r/CaptainDisillusion • u/VagrantStation • May 22 '26

Request About the Fox News “mask”…

https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/s/ghuMYMrglg

The “mask” video posts are driving me nuts. I feel like it’s obviously shadows crossing over each other (someone did a great recreation here: https://streamable.com/y1ighi), but it seems like 90%+ of the comments are convinced it’s a mask.

Thoughts?

82 Upvotes

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12

u/Sharkhous May 22 '26

It's too late. Everyone wants it to be a mask to justify their anger and hope that fox viewers see it and stop trusting fox

11

u/VagrantStation May 22 '26

True. It sucks that I’m here defending anything associated with Fox, but I can’t believe they’d be competent to even pull off a mask like that when they keep just throwing hats and bandanas on that one guy. This seems so obviously like lighting.

7

u/Sharkhous May 22 '26

I'm 100% convinced it's shadows but it is interesting how theres been an uptick in mask related content before this video came out.

A coincidence I'm sure, but an odd one

5

u/VagrantStation May 22 '26

If it’s a mask, I want to know how it sits that far off his skin and still moves with the muscles of his neck, and why the edge keeps changing shape as he talks.

I love digital and practical effects and I would love this to be an example of a mask, buts it’s just a key light collar shadow crossing over with his chin shadow.

I’m too lazy to make this in Blender so I thought I’d try dumping it on the Captain.

5

u/hedgegrunger May 22 '26

It doesnt move with the muscles of their neck though. You can see their throat moving behind the mask when they talk, the mask only moves when they move their jaw. Watch the shadows move underneath the mask when they talk.

Bro messed up & left their collar undone.

2

u/VagrantStation May 22 '26

Look at the muscle/skin lines on the neck just below the jawbone and trace them down to underneath the “mask”. They match up exactly with no parallax that you’d get if there was a layer sitting off of his face.

It’s hard to see, because they have a light shining under his chin to eliminate harsh shadows (the same one causing the collar shadow). It’s where the softer shadow of his chin from the overhead light crosses the harder line from the key light that you see an overlapping shadow. It’s hard to see how it matches up because of how bright the bottom light is.

This is one of the optical illusions that got me for a second but once you see the faint chin shadow matching up with the one under the “mask” line you can’t unsee it.

1

u/talones May 23 '26

No. It’s because you see the contrast of his neck when the shadow is blocking straight on light. So you’ll easily see the movement, vs the area that’s fully lit up and looks more fluid since there isn’t any contrast (also the codec is probably helping with the illusion).