Movies and TV shows are exciting because of their stories, and occasionally even their lessons. Excellent (or cringey) visual effects or stunt work are a few of things that can really make or break a show, which is why the guys over at The Corridor Crew love watching such scenes and analyzing them together.
The lighthearted YouTube channel features visual effects artists Clint, Wren, and Niko (and occasionally other crew members and special guests) discussing CGI and stunt work in their VFX Artists React series and Stuntmen React series. Throughout each series, the veteran visual effects artists and their stunt expert guests rave over their favorite movie scenes, the ones that made them cringe, and the ones that were so difficult to pull off they were collectively left in awe when they saw them for the first time.
The Corridor Crew’s expertise makes it easy for them to spot all kinds of VFX details in shows and movies, and know how they were achieved or what should have been done to make them a little better. They also occasionally talk about the technological limitations that existed 30 or 40 years ago and how the VFX artists that came before them worked through said constraints to produce work that’s now legendary today.
The Corridor Crew’s casual unscripted videos blend humor and seasoned insights, which together gives you a brief peek behind the curtain so you can learn what goes into creating the big shot scenes that become so iconic. The guys talk about things like what goes into making a certain character move the way it needs to, or how to get the light from a CGI explosion to reflect on the other elements in the shot without getting too deep into particulars. Likewise, their stunt expert guests explain why a certain scene or movement was so difficult to shoot, or how they broke their leg flipping a car or doing stunt work for a superhero movie.
These series give you a behind-the-scenes peek at how a lot of famous scenes are made in popular, foreign, and older blockbusters and TV shows like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Deadpool, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the Star Wars movies, Cats, Studio Ghibli movies, The Lego Movie, Lord of the Rings, The Mandalorian, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mary Poppins, and more.
Experiencing the commentary and insights makes rewatching these movies all the more exciting, and makes it easy for you to spot CGI in the shows you watch from here on out. It gives you a better appreciation for all the thought and hard work that goes into making these shows so gripping and might even make you wonder how other aspects of movie production work.
But these two series aren’t all that’s on the channel! There are other videos where the guys put their VFX skills to the test, like when they borrowed a $20K motion-capture suit and turned themselves into Transformers, or superimposed popular Star Wars ships in New York and other cities to show off how large they really are. They also have fun away from their computers in other videos where they learned Hollywood stunt driving and how to develop film manually.
The Corridor Crew guys are young, energetic, and funny, and together their personalities provide for lots of laughter and fun commentary in every video, no matter what it’s about. They even love when fans submit requests for them to look at a particular movie or TV show, and as such, the channel has garnered an equally passionate fanbase. The guys’ obvious passion for VFX shines through in every video, making the sometimes complicated vocabulary and rhetoric that comes with VFX easy to understand, even for those unfamiliar with it.
