How do they do those Direct TV ads?

[Blu-Ron]

You know the one. They take a scene from a classic movie and have an actor (from the actual scene) look at the camera and start talking about Direct TV. I think the newer one's are Poltergeist and National Lampoon's Vacation. Now I know Christie Brinkley doesn't look that good today. How do they do it? It's a flawless transformation.

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ron

You know the one. They take a scene from a classic movie and have an actor (from the actual scene) look at the camera and start talking about Direct TV. I think the newer one's are Poltergeist and National Lampoon's Vacation. Now I know Christie Brinkley doesn't look that good today. How do they do it? It's a flawless transformation.

Ive been wondering the SAME thing.

There was a gatorade commercial a while back where they had famous sports clips, except they were the opposite of what really happened. Jordan missed his shot, Gibson struck out, that sort of thing.

Somebody enlighten me how this is done.

[mikejet]

It's probably a stand-in in a green screen with excellent makup and then the original actor/actress does voiceover.

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by mikejet

It's probably a stand-in in a green screen with excellent makup and then the original actor/actress does voiceover.

theres no way, its just too perfect.

i would go with advanced CGI before Id go with that.

found this:http://ask.metafilter.com/68576/How-...reeping-me-out

"Wikipedia entry says "The original actors from these productions normally reprise their roles, and are inserted in using blue screen technology"."

[Blu-Ron]

Oh good. I'm not the only one who thinks they are flawless. Unless they did them while they were actually shooting the movie, which I doubt. Was Direct TV aroung in 1982? LOL.

[Galley]

In the Poltergeist one with Craig T. Nelson you could tell he recently filmed it, but yeah, the Christie Brinkley one look like she hasn't aged at all!

DirecTV debuted in 1994.

[HenryJ]

Originally Posted by Galley

In the Poltergeist one with Craig T. Nelson you could tell he recently filmed it, but yeah, the Christie Brinkley one look like she hasn't aged at all!

DirecTV debuted in 1994.

Waterproof spackling!

[rebfandan]

Originally Posted by Galley

In the Poltergeist one with Craig T. Nelson you could tell he recently filmed it, but yeah, the Christie Brinkley one look like she hasn't aged at all!

DirecTV debuted in 1994.

The solution for that one is easy - she's still smoking hot in her 50s.

[LynxFX]

A friend of mine worked on the Back to the Future one with Christopher Lloyd. They just recreated part of the set, shot Christopher Lloyd doing the new lines about DirecTV and with some clever editing put it all together. That one and the Major League version were probably the easiest to do since they didn't require many effects or compositing to pull it off. What's funny is that it was shot on the Universal Lot which contains the actual BTTF set, yet they didn't use it.

The Aliens one, and T2 ones are done basically the same way, but require a bit of fx work. What sells the ads is that there isn't a standin, the actual actor is performing the lines, in the same wardrobe, and a recreation of the set with greenscreen work.

Pretty clever overall.