The art of creating awe
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0:01 - 0:03I worked on a film called "Apollo 13,"
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0:03 - 0:05and when I worked on this film, I discovered something
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0:05 - 0:07about how our brains work, and how our brains work
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0:07 - 0:09is that, when we're sort of infused with
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0:09 - 0:14either enthusiasm or awe or fondness or whatever,
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0:14 - 0:16it changes and alters our perception of things.
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0:16 - 0:18It changes what we see. It changes what we remember.
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0:18 - 0:22And as an experiment, because I dauntingly create
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0:22 - 0:26a task for myself of recreating a Saturn V launch
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0:26 - 0:29for this particular movie, because I put it out there,
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0:29 - 0:31I felt a little nervous about it, so I need to do an experiment
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0:31 - 0:35and bring a group of people like this in a projection room
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0:35 - 0:37and play this stock footage, and when I played this
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0:37 - 0:40stock footage, I simply wanted to find out
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0:40 - 0:44what people remembered, what was memorable about it?
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0:44 - 0:46What should I actually try to replicate?
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0:46 - 0:49What should I try to emulate to some degree?
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0:49 - 0:52So this is the footage that I was showing everybody.
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0:52 - 0:55And what I discovered is, because of the nature
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0:55 - 0:57of the footage and the fact that we're doing this film,
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0:57 - 0:59there was an emotion that was built into it
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0:59 - 1:02and our collective memories of what this launch meant to us
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1:02 - 1:04and all these various things.
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1:04 - 1:06When I showed it, and I asked, immediately after
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1:06 - 1:09the screening was over, what they thought of it,
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1:09 - 1:11what was your memorable shots, they changed them.
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1:11 - 1:14They were -- had camera moves on them.
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1:14 - 1:16They had all kinds of things. Shots were combined,
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1:16 - 1:19and I was just really curious, I mean, what the hell
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1:19 - 1:21were you looking at just a few minutes ago
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1:21 - 1:24and how come, how'd you come up with this sort of description?
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1:24 - 1:28And what I discovered is, what I should do is not actually
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1:28 - 1:32replicate what they saw, is replicate what they remembered.
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1:32 - 1:36So this is our footage of the launch, based on, basically,
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1:36 - 1:39taking notes, asking people what they thought, and then
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1:39 - 1:41the combination of all the different shots and all
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1:41 - 1:43the different things put together created their sort of
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1:43 - 1:45collective consciousness of what they remembered
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1:45 - 1:47it looked like, but not what it really looked like.
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1:47 - 1:50So this is what we created for "Apollo 13."
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1:50 - 1:54(Launch noises)
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1:54 - 1:57So literally what you're seeing now is the confluence
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1:57 - 1:59of a bunch of different people, a bunch of different memories,
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1:59 - 2:02including my own, of taking a little bit of liberty
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2:02 - 2:04with the subject matter.
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2:04 - 2:07I basically shot everything with short lenses,
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2:07 - 2:09which means that you're very close to the action,
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2:09 - 2:11but framed it very similarly to the long lens shots
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2:11 - 2:14which gives you a sense of distance, so I was basically
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2:14 - 2:16was setting up something that would remind you
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2:16 - 2:19of something you haven't really quite seen before. (Music)
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2:19 - 2:22And then I'm going to show you exactly what it is
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2:22 - 2:25that you were reacting to when you were reacting to it.
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2:25 - 2:38(Music)
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2:38 - 2:40Tom Hanks: Hello, Houston, this is Odyssey.
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2:40 - 2:43It's good to see you again. (Cheers) (Music)
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2:43 - 2:45Rob Legato: I pretend they're clapping for me.
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2:45 - 2:48(Laughter)
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2:48 - 2:51So now I'm in a parking lot. Basically it's a tin can,
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2:51 - 2:53and I'm basically recreating the launch with
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2:53 - 2:57fire extinguishers, fire, I have wax that I threw
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2:57 - 3:00in front of the lens to look like ice, and so basically
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3:00 - 3:03if you believed any of the stuff that I just showed you,
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3:03 - 3:06what you were reacting to, what you're emoting to,
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3:06 - 3:09is something that's a total falsehood, and I found that
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3:09 - 3:10really kind of fascinating.
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3:10 - 3:13And in this particular case, this is the climax of the movie,
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3:13 - 3:17and, you know, the weight of achieving it was simply
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3:17 - 3:20take a model, throw it out of a helicopter, and shoot it.
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3:20 - 3:22And that's simply what I did.
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3:22 - 3:25That's me shooting, and I'm a fairly mediocre operator,
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3:25 - 3:28so I got that nice sense of verisimilitude, of a kind of,
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3:28 - 3:31you know, following the rocket all the way down,
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3:31 - 3:33and giving that little sort of edge, I was desperately
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3:33 - 3:36trying to keep it in frame. So then I come up to the next thing.
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3:36 - 3:39We had a NASA consultant who was actually an astronaut,
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3:39 - 3:42who was actually on some of the missions, of Apollo 15,
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3:42 - 3:45and he was there to basically double check my science.
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3:45 - 3:49And, I guess somebody thought they needed to do that.
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3:49 - 3:50(Laughter)
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3:50 - 3:53I don't know why, but they thought they did.
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3:53 - 3:57So we were, he's a hero, he's an astronaut, and
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3:57 - 4:00we're all sort of excited, and, you know, I gave myself
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4:00 - 4:02the liberty of saying, you know, some of the shots I did
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4:02 - 4:05didn't really suck that bad.
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4:05 - 4:08And so maybe, you know, we were feeling kind of a little
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4:08 - 4:11good about it, so I brought him in here, and he needed
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4:11 - 4:13to really check and see what we were doing,
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4:13 - 4:16and basically give us our A plus report card,
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4:16 - 4:18and so I showed him some shots we were working on,
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4:18 - 4:21and waiting for the reaction that you hope for,
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4:21 - 4:24which is what I got. (Music) (Launch noises)
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4:24 - 4:26So I showed him these two shots,
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4:26 - 4:30and then he basically told me what he thought.
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4:30 - 4:32("That's wrong") (Laughter)
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4:32 - 4:35Okay. (Laughter)
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4:35 - 4:37It's what you dream about.
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4:37 - 4:40(Laughter)
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4:40 - 4:44So what I got from him is, he turned to me and said,
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4:44 - 4:47"You would never, ever design a rocket like that.
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4:47 - 4:48You would never have a rocket go up
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4:48 - 4:50while the gantry arms are going out. Can you imagine
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4:50 - 4:52the tragedy that could possibly happen with that?
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4:52 - 4:55You would never, ever design a rocket like that."
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4:55 - 4:57And he was looking at me. It's like, Yeah, I don't know
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4:57 - 4:59if you noticed, but I'm the guy out in the parking lot
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4:59 - 5:01recreating one of America's finest moments with
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5:01 - 5:03fire extinguishers.
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5:03 - 5:05(Laughter)
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5:05 - 5:08And I'm not going to argue with you. You're an astronaut,
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5:08 - 5:11a hero, and I'm from New Jersey, so --
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5:11 - 5:12(Laughter)
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5:12 - 5:14I'm just going to show you some footage.
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5:14 - 5:17I'm just going to show you some footage, and tell me what you think.
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5:17 - 5:19And then I did kind of get the reaction I was hoping for.
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5:19 - 5:21So I showed him this, and this is actual footage
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5:21 - 5:25that he was on. This is Apollo 15. This was his mission.
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5:25 - 5:30So I showed him this, and the reaction I got was interesting.
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5:30 - 5:33("That's wrong too.") (Laughter)
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5:33 - 5:36So, and what happened was, I mean, what I sort of intuned
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5:36 - 5:39in that is that he remembered it differently.
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5:39 - 5:41He remembered that was a perfectly safe sort of gantry
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5:41 - 5:44system, perfectly safe rocket launch, because he's sitting
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5:44 - 5:46in a rocket that has, like, a hundred thousand pounds
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5:46 - 5:48of thrust, built by the lowest bidder.
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5:48 - 5:51He was hoping it was going to work out okay.
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5:51 - 5:53(Laughter) (Applause)
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5:53 - 5:55So he twisted his memory around.
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5:55 - 5:59Now, Ron Howard ran into Buzz Aldrin, who was not
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5:59 - 6:01on the movie, so he had no idea that we were faking
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6:01 - 6:03any of this footage, and he just responded
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6:03 - 6:06as he would respond, and I'll run this.
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6:06 - 6:08Ron Howard: Buzz Aldrin came up to me
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6:08 - 6:13and said, "Hey, that launch footage, I saw some shots
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6:13 - 6:18I'd never seen before. Did you guys, what vault did you find
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6:18 - 6:20that stuff in?" And I said, "Well, no vault, Buzz,
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6:20 - 6:24we generated all that from scratch."
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6:24 - 6:28And he said, "Huh, that's pretty good. Can we use it?"
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6:28 - 6:31(Explosion) ("Sure") (Laughter)
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6:31 - 6:33RL: I think he's a great American.
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6:33 - 6:37(Laughter)
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6:37 - 6:40So, "Titanic" was, if you don't know the story,
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6:40 - 6:42doesn't end well.
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6:42 - 6:45(Laughter)
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6:45 - 6:48Jim Cameron actually photographed the real Titanic.
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6:48 - 6:50So he basically set up, or basically shattered
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6:50 - 6:52the suspension of disbelief, because what he photographed
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6:52 - 6:56was the real thing, a Mir sub going down, or actually
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6:56 - 6:58two Mir subs going down to the real wreck,
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6:58 - 7:00and he created this very haunting footage.
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7:00 - 7:03It's really beautiful, and it conjures up all these
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7:03 - 7:05various different emotions, but he couldn't photograph
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7:05 - 7:08everything, and to tell the story,
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7:08 - 7:10I had to fill in the gaps, which is now rather daunting,
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7:10 - 7:12because now I have to recreate back to back
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7:12 - 7:15what really happened and I had, I'm the only one
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7:15 - 7:20who could really blow it at that point.
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7:20 - 7:22So this is the footage he photographed,
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7:22 - 7:26and it was pretty moving and pretty awe-inspiring.
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7:26 - 7:29So I'm going to just let it run, so you kind of absorb
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7:29 - 7:32this sort of thing, and I'll describe my sort of reactions
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7:32 - 7:35when I was looking at it for the very first time.
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7:35 - 7:39I got the feeling that my brain wanted to basically
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7:39 - 7:41see it come back to life.
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7:41 - 7:43I automatically wanted to see this ship,
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7:43 - 7:46this magnificent ship, basically in all its glory,
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7:46 - 7:49and conversely, I wanted to see it not in all its glory,
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7:49 - 7:52basically go back to what it looks like.
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7:52 - 7:55So I conjured up an effect that I'm later going to show you
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7:55 - 7:58what I tried to do, which is kind of the heart of the movie,
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7:58 - 8:01for me, and so that's why I wanted to do the movie,
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8:01 - 8:05that's why I wanted to create the sort of things I created.
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8:05 - 8:07And I'll show you, you know, another thing that I found
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8:07 - 8:09interesting is what we really were emoting to
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8:09 - 8:10when you take a look at it.
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8:10 - 8:13So here's the behind the scenes, a couple of little shots here.
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8:13 - 8:15So, when you saw my footage,
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8:15 - 8:18you were seeing this: basically, a bunch of guys
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8:18 - 8:21flipping a ship upside down, and the little Mir subs
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8:21 - 8:24are actually about the size of small footballs,
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8:24 - 8:26and shot in smoke.
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8:26 - 8:28Jim went three miles went down, and I went about
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8:28 - 8:29three miles away from the studio
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8:29 - 8:32and photographed this in a garage.
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8:32 - 8:34And so, but what you're emoting to, or what you're looking
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8:34 - 8:37at, had the same feeling, the same haunting quality,
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8:37 - 8:41that Jim's footage had, so I found it so fascinating
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8:41 - 8:45that our brains sort of, once you believe something's real,
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8:45 - 8:48you transfer everything that you feel about it,
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8:48 - 8:50this quality you have, and it's totally artificial.
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8:50 - 8:54It's totally make-believe, yet it's not to you,
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8:54 - 8:56and I found that that was a very interesting thing
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8:56 - 8:59to explore and use, and it caused me to create the next
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8:59 - 9:01effect that I'll show you, which is
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9:01 - 9:04this sort of magic transition, and all I was really attempting
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9:04 - 9:08to do is basically have the audience cue the effect,
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9:08 - 9:10so it became a seamless experience for them,
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9:10 - 9:13that I wasn't showing you my sort of interpretation,
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9:13 - 9:16I was showing you what you wanted to see.
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9:16 - 9:22And the very next shot, right after this --
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9:22 - 9:24So you can see what I was doing.
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9:24 - 9:26So basically, if there's two subs in the same shot,
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9:26 - 9:29I shot it, because where's the camera coming from?
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9:29 - 9:30And when Jim shot it, it was only one sub,
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9:30 - 9:32because he was photographing from the other,
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9:32 - 9:33and I don't remember if I did this or Jim did this.
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9:33 - 9:37I'll give it to Jim, because he could use the pat on the back.
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9:37 - 9:43(Laughter)
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9:43 - 9:45Okay. So now the Titanic transition.
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9:45 - 9:48So this is what I was referring to where I wanted to basically
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9:48 - 9:51magically transplant from one state of the Titanic
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9:51 - 9:55to the other. So I'll just play the shot once. (Music)
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9:55 - 9:59(Music)
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9:59 - 10:04And what I was hoping for is that it just melts in front of you.
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10:10 - 10:14Gloria Stuart: That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight.
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10:14 - 10:17RL: So, what I did is basically I had another
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10:17 - 10:20screening room experience where I was basically tracking
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10:20 - 10:22where I was looking, or where we were looking,
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10:22 - 10:25and of course you're looking at the two people on the bow
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10:25 - 10:27of the ship, and then at some point,
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10:27 - 10:29I'm changing the periphery of the shot,
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10:29 - 10:31I'm changing, it's becoming the rusted wreck,
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10:31 - 10:34and then I would run it every day, and then I would find
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10:34 - 10:37exactly the moment that I stopped looking at them
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10:37 - 10:39and start noticing the rest of it, and the moment
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10:39 - 10:42my eye shifted, we just marked it to the frame.
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10:42 - 10:44The moment my eye shifted, I immediately started
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10:44 - 10:47to change them, so now somehow you missed
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10:47 - 10:49where it started and where it stopped.
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10:49 - 10:51And so I'll just show it one more time.
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10:51 - 10:54(Music) And it's literally done by using what our brains
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10:54 - 10:58naturally do for us, which is, as soon as you shift
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10:58 - 11:00your attention, something changes, and then I left
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11:00 - 11:02the little scarf going, because it really wanted to be
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11:02 - 11:06a ghostly shot, really wanted to feel like they were still
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11:06 - 11:09on the wreck, essentially. That's where they were buried forever.
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11:09 - 11:11Or something like that. I just made that up.
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11:11 - 11:14(Laughter)
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11:14 - 11:16It was, incidentally, the last time I ever saw daylight.
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11:16 - 11:19It was a long film to work on. (Laughter)
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11:19 - 11:22Now, "Hugo" was another interesting movie, because
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11:22 - 11:24the movie itself is about film illusions.
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11:24 - 11:27It's about how our brain is tricked into seeing a persistence
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11:27 - 11:29of vision that creates a motion picture,
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11:29 - 11:33and one of the things I had to do is, we —
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11:33 - 11:36Sasha Baron Cohen is a very clever, very smart guy,
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11:36 - 11:38comedian, wanted to basically do an homage to the kind of
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11:38 - 11:41the Buster Keaton sort of slapstick things, and he wanted
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11:41 - 11:44his leg brace to get caught on a moving train.
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11:44 - 11:46Very dangerous, very impossible to do, and particularly
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11:46 - 11:49on our stage, because there literally is no way to actually
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11:49 - 11:54move this train, because it fits so snugly into our set.
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11:54 - 11:57So let me show you the scene, and then I basically
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11:57 - 12:00used the trick that was identified by Sergei Eisenstein,
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12:00 - 12:04which is, if you have a camera that's moving with a moving
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12:04 - 12:06object, what is not moving appears to be moving,
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12:06 - 12:09and what is moving appears to be stopped,
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12:09 - 12:12so what you're actually seeing now is the train is not
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12:12 - 12:17moving at all, and what is actually moving is the floor.
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12:17 - 12:20So this is the shot. That's a little video of
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12:20 - 12:23what you're looking at there, which is our little test,
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12:23 - 12:26so that's actually what you're seeing, and I thought it was
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12:26 - 12:28sort of an interesting thing, because it was, part
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12:28 - 12:31of the homage of the movie itself is coming up with this
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12:31 - 12:34sort of genius trick which I can't take credit for.
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12:34 - 12:37I'd love to but I can't, because it was invented
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12:37 - 12:41like in 1910 or something like that, is I told Marty,
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12:41 - 12:43and it's kind of one of those mind things that it's
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12:43 - 12:45really hard to really get until you actually see it work,
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12:45 - 12:48and I said, you know, what I was going to do, and he said,
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12:48 - 12:50"So, let me see if I can get this straight. The thing with the wheels?
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12:50 - 12:52That doesn't move."
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12:52 - 12:56(Laughter) (Applause)
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12:56 - 13:00"And the thing without the wheels, that moves."
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13:00 - 13:02Precisely. (Laughter)
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13:02 - 13:05Brings me to the next, and final --
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13:05 - 13:09Marty's not going to see this, is he? (Laughter)
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13:09 - 13:13This isn't viewed outside of -- (Laughter)
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13:13 - 13:17The next illustration is something that, there's like
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13:17 - 13:20all one shot theory. It's a very elegant way of telling a story,
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13:20 - 13:22especially if you're following somebody on a journey,
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13:22 - 13:25and that journey basically tells something about
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13:25 - 13:27their personality in a very concise way,
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13:27 - 13:29and what we wanted to do based on the shot in "Goodfellas,"
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13:29 - 13:31which is one of the great shots ever,
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13:31 - 13:35a Martin Scorsese film, of basically following Henry Hill
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13:35 - 13:37through what it feels like to be a gangster walk
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13:37 - 13:39going through the Copacabana and being treated in a special way.
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13:39 - 13:43He was the master of his universe, and we wanted Hugo
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13:43 - 13:45to feel the same way, so we created this shot.
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13:45 - 13:49(Music)
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13:49 - 13:54That's Hugo. (Music)
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13:54 - 13:57And we felt that if we could basically move the camera
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13:57 - 14:00with him, we would feel what it feels like to be this boy
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14:00 - 14:02who is basically the master of his universe,
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14:02 - 14:05and his universe is, you know, behind the scenes
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14:05 - 14:07in the bowels of this particular train station
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14:07 - 14:10that only he can actually navigate through
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14:10 - 14:12and do it this way, and we had to make it feel that
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14:12 - 14:14this is his normal, everyday sort of life,
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14:14 - 14:17so the idea of doing it as one shot was very important,
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14:17 - 14:20and of course, in shooting in 3D, which is basically
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14:20 - 14:24it's a huge camera that's hanging off of a giant stick,
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14:24 - 14:27so to recreate a steadycam shot was the task,
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14:27 - 14:30and make it feel kind of like what the reaction you got
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14:30 - 14:32when you saw the "Goodfellas" shot.
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14:32 - 14:36So what you're now going to see is how we actually did it.
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14:36 - 14:39It's actually five separate sets shot at five different times
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14:39 - 14:40with two different boys.
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14:40 - 14:42The one on the left is where the shot ends,
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14:42 - 14:48and the shot on the right is where it takes over,
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14:48 - 14:51and now we switch boys, so it went from Asa Butterfield,
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14:51 - 14:55who's the star of the show, to his stand-in. (Music)
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14:55 - 14:57I wouldn't say his stunt double. There's a crazy rig
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14:57 - 14:59that we built for this. (Music)
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14:59 - 15:03And so this is, and now this is set number three
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15:03 - 15:07we're into, and then we're going to go into, basically
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15:07 - 15:10the very last moment of the shot is actually
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15:10 - 15:12the steadycam shot. Everything else was shot on cranes
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15:12 - 15:14and various things like that, and it literally was done
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15:14 - 15:18over five different sets, two different boys, different times,
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15:18 - 15:20and it all had to feel like it was all one shot, and what was
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15:20 - 15:25sort of great for me was it was probably
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15:25 - 15:28the best-reviewed shot I've ever worked on,
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15:28 - 15:30and, you know, I was kind of proud of it when I was done,
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15:30 - 15:35which is, you should never really be proud of stuff, I guess.
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15:35 - 15:38So I was kind of proud of it, and I went to a friend of mine,
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15:38 - 15:40and said, "You know, this is, you know, kind of
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15:40 - 15:42the best-reviewed shot I've ever worked on.
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15:42 - 15:45What do you think was the reason?"
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15:45 - 15:46And he said, "Because no one knows
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15:46 - 15:48you had anything to do with it."
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15:48 - 15:51(Laughter)
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15:51 - 15:55So, all I can say is, thank you,
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15:55 - 16:00and that's my presentation for you. (Applause)
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16:00 - 16:05(Applause)
- Title:
- The art of creating awe
- Speaker:
- Rob Legato
- Description:
-
Rob Legato creates movie effects so good they (sometimes) trump the real thing. In this warm and funny talk, he shares his vision for enhancing reality on-screen in movies like Apollo 13, Titanic and Hugo.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:27
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The art of creating awe | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for The art of creating awe |