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?

  • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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%.

      • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        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 😂

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

  • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    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

  • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      20 hours ago

      I think he first did it in ‘coming to America’: all the guys in the barbershop are Eddie Murphy

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    2 days ago

    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.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    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.