Was I the Only One (Goliath ?)

[Judd]

Okay I admit this is really embarrasing.

I watched the Goliath episodes when they were first on. I must have been 12-13 yrs. old. I didn't see them again. One day I started looking up info. on KR.

To my surprise I discovered David Hasselhoff played Gareth Knight. I did not know that. I thought a different actor played Gareth.

Am I the only one who was fooled back when those episodes were first shown?

[Scott Kirkessner]

Yes

[DeeKnight]

Yeah you probably were,and he was called garth not gareth!lol

[Michael Pajaro]

Ah, but were you fooled that the original KARR was played by KITT?

[DeeKnight]

^^ D'oh!!! How did i not spot that!?

[Knight Rider Archive]

Whaaaaaat?!

But... how did they get them in two places at the same time?!

[PHOENIXZERO]

It's the work of the devil I tells you! THE DEEEVVVIIIILLLLL!!!!!!!

[Judd]

Didn't they make him look different besides the facial hair? It's been years since I've seen those episodes. I have ordered the season 2 set so it'll be fun to watch it again.

David must be one of the greatest actors ever if he played two different characters in the same episode and fooled the audience.

I really do think he is a good actor.

[Scott Kirkessner]

No, they just added some facial hair to him. David, however, did purposefully lower his voice (which I thought sounded cheesy/annoying) which was able to differentiate Garthe from Michael.

[pheonix_knight]

Did i read somewhere in an anecdote DH was telling that his mother thought the guy playing Garthe was a much better actor....?

[Scott Kirkessner]

I think I remember hearing that somewhere too.

[Knight Rider Archive]

The anecdote was that David's father apparently said to him that Michael Knight's evil twin was a better actor than Michael Knight!

Also, there were some smaller differences between Michael and Garthe. Garthe had the famous evil goatee, but he also had longer sideburns and a slightly different hairstyle to Michael (especially in Goliath Returns).

[jup]

Whaaaaaat?!

But... how did they get them in two places at the same time?!

That's the magic of Hollywood.

Back then, they had two choices...or, maybe three.

1) Look alike actors. Not likely the choice in this shot.

2) Split screen editing. By filming the same scene twice with the same character playing both roles, they could mechanically (Or, maybe digitally...by that point) splice the final product together to perform this very convincing performance. One trick involves the background. Like, in that shot, there is this vertical pole and a solid color next to it between Michael and Garth. That's where the splice point is hiding at. Another trick is avoiding the actor to attempt to physically move over the space of the splice point. So, the "two" can't touch each other or walk into one another's space. That would blow the whole effect.

3) A very cleaver person might figure out how to use mirrors and some other means. Just including it as that's not beyond impossible.

In more recent times, the progression of technology has permitted some mind blowing things to become possible. One such shot that stands out in my mind comes from the ABC comedy series Roseanne. In the closing credits, two actors come into the scene from the left, deliver a line and walk off the right...ONLY to walk back in from the left side. The shot is close up. And, the repeat this over and over and over...even at one point, walking off the left side WHILE walking in on the right. I have no idea how they did that. Not like era of the show had computers advanced enough to do that. Two sets of actors that looked and talked EXACTLY ALIKE??? I may never know.

Another thing I may never know came out of a movie I just saw. The camera's POV was one constantly sweeping motion. In the past, a very well done camera operator could work inside tight, on-location spaces as the actors gave their lines and moved about in one take from room to room. This was more impressive. Not only did the camera levitate into and out of a second story window to keep up with characters walking on the street, but it made a turn around the corner of a building in an alleyway, followed a guy to his vehicle and kept the shot close up upon him as he drove down the street for a short distance before stopping and stepping out. I nearly missed the magic of how smooth and gravity defying this grand example of cinema trickery truly was. And, I may never know how they pulled that one off. Computer visuals are becoming very impressive and budget cheap, too. Just last night, I caught a $1 sci-fi where the actors basically ran around in a sand dune, one hallway and a closed room that could have been a closet. The lines they gave were mostly second rate. Filming could have been done in a hurried week. And, most of the movie happened in virtual space or a mixture of real and false images. Depending upon how detailed the shot tried to be, the visuals either sold the scene or looked like a higher end video game. Still, this low end movie used visuals that only so many years ago, could only be touched by a million dollar production. So, when the camera pulls off incredible visuals, these days, got to wonder if it was real or virtually created.

[Knight Rider Archive]

In more recent times, the progression of technology has permitted some mind blowing things to become possible. One such shot that stands out in my mind comes from the ABC comedy series Roseanne. In the closing credits, two actors come into the scene from the left, deliver a line and walk off the right...ONLY to walk back in from the left side. The shot is close up. And, the repeat this over and over and over...even at one point, walking off the left side WHILE walking in on the right. I have no idea how they did that. Not like era of the show had computers advanced enough to do that. Two sets of actors that looked and talked EXACTLY ALIKE??? I may never know.

Sounds like it could have been the VistaGlide camera, which was created for Back to the Future 2 (which should mean it was in use around the time you mention). It was able to move the split screen:

Most visual effects nominations were due to the development of a new computer-controlled camera system, called VistaGlide, which was invented specifically for this movie — it enables one actor to play two or even three characters in the same scene while the boundary between the sections of the split screen and the camera itself can be moving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_II