How 'Ted Lasso' Turned A Crowd Of 20 Into 26,000 People For This Football Scene

It has been revealed by Insider how the 26,000-seat stadium seen in Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso was created using a crowd of just 20 people. Check it out below:

Now, for those that don't know, the show is about an American football coach (Jason Sudeikis) who has a similar personality to The Simpsons' Ned Flanders, but in no way annoying.

After coaching a lower-tier Kansas college American football team - he moves to the UK to coach AFC Richmond, a struggling English Premier League team, despite knowing absolutely nothing about football (soccer).

Insider wrote on Twitter: "#TedLasso won at the #Emmys for comedy series. In one of the show's scenes, this 26,000-seat stadium looks filled to the brim, but what most people don't know is the crowd is mostly made of fake people who weren't even filmed in a stadium."

The way it works is - plate extras are filmed in front of a green screen and then digitally scattered into the desired shots.

Insider explains: "The team used crowd tiling to shoot one small group and physically move them around the set.

"They're then combined together in postproduction to look like a cohesive crowd. Digital doubles helped fill in the rest of the crowd.

"It's a method that's less realistic up close but can be used to fill in gaps from a distance.

"Digital doubles made up an estimated 90% of the show's crowd shots.

"Because they're completely CGI characters, they can be programmed to have the same reactions, depending on what's happening in the game.

"In order to have real human movement in the crowd, Barnstorm's animators donned motion-capture suits and fed every movement to the software.

"Clapping was particularly important to make the crowd look realistic."

Basically, they use a mix of real people and 'fake people' to film big crowd scenes.

The up-close shots of fans are filmed with real people because the typical emotions of a fan are hard to replicate.

When I say typical reactions, I don't mean middle fingers and constant swearing at the ref, more like the clapping and cheering sort of stuff.

Ted Lasso is now available to watch on Apple TV+.