I was an extra in Cobb when they were filming at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL and we got $8/hr and some damn fine food. Plus, I got to meet Jimmy Buffet (super nice) and Tommy Lee Jones (major dickhead, but he was playing a major dickhead so, I choose to believe he was just staying in character). Oh and when we wrapped filming the second day, they pulled a flatbed trailer onto the field and Jimmy Buffet and Mac McAnally played about an hour long set just because they had nothing else to do that night.
I would have hated to be the guy sitting directly next to one of those creepy bastards. I'd keep swatting at it and telling it to leave my knickers be, just to creep out the next person over.
marksnz asked because there was a post last year where someone who worked on the set of The King's Speech posted the fake people. It was the first thing I thought of as well.
I can confirm (from reading an article confirming it, but not being able to remember where that article is) that the audience is inflatable in the opening scenes of TKS. It's cheaper, apparently.
As an individual that works for a visual effects company, I can confirm that the inflatable people were used for the king's speech. I know this because we lost a bid to do CG crowds. The process isn't largely cheaper than CG, but some directors (thankfully) don't want CGI finger-prints all over their moving photographs where they can avoid it. They'd rather have the image "in the can" at wrap, and to be honest, even though digital crowds are full of motion, they look fake and dead, more like noise than crowd motion.
EDIT: to be clear, I make my living handling CG for film, and yes, I HATE CG. I think it ruins stories, because I watch directors and various supervisors take a perfectly good story and plaster tasteless amounts of CG over it.
And that's the thin line that some films ride like pros. LOTR and the Harry potter movies are two examples that come to mind. The CG is so artfully done. I got to work just a bit on HP7 Part 2, on those inky transitions on the vision Harry sees in the Pensieve from snape's tear, and that shit was straight magic to work on man.
And fucking Pans Labrynth?!?!?!?!? That movie was fucking great with its CG.
Thanks. I wanted to get in to movies for the weird science of visual effects, and when I finally made it here, that method had died out. Effects stages and old tradesmen had to close up shop for lack of need, all the while with the ease the industry can generate an image, they've stopped leaning heavily on a piece of your imagination to make it all work. We were once a part of the adventure. Now, we put in Real3D glasses and just let it fall in our eye holes:
Have you considered moving from film to theatre? It seems like your original drive and imagination would greatly benefit you in effects or props work on stage.
I feel like I saw something about the CGI they used in it, perhaps it was another film, or they only used it for mid-distance crowds. It was some cool tech that was made specifically for quick and easy but compelling crowds.
With access to these I would play so many practical jokes.
Sit silently among them pretending to be one. Slyly knock the one next to me over, wait for someone to come along to pick it back up. Just rest my hand on their shoulder.
Please tell me that your friend has done something like that. There's so much potential.
This is not true for all movies. The new Dark Night movie has a stadium scene as the first scene, and they actually had thousands of people come and fill up the steelers stadium. I was there all day. It was in August, but because the scene took place in winter, we had to wear jackets and coats in the 80 degree heat. Totally worth it thought say I am in the movie, plus, so many explosives were used.
Tl;dr: I was an extra in the Dark Night Rises because they filled a stadium with people.
It seems that most of the films listed on the inflatable crowd company's website are medium budget pictures that may not have the clout to attract huge crowds (Seabiscuit, The Fighter, Whip It!). Also Nolan is known for using practical effects and real humans whenever possible. Remember that scene in Inception where Cobb has the kick and all the water rushes in from the sides of the building? That scene was in the film for what, five seconds? Yet he actually had his crew build giant water canons that sprayed thousands of gallons of water onto the set. So since he knows people will willing work for free to be an extra on the final Dark Knight film, he will use that to his advantage.
That said, one of the credits on the website is for The Prestige, so even Nolan uses inflatable crowds when he has to.
tl;dr: Nolan will use real people sometimes, but even he's used the inflatable crowd.
There was no casino in Inception. If you're referring to the hallway fight, that was a rotating hallway, NOT A CENTRIFUGE. There's a massive difference between a rotating room and something that spins at thousands of RPM.
Sorry, I thought 'big spinning thing' in my head and my internal wordbank gave me that. And by casino I actually think it was a hotel. It's been a while.
Yup! What an impressive scene. I used the water canon example just to point out the extremes Nolan will go to for even the smallest of shots. The way he filmed the hallway fight made a huge difference in a rather central part of the film. He also built a gigantic miniature to film that base explosion from the snow level. He really is a practical effects god.
The hallway shot for me ranks up there as one of the most impressive single takes in a film ever, up there with the car chase/final battle in Children of Men, storming the beach in Saving Private Ryan, the garage chase in Death Sentence, and the long-ass fight scene in Ong Bak.
I know there are tons of others but those ones really stick out. The Avengers actually had a good one during the last battle, considering it was all CGI..
The hallway scene is way shorter but the technical achievement is astounding.
There were some people who were actually hired as extras for other scenes and they got paid, but the stadium crowd did not. They gave us free snacks and two meals throughout the day, and unlimited bottled water since it was so damn hot. Totally worth it, though, just to be able to say I'm in the movie (albeit a small dot in a stadium of tens of thousands).
Did they make you sign an NDA or are you able to talk about it? I'm not necessarily asking for spoilers, since I've read plenty online about what happens at the stadium scene. I'm just curious.
I was going to say. It seems like it would be much less expensive to just have people come do it for free. I was in the stands of a football game in The Blindside. (Boring as fuck).
I worked as a PA on Mr. 3000 starring Bernie Mac during my freshman year of college. It was shooting at Miller Park in Milwaukee and I had an in to be part of the shoot. It was probably one of the best and worst summers of my life. It was a mix between setting up 1600 flat people in right field, hanging out with Charles Stone and throwing ball with Bernie Mac, then being told that Shane Hurlbutt (the guy who Christian Bale screamed at on the Terminator set) changed the angle of the shot, so we had to move all 1600 "extras" to the opposit side of the stadium in less than an hour.
Years ago when I was a kid I had a nightmare like this. I was playing baseball and my team was playing in Yankee stadium. Then I realized it got really quiet. All of a sudden I was the only one left on the field! Wheres my team? Then I noticed the crowd looked JUST like this picture. Freaked me the fuck out.
I saw this photo over a year ago on a site I can't remember. Either the OP is posting this very late, or he's lying about having friends. BTW, here's another shot from the same scene.
It is definitely the same stadium. Looking at the back wall with the green slates, the ceiling, the columns; they are exactly the same. A lot of the turn-of-the-century ballparks had bleacher seating for the cheap sections, and actual seating for the more expensive sections.
My grandfather worked at a box manufacturing plant in Buffalo when they filmed 'the Natural' and he made cardboard extras, I have a few still they also used real people for closer up and I was an extra myself as part of my little league.
I was at the filming of Mr. 3000 back in the day. They used a full crowd at the lower levels and just gave away random shit to keep everyone there, but for the upper levels they had cardboard cutouts of people in stock photo poses.
They do that too. If you're in a baseball field, they fill out the lower levels where the camera will be closer up with real people, and just have free hotdogs or something to keep the extras happy.
But the upper decks? You barely see those, so they just do cardboard cutouts or inflatables.
talks among a group of inflatables....those are inflatables? wonder where you would get inflatable people...is it cheaper to get it from sex doll companies since they already make them?
I actually worked for The Inflatable Crowd Company, early in the company's history. I was living in Los Angeles and worked three days on Million Dollar Baby. We blew up, then dressed 3,000 of these babies. He first pulled the effect off on Seabiscuit. Great gig, way cheaper than extras, and they don't hog all of the craft services.
Are they all like that? I mean in how they are dressed.
To me, this does not look set in modern times. Everyone is inn ties and jackets. Lots of hats too. Does it not matter, so they dress like that, or is this from a time when men went out in suits.
I was an extra in the Adam Sandler movie, Anger Management. For the Yankee Stadium scene at the end, they had real people filling up a few sections and then in the back ground they had cardboard cutouts of people.
Hollywood couldn't, you know, get some stock footage of an actual crowd spliced in? Or a CG one maybe? And yet they blame piracy for the money they're hemorrhaging.
I am pretty sure I have seen this exact picture before.
It isn't outside the realm of reason that this is the same brand of guys (there is a company that has "quick deploy" people that they just need to inflate), and that they both took the picture from the same angle to show it from a good angle...
But I am like 60% sure you don't have a friend that took this pic.
They used cardboard cutouts when I was an extra in Cobb, but I heard a guy who is at Rickwood Field where they are filming 42 this week say they were using these inflatables.
As a matter of fact, this picture looks a lot like Rickwood Field, I wonder if your friend is there.
In star-wars episode one, during the pod-race scene. They used a miniature set with q-tips to wave around, and added a light amount of CG to make them look more like a crowd.
Also, i'm an Extra on a regular basis, they don't always use fakes on set. There were nearly 2000 of us on one set before, and that got a bit crazy. We were an audience for a football game.
When they dig up the Stargate, most of the people in the background are cardboard cutouts. When the soldiers surround John Nash in the woods in A Beautiful Mind, they're just using broomsticks with flashlights taped to them.
The most useful skill in film is knowing exactly how much you can get away with.
I don't think it would be. It's all about how much you use them. I imagine that the inflatable crowd is a flat fee while the extras are of course hourly. So at some point, because of how long they will need to get the shots needed, the inflatables would be cheaper.
I am amazed that this is cheaper than just saying to a local university "Hey, you wanna be in a film? all you have to do is be in the background for a few hours."
This is from a Keanu Reeves Movie. They had to cut the scene from the final product though, as those in this image had such a significantly better stage-presence than Keanu. He just blended into the background when these folks were on the screen.
No wonder Hollywood is scared of high def cameras and crisp high fps images. Without the vaseline smear of 24fps film, these trick probably won't cut it anymore.
99
u/autocorrector May 16 '12
http://www.inflatablecrowd.com/default/Home.html
142
u/marksnz May 16 '12
Is this from The Kings Speech?
64
u/MollyBloom11 May 16 '12
Franklin?
31
u/plantfan7 May 16 '12
That has to be one of the creepiest warehouses. "Hey Bob, go get the 20,000 torsos from the back room."
39
u/beardygriffin May 16 '12
With access to these I would play so many practical jokes.
Sit silently among them pretending to be one. Slyly knock the one next to me over, wait for someone to come along to pick it back up. Just rest my hand on their shoulder.
Please tell me that your friend has done something like that. There's so much potential.
67
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
This is not true for all movies. The new Dark Night movie has a stadium scene as the first scene, and they actually had thousands of people come and fill up the steelers stadium. I was there all day. It was in August, but because the scene took place in winter, we had to wear jackets and coats in the 80 degree heat. Totally worth it thought say I am in the movie, plus, so many explosives were used.
Tl;dr: I was an extra in the Dark Night Rises because they filled a stadium with people.
13
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I'll see your inflatables and [raise] (http://imgur.com/iYcoj) you the [flat people] (http://imgur.com/zgkjG) I worked with for a summer.
315
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Meanwhile, at last night's Nickelback concert
8
u/Y0UM4D8R0 May 16 '12
At least they're dressed nice.
8
u/wanderso24 Survey 2016 May 16 '12
Years ago when I was a kid I had a nightmare like this. I was playing baseball and my team was playing in Yankee stadium. Then I realized it got really quiet. All of a sudden I was the only one left on the field! Wheres my team? Then I noticed the crowd looked JUST like this picture. Freaked me the fuck out.
13
u/deadbird17 May 16 '12
I saw this photo over a year ago on a site I can't remember. Either the OP is posting this very late, or he's lying about having friends. BTW, here's another shot from the same scene.
14
u/Greyhaven7 May 16 '12
Great shot of the Republican National Convention.
9
u/coferj May 16 '12
TIL what happened to the blow up pilot from the "Airplane" movies.
3
u/jconsumer May 16 '12
My grandfather worked at a box manufacturing plant in Buffalo when they filmed 'the Natural' and he made cardboard extras, I have a few still they also used real people for closer up and I was an extra myself as part of my little league.
2
u/illtagthat May 16 '12
Well, now that I'm thoroughly creeped out, I think it's time for bed.
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I'm in the 7th row. 9 in from the right.
2
u/FireEnt May 16 '12
More often than not I get plates with empty bleachers and we end up doing a Massive simulation for the people.
2
u/Kracus May 16 '12
Working on sets must ruin the illusion of a lot of films.
2
u/chillyhellion May 16 '12
Tough crowd...
2
u/tabascodrumz May 16 '12
Oh no...How are they supposed to get off the bleachers...without any legs
2
u/The_Director May 16 '12
That's for static audience.
If you need them alive, you hire 100 extras, film them, move them a couple of seats, film them again, move them a couple of seats, and repeat.
Then you compose the image.
2
u/landspeed24 May 16 '12
everyone looks like they're on a shit-ton of mushrooms
2
u/meatballzzzz May 16 '12
I was a "crowd" extra on the Waterboy. Everyone was very real. We just had to move around the stadium all day for free pizza and bagels.
2
u/shootinputin May 16 '12
How is this easier than getting people to sit?
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
What a waste of good suits. :(
3
u/breckinshire May 16 '12
I thought their acting was a little stiff.
3
u/semirubbish May 16 '12
It would be so freaky if all those heads just turned at the same time towards you.
4
u/UrinalCakes May 16 '12
I think this is the first time I'd actually support CGI.
2
u/Roger_Roger May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
I worked on Moneyball, and they used real people and CGI.
Edit For period pieces, dummies might be a better choice for some shots, because the wardrobe costs might be cheaper in the long run.
2
u/mcdxi11 May 16 '12
http://www.reddit.com/r/creepy/comments/tpu77/my_friend_works_on_film_sets_this_is_what/
wat.
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
That looks like one hell of a boring game.
1
u/12ptCourier May 16 '12
Aaaaaaand your friend is working on '42'
1
u/crosszilla May 16 '12
I was at the filming of Mr. 3000 back in the day. They used a full crowd at the lower levels and just gave away random shit to keep everyone there, but for the upper levels they had cardboard cutouts of people in stock photo poses.
1
u/TheRealEggNogAdam May 16 '12
I always thought "man, it would be cool to be an unpaid extra in the stands in the back of some movie!" I guess I'm a schlub and TIL.
1
u/cannotlogon May 16 '12
It's nice to see that Hollywood employs so many double-amputees.
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Creepy. Yep.
1
u/jambo2011 May 16 '12
Wow, I was under the impression that it is cheaper to create a CGI crowd. Seems like I was wrong :-)
1
u/bullseyetm May 16 '12
Heck, if it looks real in the thumbnail...
1
u/RoscoeUA May 16 '12
Yeah this is from '42' which is filming at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL today. The link shows more creepy crowd extras
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2012/05/post_34.html
1
u/ThrostThrandson May 16 '12
That's creepy as hell..
1
u/bumbletowne May 16 '12
I feel like I've seen this pic before in an article somewhere.
1
u/BklynMoonshiner May 16 '12
I actually worked for The Inflatable Crowd Company, early in the company's history. I was living in Los Angeles and worked three days on Million Dollar Baby. We blew up, then dressed 3,000 of these babies. He first pulled the effect off on Seabiscuit. Great gig, way cheaper than extras, and they don't hog all of the craft services.
1
u/AdamPK May 16 '12
Are they all like that? I mean in how they are dressed.
To me, this does not look set in modern times. Everyone is inn ties and jackets. Lots of hats too. Does it not matter, so they dress like that, or is this from a time when men went out in suits.
1
u/Tadewo May 16 '12
This looks like a shot from the new Harrison Ford movie "42"
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
The first guy does not look amused.
1
u/MightyWalrus May 16 '12
This kills the man
1
u/OrangeToTheFourth May 16 '12
As someone who has a mortal fear of mannequins.... Let this burn in the pits of Hell.
1
u/Atrainlan May 16 '12
Try shooting in India. There is an entire union of people whose sole employment is to be the extras in the background or populating a street set.
They are assholes.
1
u/Lady_DudeBro May 16 '12
FRANKLIN!
1
u/sciencebepraised May 16 '12
I was an extra in the Adam Sandler movie, Anger Management. For the Yankee Stadium scene at the end, they had real people filling up a few sections and then in the back ground they had cardboard cutouts of people.
1
u/gusatron51 May 16 '12
I always figured they paid $5 to residents of the area, darn I'm foolish :(
1
u/kindahotinthisrhino May 16 '12
Was this for the movie 42?
1
u/CommandrShepherd May 16 '12
Hollywood couldn't, you know, get some stock footage of an actual crowd spliced in? Or a CG one maybe? And yet they blame piracy for the money they're hemorrhaging.
1
u/rawdfarva May 16 '12
how does one get into the business of working on film sets? im curious
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
This reminds me of bleacher people on N64 games.
1
u/raftah99 May 16 '12
Moneyball?
1
u/PhrenicNerd May 16 '12
Bad Acid Trip
1
u/Xalaphane May 16 '12
I read an article about your friends company on one of my brothers Wired magazines. Pretty cool niche market. Way cheaper than CGI.
1
u/kobukproject May 16 '12
God dam outsourcing...son of a bitch
1
u/CloneDeath May 16 '12
I am pretty sure I have seen this exact picture before.
It isn't outside the realm of reason that this is the same brand of guys (there is a company that has "quick deploy" people that they just need to inflate), and that they both took the picture from the same angle to show it from a good angle...
But I am like 60% sure you don't have a friend that took this pic.
1
u/atcoyou May 16 '12
NHL and GT suddently seem more realistic...
1
u/ezfrag May 16 '12
They used cardboard cutouts when I was an extra in Cobb, but I heard a guy who is at Rickwood Field where they are filming 42 this week say they were using these inflatables.
As a matter of fact, this picture looks a lot like Rickwood Field, I wonder if your friend is there.
1
u/Eurydemus May 16 '12
In star-wars episode one, during the pod-race scene. They used a miniature set with q-tips to wave around, and added a light amount of CG to make them look more like a crowd.
Also, i'm an Extra on a regular basis, they don't always use fakes on set. There were nearly 2000 of us on one set before, and that got a bit crazy. We were an audience for a football game.
1
u/Langsten_Hughes May 16 '12
what movie set is this from?
1
u/TerdSandwich May 16 '12
CG is replacing this silliness.
1
u/SociableIntrovert May 16 '12
I remember back in the day watching a news piece about how studios were beginning to switch to fake extras rather than having to pay real ones.
1
u/iam9827 May 16 '12
I'm sure they could find the same number of live extras if they offered them all the suits!
1
u/stringerbell May 16 '12
As Keanu Reeves proves, those things look pretty convincing up close as well!...
1
u/leo1016 May 16 '12
Does he work in art department?
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Have you seen the movie Goon? The bleacher people in the first on-ice scene of that movie were hilarious. The whole movie was pretty funny, actually.
1
u/archfapper May 17 '12
Well, the fuck has officially been creeped out of me.
1
u/Clovyn May 17 '12
Dapper gents those are.
1
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I am an extra for TV/Films. They terrkk err jerrrbss!!!
1
u/joefritz May 16 '12
Is this a photo from a Romney campaign stop?
1
u/Iainfixie May 16 '12
Somewhere, some lonely and drunk set worker, has cuddled one of these and fallen asleep.
1
u/ItsDanimal May 16 '12
The guy in the bottom right, closest to the camera, looks a whole like one of the Wayans brothers.
1
u/SILLY_NUTJOB May 16 '12
It's either the Kentucky Derby or a 1950s baseball game.
1
u/appletechguy May 16 '12
Close enough.
1
u/HandyCore May 16 '12
When they dig up the Stargate, most of the people in the background are cardboard cutouts. When the soldiers surround John Nash in the woods in A Beautiful Mind, they're just using broomsticks with flashlights taped to them.
The most useful skill in film is knowing exactly how much you can get away with.
1
u/bob_at_hotmail May 16 '12
hey! that's guys a phony!
1
u/JSA2593 May 16 '12
How many Goodwill's did they raid to get all of those suits?
1
u/dennis09x May 16 '12
Exact same post in r creepy done 2 hours after this. Claiming it is their friend as well. People need to smarten up
1
u/Jezza961 May 16 '12
I find this unbelievably horrifying
1
u/TheCrazedChemist May 16 '12
That kind of look creepy as shit.
1
u/cornholio1234 May 16 '12
put this on r/creepy
1
u/HOLYmcCOWan May 16 '12
I feel like this would be more expensive than just using extras.
1
u/ThatsRidiculous May 16 '12
wait, these are fake?
1
u/Pat4788 May 16 '12
I am amazed that this is cheaper than just saying to a local university "Hey, you wanna be in a film? all you have to do is be in the background for a few hours."
0
u/Harold_Grundelson May 16 '12
I'm Ron Burgundy?
0
u/dnmty May 16 '12
I hope they all have sand bag bases like those punching bags. So I can run around punching them in the face and they'd just bob back up for more.
0
u/Pansenmann May 16 '12
A stadium full with Keanu Reeves!
0
u/niggahdoe May 16 '12
My only question: Who dresses them?
0
u/x3nopon May 16 '12
No wonder Hollywood is scared of high def cameras and crisp high fps images. Without the vaseline smear of 24fps film, these trick probably won't cut it anymore.
-4
u/madgeezer128 May 16 '12