Been watching old live-action “superhero” TV shows from the '70’s and early '80’s and I’m now wondering about some of the effects.
For example, when showing The Hero bending metal bars/guns/peeling the door off a safe or otherwise bending metal like taffy how did they do that? Some sort of clay or plastic or putty? That’s really what I’m curious about - how do they do something like having Superman (or the equivalent) twist a “metal” gun into a pretzel shape even halfway convincingly?
When the hero picks someone up and carries them was it all the muscle power of the actor playing the hero, or were there some ways to assist in lifting another person? Wouldn’t want the star to throw out his back, right? Probably varies somewhat - Teri Hatcher is a skinny little thing, Dean Cain probably could pick her up and carry her without too much trouble in Lois and Clark but when Steve Austin picks an adult man up in a fireman’s carry that’s a slightly different prospect, and a bit more weight.
I’m pretty sure people slinging huge boulders around are really throwing hunks of styrofoam
Likewise, big chunks of timber/wood could be balsa or some other very lightweight wood. Or sculpted styrofoam.
Mighty leaps/launches into flight were springboards and the like. And artful cutting to a bluescreen/greenscreen/whatevercolorscreen shot.
Figured out how they did some other effects thanks to a high resolution big screen TV. There’s stuff that you could get away with on a small screen that show up really, really well on a big one.
It does depend on what era you’re talking about. Back in the 50s the “iron bars” Superman bent were probably made of rubber-coated wire. Other feats of strength were shown by making fakes. The door of the safe was probably wood or other light material and the hinges made to break away.
Superman did indeed jump off a springboard onto a mattress. Flying involved him lying on his stomach on a thin board while the background was back projected (most of the flying shots showed him from the side). He’d “land” by jumping into the scene.
What I always liked about the old Superman show was that if the bad guys shot their guns at the Man of Steel, he just stood there with his hands on his hips and took the shots, no biggie. But when the bad guys ran out of bullets and threw the gun at him, Superman ducked.
Anyway, sometimes the special effects weren’t actually effects.
According to IMDB, the introduction of the Hulk (the 1970s version) showed Lou Ferrigno picking up a car. There was supposed to be a cable helping Lou pick up the car, but the cable broke. It was 4 am, Lou was cold and tired from doing a lot of filming, so rather than wait for the special effects guys to fix the cable, the tired and frustrated Lou just lifted the car himself. To be fair, he was a world class body builder and was a pretty strong guy.
Likewise, this is modern and not the 70s, but on Game of Thrones, the Mountain is currently played by Icelandic strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, who is 6’9" tall, weighs 400 lbs, and tends to place highly in a lot of European strong-man competitions. Having someone that big and strong reduces the need for special effects. You want him to lift a guy up, he just lifts the guy up.
I poked around on google for a bit but I didn’t find anything authoritative on what the bendable guns and iron bars were made out of. I would be really surprised if it wasn’t some type of clay or putty though.
I remember hearing, I think in one of the DVD special features, that during the shooting of The Princess Bride Andre the Giant was suffering from back problems serious enough that he could not easily carry Robin Wright even though she was quite slim and he was…a giant. IIRC for some scenes she was actually being supported by the sort of harness they use for “flying” effects.
I can’t see using clay or putty. The stuff is too likely to tear or collapse under its own weight, plus, it’s going to be malleable where the actor grabs it. I can see using a rubber or foam-coated thin piece of metal.
They still use some of these old-school techniques today, they just augment them with CGI to help sell them better. Orphan Black is still using split-screen, it’s just a more sophisticated version (and more often is over-the-shoulder of a double). Lifting people off the ground is done with cable supports which can be digitally removed (they no longer have to be dangerously thin to be hidden from TV resolution). Flashing lights and reaction shots still help sell a big explosion, reducing the money shot to only a couple of seconds of screen time. They still use breakable “candy” glass and rubber prop weapons.
Yeah, that was after his wrestling career. Andre really had a messed up back in the latter part of his life. I’ve heard that, too.
Really, if the person doing the carrying has issues a harness like that would not only help them, but keep the person carried from being injured if dropped.
It’s my impression that wire-work has improved over the years. Don’t know if it’s better technology, or some sort of training for the actors, or both, or what, but that sort of scene seems to have improved over time and not just with hiding the wires. Not sure if I’m conveying what I mean here well, but it seems less obvious where the support points are.
What it’s “likely” to do isn’t too big a deal. If one take doesn’t work right, you just re-do it until it does. And if the actor does leave fingerprints, well, first of all, you’re probably not even showing the bars after they let go, and second, even if you do, that just proves how strong they were.
That only happened in one episode: The Mind Machine, though the scene was replayed in a montage of clips in a later episode, Crime Wave. FWIW, if you freeze the scene you can see that it was not George Reeves that ducked, but his stunt double.
In his last days with the WWF, he needed crutches to walk. (Obviously he wasn’t wrestling any more at that point he was managing the Bushwhackers for some reason)
