I was the lead storyboard artist on I, Robot, from June 2002 to July 2003. That included 2 trips to Australia, where it was set to film with Nick Cage as Spooner. Filming shifted to Vancouver the day before Thanksgiving when Will Smith signed on (Fox wanted a star who could "Open" the picture). Not to spoil the contributions of the VFX people, but many of the "gags" in the film were imagined by the storyboard artists. The Robot getting crushed under the wheel was the idea of a young Irish artist named Warren Flannigan (Director Alex Proyas laughed when he saw Warren's drawing and said, "You're really sick!"). I was responsible for the idea of using the spherical wheels to spin the car to use centrifugal force to fling the robots off the car, as well as the ball wheel flying off the truck and into the tunnel. Myself and others contributed many more ideas and shots, including the overhead shot of Sonny illustrating his dream by using both hands at once, since he would not be limited by left or right-handedness. Storyboard artists get short shrift for many ideas in films that we pitch as part of our jobs. One time a director actually took credit for one of my ideas on the commentary track! Too bad it was a crappy movie. Or good riddance, maybe.

Damn, the Timecop double effects really hold up. That envelope handoff is a flex.

if someone told me iRobot and Replicas release years were swapped around I would fully believe them

A really cool thing about I, Robot from a VFX perspective is how careful they are with the animation for the robots. The robots are lighter and stronger than a person, and all of the animation is very aware of that. Everything from the walk cycles to the action set pieces are consistent with those biomechanics. And they're very careful not to have velocity come out of nowhere. All of the physical mechanics of the action scenes are very carefully thought out. Nothing ever just zhoops off for no reason. There's also a lot of attention paid to, like, the physical joint mechanics.

There's a fantastic scene (right after the wink and the shootout towards the end) where Sonny's shoulder roll axis rotates 90 degrees right after he's done firing, to avoid his shoulder passing through gimbal lock / the null-space singularity when he lowers his arm a second later, which is such an insane high-level robotics detail for the animator to be thinking about. Humans don't have to do that because we have a true multi-axis ball joint in our shoulder, but the NS5's don't, so they'd actually have that problem if they existed. That shot absolutely blows my mind as someone who's worked as a roboticist. Such a cool movie, such an unbelievably high effort execution.

Those last two transitions on Highlander were the start and end of a scene that's only in the director's cut, so imagine they threw it together quickly when they added the scene back in.

I remember that car chase scene from "I, robot" being used in literally every electronics shop around 2005-2007. Like they were advertising those new flat TV panels and they needed some cool videos playing there. You know, besides the ordinary fish, birds and other National Geographic stuff. And for some reason this exact moment from the movie was the go-to clip for that.

When the little *I'm not doing that, tag showed up I just broke out laughing.

I worked at a company a bunch of years ago and our UI designer was a guy called Mark Coleran. He unfortunately died a couple of years ago, but he was most known for his FUI (fictional user Interface) design work on Minority Report, the Bourne movies, a couple of the Mission Impossible movies. Really cool guy!

One of the best transitions in Highlander(1986) is at 35m 50s, it fades from Conner into the Mona Lisa.

The last highlander wipe inspired the next 30 years of powerpoint presentations.

The doubling shots in "Timecop" are stellar.  I'm a big fan of shots with an actor playing more than one character, especially if the shot moves.  If you haven't already done it, please take a look at "The Island" where Ewan McGregor removes a bracelet from another Ewan's wrist.

Nice to see the original Highlander getting some love. We saw them filming the battle from the start of the movie on our way to school. Quite surreal seeing a bunch of people in kilts waving swords around running across the moor, as we whizz past in a minibus.
Fav transition was the Mona Lisa one tho.
PS love the work you guys do!!!

Jordan suddenly also wearing a shoulder bag like Clint's is pretty funny.

"When there's only room for one, there's womb for 2" should've been the tag line for TimeCop.

it's always a laugh and a half when jordan and sam are on the couch together, clint coming to visit is the cherry on top

14:40 guess the editor doesn't love his job and ain't getting paid enough for that 😂

The subtle accordion sounds over Keanu's hud work... chef's kiss.

Jordan and Clint looking like Scorpion and Sub-Zero with those palette swapped outfits haha

Props to your editor for making that simulation of the water transition so we can follow along!! So good

"Two to goo" killed me😂😂