How the hell did they shoot Austin Powers?
Three of the main characters were the same actor, and yet there are shots with all of them in the same scene. When I saw this as a young adult I didn't even notice that Mike Myers was playing three roles and was genuinely dumbfounded years later when I found out.
How did they do those scenes so seamlessly?
Compositing has been a thing for, like, forever, going from cutting and gluing film together to, well, having lookalike instead of the real actor in certain shots...
I'm mostly weirded by how you found out only now. I guess go and have fun looking up "Captain Disillusion" youtube channel.
I love Captain D, the way he takes apart a scene in Blender is an art form in itself.
I guess the question I'm asking is, normally when editing comes into play you can sort of notice it through one way or another. There's an uncannyness to it that makes it jarring, whereas in Austin Powers I never once clocked on that I was watching the same person. Did they use really sophisticated techniques for this? Was the campiness and comedic tone of the film itself a good distraction from any editing goofs?
If it was a more sombre film, would I notice it more I wonder?
Edit: @Aurenkin mentions the ping-pong scene in the 2019 Moon film, which has a more mature tone and the editing there was definitely flawless.
Was the campiness and comedic tone of the film itself a good distraction from any editing goofs?
That really helps by distracting the viewer away from the small give aways.
They also did a really good job with the interactions and editing so it flows smoothly.
I personally have never noticed flaws when such tecniques are employed, but it may be just immersion doing its job. I've never heard of Austin Power being singled out for its special effects...
My guess: For the first version of the scene they'll have someone saying the other character's lines the way they should be played so that dialogue looks natural. Once one version has been filmed it's not hard to play that version's audio while filming the second version so the actor is actually hearing himself play the other character.
Here's a Captain Disillusion VFXcool episode about this special effect, specifically as applied to Back to the Future (which innovated having a split screen with a moving camera): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhNDsPMaK_A
Red Dwarf was doing same actor multiple roles for a long long time. There are many episodes to check out, but one of the best examples is Stasis Leak (3 of each character on screen), another good example is Me2 (Rimmer and Rimmer). They were doing this in 1988.
Corridor Crew is also an excellent YouTube channel for industry professionals commenting on how effects are done
Eddie Murphy, featuring...Eddie Murphy.
Wow, dumbass kid I was I never realized he played both roles. I guess he did a great job acting.
Edit: also still trying to figure out who the third character the was, lol
Edit 2: oh, it's Fat Bastard isn't it.
You forget he also played Goldmember in the third movie.
He also played the aptly-named Goldmember.
How did he gain and lose all that weight so fast to play both??
Lots of corned beef in order to both gain weight and acclimate to the role of being a Scottish Fat Bastard.
Yes and the baby eating lines were ad libbed so the reaction is genuine, no one expected it.
Ed: Via rob lowe
A few different film techniques.
they could film the actor in different costumes on the same set without moving the camera, and then they put those performances together.
so you can have the profile of Austin powers on the left talking to the profile of Dr. evil on the right, and those were separate performances pasted together so it looks like they're responding to each other even though Mike Myers was performing those conversations separately during different recordings.
If evil and Austin are in the same shot and it's an over-the-shoulder, the actor facing the camera is the real actor and the guy not facing the camera is a body double with the same hair or bald mask
so if you were looking at Austin and Dr. evil in the same shot, either those are two separate performances put together and you'll see that they never touch each other, or if they do touch each other, you'll notice that you never see the frontal face of one of the actors, which is actually a body double.
and you can see these two techniques and others used in Eddie Murphy's movies, or pretty much any body double move movie.
Corridor crew should do a vfx artists react video for this movie!
Cloned him by using his Mojo.
That or the magic of scene blocking and editing.
Assuming it's not just using body doubles which is the easiest way, usually you film the same actor twice with the camera left in place and then splice the two films together either by physically cutting and pasting the film or more recently with software. The software also has the advantage that it can blend things better, and fix lighting differences, and differences in film exposure which isn't as big of an issue now with film quality being more consistent. Often in older films you can often see an obvious difference between the two shots.
There's also some films where they take a much easier approach where they film one scene and then use a green screen for the second take. This allows for doing the takes at different times since the camera might get moved or other small changes that are difficult to work around in a single day and allows for multiple camera angles to be used more easily, but it can be difficult to get the aspect ratios and depth just right, so it often looks less natural if the first take has the character along the same or too similar of a plane of depth as the second.
With a gun, I assume
But to be serious the same way they shot freaky Friday and all those other twin movies. One person two different scenes splice it together
Wait 'till you find out that Hayley Mills isn't a twin.
That was just cloning
I was amused when I noticed her in the most recent M Night movie Trap.
This is not an endorsement of this movie. I just thought Parent Trap to Trap was an interesting career or maybe the title of her memoirs.
Who?
You should watch orphan black
So, back in the day they used a really simple camera trick called a double exposure.
https://abeautifulmess.com/how-to-shoot-a-double-exposure-in-camera/
While technically simple, it demands a lot of coordination as the actor has to time their lines and actions flawlessly for the trick to work.
And before computer controlled motion tracking, you could not move the camera.
With mojo.
Look up "Visual FX Artists React" on YouTube. And Captain Disillusion. You'll learn A TON about stuff like this from them!
I think they shot it with cameras.
Just wanted to say I would love an Austin Powers 4, honestly, I loved the series growing up.
https://www.wired.com/video/watch/design-fx-inside-orphan-black-s-amazing-visual-effects
If you haven't seen it, "Orphan Black" is a BBC show about a group of clones being hunted down by their creators.
One actress played about 20 different roles in the series; and there were a few scenes where all the clones were in the same room together.
Great show and a masterclass in acting.
Orphan Black was great. The most insane part was how you could tell which character was pretending to be another character even though they look the same. Tatiana Maslany did fantastic work on that show.
I love this thread haha yay!
I guess you could say… that’s my bag… baby!
I enjoyed this type of scene in Moon as well.
I have nothing to add, I just had no idea! I had to look it up, I almost didn't believe you 😂
I'm not putting anyone down, but I am genuinely amazed that this many people were unaware. If you asked me how many people who watched weren't aware, I'd have guessed like less than .01%.
I was a kid, and a dumb one lol I've confused actors just because they changed their hair. In the same movie. I'm just not good with faces 😂
Oh, today I learned, I suppose.
Digital magic.
My dad and uncles made home videos on a 8mm camera doing this trick when they were teenagers, so it must be pretty easy even without a computer.
One thing I know is if the background doesn't change, you can basically film one character's part in the scene, then re-expose the film to do the next character's and so on.
It's basically the same as old Karel Zeman films, he uses it for highly stylized look but here it is used for invisible VFX.
It is surprising that these effects didn't change much, now they are aided by computers.
Look up the Nutty professor. Magical
I think he first did it in 'coming to America': all the guys in the barbershop are Eddie Murphy
Wait until you find out about the Clumps.