 Happy Halloween everyone. In honor of today's spooky spirit, I thought it would be fun to tackle a quick topic that seems relevant for today. It actually occurred to me when we were making the Cine Dojo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode. Part of that episode was talking about the challenges that the actors had performing the martial arts moves in those horrendously difficult outfits, and then I realized there'd be a potentially interesting topic to talk about. Performing martial arts in costumes. I mean Batman does it, so how hard can it be right? Well, as it turns out, quite hard. And there's a reason that we see it in the comics and movies only. Because in real life, if you try to fight wearing tight rubber latex and a heavy cape and a head that doesn't turn, you're gonna die. So in this episode, we're gonna take a quick glance at some of the limitations that we might not think about when it comes to some of our favorite characters fighting and some serious bad-ass outfits. So let's just recap real quick. If you guys have not seen the Cine Dojo episode yet on Ninja Turtles, please click the link below. We're going into this far deeper detail, but basically, as cool as those outfits looked, those actors and martial artists had some serious challenges. They were extremely hot. They had mechanical gears moving around their head. They couldn't see. They were provided isolates just under the bandanas, but it really didn't provide enough vision, so those actors had to fight blindly. A movie like that, you've got a big challenge because those suits tear. They're not meant for repeated emotions. So they do wear down. They have to be repaired. There's also limitations. They had to switch out different heads for certain moves, you know, make certain lighter versions for the other moves. Now a movie like Mortal Kombat kind of plays on different lines. You've got a variety of outfits there. Most of them are not that restrictive, but take a look at like Kano, for example. He's got the big mechanical eye, which in real life was just a prosthetic over the actor's eye, much like the Terminator. At the very least, you lose depth of perception for that. Then you've got Goro, who was a poor actor with a giant animatronic rig on his shoulder, so not only did he not see what he was doing, he was only controlling the lower half of the body, but he had to walk and move and turn, navigate steps naturally as if he had full control of the animatronics. So these are very big challenges and the movie looked awesome, but there's a lot of movie magic that goes into producing an effect like that. But then we have a movie like X-Men, you know, they dropped the tights in the spandex and multicolored outfits from the comics, and they went with the darker leather outfits for the movies. But the funny thing is, those were even more restrictive. The actors often mentioned how hard it was to move. They could barely walk. There's even a funny outtake and clip from the original X-Men movie where the actors had to leap over this little tiny wall, and they couldn't even do that. They couldn't get their legs up because it was just too binding. So leather doesn't flex and move as well as some people might think it does, and that honestly is an easy transition. Let's go right into Batman. He's going to be a pinnacle of discussion here. You've got Batman, you've got a guy, especially in the Michael Keaton movies and the earlier movies. He wears full body armor, which is latex rubber. He's got a big heavy cowl that covers over his face and his shoulders. He wears capes. He can't turn his head. Okay, there's a lot to work with here. In the movie they make it look awesome. You've got stunt actors, you've got Batman, he's doing flips, he's doing fighting moves, he's doing jumps, all that rolls. The realistic thing though is, there wasn't one outfit for that. In the Batman movies, they had a whole variety of capes. They had capes that were meant just for walking, capes that were lighter that could billow in the fan to look like it's in the wind, capes for underwater, capes for fighting, tear away capes, all sorts of stuff. And in the newer movies, the capes were even animated. So, depending on the situation, they had to switch out the costume. Same thing with the head. He couldn't turn his head. I mean, the famous Michael Keaton mining. Can you imagine trying to fight like that? And I don't know about any of you, but when I wear a mask, like a Halloween mask, the first thing I notice is I completely lose my peripheral vision. You've got little eye holes to look out of. Yeah, okay, I can see straight ahead, but I can't see anything to saw and out. That's really not conducive to crime fighting when you're leaping off buildings and fighting guys who are shooting at you. And that body armor. Okay, Batman's body armor was tough, but wear a big giant armored vest piece and try to roll in that or do a flip in that. Obviously shots like that, stunt actors were wearing lighter, more flexible materials that the camera quite couldn't see. So when you're watching a movie like that, they're constantly switching out pieces that will work for that particular scene because one suit doesn't work. Now the Christopher Nolan Batman movies do address some of this in that in the second movie, Dark Knight, they made him be able to turn his head for the reason that Batman wanted to see better and turn his head. He also wanted to be able to move better because he actually addressed the suit being too bulky for him to fight in. I actually like that detail. So in the story, he traded the suit in for one that was more flexible with lesser plates, but of course it was more vulnerable. That at least was a nod towards the acknowledgement of how ridiculous the original Batman suits were even though they looked awesome on screen. And realistically, they just didn't really work. They're not feasible. And when it comes to capes, capes, I'll be the first to admit, I love capes. They look awesome. They're fun to wear, but they are not really conducive to fighting. If anything, they're more of a hindrance because think about it. They snag, they can bind you up, they can be heavy, they can actually get in your face. Ever try to roll while wearing a cape? That's why in real life when actual people wore capes, they usually, they were removed before fighting or stuff gets torn. So capes, as cool as they look, they are not practical for real life combat. So since we're talking about Batman and Alphys, I do want to point out a fun project we did with a very good friend of ours a few years back. His name is Carlos and he's actually a pretty well-known cosplayer and he's a big Batman fan and we did a video skit with him, which you'll find the link below. Go check it out if it's kind of funny. It's just like a little two-minute thing, but he is a big Batman aficionado and he actually has a bunch of different cosplay suits and he has a bat suit that was made from an actual mold from Batman Forever. It's a black version of the silver suit, but he had it made and it looks fantastic. He looks like he stepped right off the screen. The funny thing though was, this is his motion he could do. He couldn't move. He walked. He kind of could barely bend his knees and this is actually a one-point time. We were trying to direct them. I suggested, oh, it might be cool if you bring up your arm and bring up the cape like that. And he goes, what makes you think I'm even capable of moving like that? The whole extent of motion he could do was just bending his arm a little bit because it was so binding and so tight. It looked awesome, but it couldn't function for Jack. So that's just something to think about is just how these suits play. They're for looks. They're not for functions. So go check that out. Also, there'll be a link to some pictures. He also has a really awesome, awesome Batman suit. It's a medieval Batman suit made out of leather. It's a lot more pliable, a lot more flexible, so he can move around in it. He's actually known for this suit. So definitely go check it out. Again, the pictures are below. Now here's another consideration. We're moving to days where there's CG. So a lot of stunts are being replaced by animation, but that doesn't always mean that there's no actors performing something in suits. We've got motion capture suits. When we had the original Ninja Turtle movies have these big bulky full latex rubber suits, the new movies have actors and these giant padded gray with sensors on them for their motion capture. This still poses some challenges. Not only do they have to move in something that's bulky, they have to move in certain ways that the computer can register their motion, that the sensors are properly aligned and there's still a lot of post-production work to go into that. So that's still a lot of work and there's still different considerations and movie magic that goes into that. And some movies will go only for CG. Like, you know, you see a lot of the Marvel movies in Spider-Man. Sometimes they opt for just computer animated stunts because multiple reasons for budget, for safety, or they just can't get a choreograph a suit that's going to work that well for that kind of stunt when they can animate it easier. When you're watching a movie, whatever the characters are wearing, there's a good chance that you really wouldn't be able to perform it for real because it's first, second, and third purpose is to look good on camera. Now, especially with costumes and movies where the actor's face is covered, Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, you see a lot of times that the mask comes off. A couple of reasons for this. The primary reason is you've got Robert Downey Jr. in your movie, you're paying for him, you want to see his freaking face. So a lot of times they will take the mask off to show the actor's face. They did it with Batman, they did it with Spider-Man. But other times too is sometimes the character, the mask can be a hindrance. Most of the time, Tony Stark, what does he do? He uses his visor so he can talk, he can interact, he can see better. You see them do that a lot. Spider-Man takes it off in emergencies. Batman even ripped it off in Batman Returns so he can actually interact a little bit better with Catwoman and become more humanized. So these masks do have limits. And I enjoy it when the movies actually kind of address these limits and the characters take a step to remedy it or get around it. Now, this also might be why movies like John Wick, why Keanu Reeves wears a suit because obviously, you know, that's easier to move around in. Unless of course you've tried to fight in a suit. I don't know about you, but suits tend to have, you know, again, they're meant for looks. They're not meant to be combat attire. So they bind and especially like the shoulder area, they will tear. They're really not meant for that. But I guess it doesn't really matter anyway because remember the part where I said a lot of CG actors are used in these ace? Yeah, they'll use a little bit more than you think. Even in John Wick, there's a lot of sequences that look like the actors are completely doing the stunts, but in reality, the scenery is completely animated, the effects are animated, the props are animated. You've got the actors maybe doing the motion, but they've got CG versions of themselves animated over it and you can't tell. So we're at a stage now where performing stunts in costumes is getting to the point where it's easier just to animate it out. So yeah, it's being used more than you think it is. So once again, costumes are made for look, not functionality. And you know, especially growing up, I've always loved Halloween, even going to Halloween parties. If I'm able to do it that year, I would make an elaborate costume if I can. I've had costumes where such as this one, really cool pumpkin mask. A couple years ago, I dressed up as I wanted to be the spirit of Halloween. So I wore this pumpkin mask. I had a hood on it. I wore bony gloves, a whole shroud, and I wanted to take this up a notch. It's a mask look cool. It actually articulates so that when you open your mouth, the jaw actually, you know, sneers and it moves. I didn't like the eyes. I'm like, oh, I can do better with the eyes. And what I ended up doing was I took a pair of sunglasses apart and I actually put the lenses in the eye so it was dark. And I got red LED lights behind it so it would actually pulsate in flair. It looked awesome, but ask me how much I could see. Nothing. So I was basically walking around blind for the most part. I kind of could see blurs and shapes, but you know, I've got a LED light right here flashing outwards through sunglasses at night through a mask. You want to ask me to fight like that? This thing's coming right off because there's no way. And a lot of movies and even when I was growing up, my friends and I, we did stupid projects. We made our own those stupid superhero movies and all that. And you know, we grabbed any piece of costume that we could just to look cool on camera. And we're in South Florida and it gets hot down here. And you know, I had, I was wearing like a suit, you know, a karate outfit with boots and gloves, but I had to take the gloves off after about every hour just to dump out the sweat because it just, it builds up. It gets uncomfortable. These things are not meant to actually fight in. So that's the reality of it. You know, real life is not like the superheroes on the comic book page. This is, we don't have real Batman running around with capes jumping from roof off the rooftop because it just doesn't exist. It's not realistic. So although interestingly enough, we are going to circle back to talk about one that kind of was, but that's for another topic, another day. Thank you all for watching. I hope you all have a very safe and happy Halloween. Love, have fun and be safe everyone. Trick or treat.