957)... But | really understood for the first time what a director did when I saw 'Rio Bravo' in 1959. There was something about that movie that was like home and I can't really explain it. It was held over in Bowling Green for three or four weeks in a row because people kept coming to see it. I abandoned to see what was new in the other movie house in town to see this movie every weekend again and again because there was something in it that was different from the other westerns I had seen. I had certainly seen John Wayne before. He had become a part of my growing-up experience. He was the action guy, the cowboy. He was the guy in 'Flying Tigers' (1942) who was flying the airplanes. So what was so different about that movie? Then I became aware of this credit: “Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo.” I looked at the poster and I said to myself, “Who is this guy? He didn't write the movie and he wasn't starring in it so why is his name up here? And why is he last in the credits?” All these things started to occur to me, but it was the emotional impact of the film that got me to start using my brain. Some way I figure out that this director made that movie." ("The Prince of Darkness: The Prince of Darkness", Gilles Boulenger, 2001) P.S: Remembering the great American filmmaker Howard Hawks on his 130th birthday.

John Carpenter on how Howard Hawks's "Rio Bravo" (1959) inspired him to become a filmmaker: "As I got older I began to see that certain directors did certain things. One of the earliest examples of this was Roger Corman. I started going to see these exciting, fast, kind of cheesy but really fun monster movies, and there was one name that kept coming up on the screen: Roger Corman. 'It Conquered the World' (1956), 'Not of This Earth' (1957), 'Attack of the Crab Monsters' (1957), 'The Undead' (1957)... But | really understood for the first time what a director did when I saw 'Rio Bravo' in 1959. There was something about that movie that was like home and I can't really explain it. It was held over in Bowling Green for three or four weeks in a row because people kept coming to see it. I abandoned to see what was new in the other movie house in town to see this movie every weekend again and again because there was something in it that was different from the other westerns I had seen. I had certainly seen John Wayne before. He had become a part of my growing-up experience. He was the action guy, the cowboy. He was the guy in 'Flying Tigers' (1942) who was flying the airplanes. So what was so different about that movie? Then I became aware of this credit: “Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo.” I looked at the poster and I said to myself, “Who is this guy? He didn't write the movie and he wasn't starring in it so why is his name up here? And why is he last in the credits?” All these things started to occur to me, but it was the emotional impact of the film that got me to start using my brain. Some way I figure out that this director made that movie." ("The Prince of Darkness: The Prince of Darkness", Gilles Boulenger, 2001) P.S: Remembering the great American filmmaker Howard Hawks on his 130th birthday.

DepressedBergman

55,467 views • 1 month ago