BROKE HORROR FAN: Interview - Tony Gardner (Cult of Chucky, Hocus Pocus)
Interview: Tony Gardner (Cult of Chucky, Hocus Pocus)
Tony Gardner is the animatronic effects supervisor who brought Chucky to life in the new Cult of Chucky, as well as in previous entries Seed of Chucky and Curse of Chucky. We discuss his history with the killer doll and the latest installment in the franchise. He also reminisces about some of his past projects, including Hocus Pocus and The Return of the Living Dead.
Can you begin with a brief history of how you got involved in the Child’s Play franchise?
I came on board in a roundabout way in the beginning. [Producer] David Kirschner was pitching Bride of Chucky to Universal and wanted to do a display to have on the conference table when he did the presentation. It was classic Chucky holding Tiffany in his arms, like a groom carrying a bride through the threshold at a wedding. That’s how I met Chucky for the first time. We built that display, and then they went off and got the movie going, and I thought that was the end of it.
Then about three months before they were going to head off to Romania to shoot Seed of Chucky, I got a few cryptic phone calls asking about animatronic babies. That eventually segued into conversations, “Would you be interested in working on the next Child’s Play?” I said yes, even though they told me there are three animatronic characters that had to be finished in three months time and we’d be filming in another country. I thought it sounded like a blast, so I signed up - and here I am!
From your perspective, how does Cult of Chucky different from the previous entries?
I think all of the films are different in their own way. I think they’re almost all successful as standalone films. I feel like Don [Mancini, writer] introduces new characters each time to the Charles Lee Ray storyline, but you don’t necessarily have to know the entire history in order to follow the story. This one is different aesthetically. Storywise, I think it actually succeeds in combining the scary stuff along with the more serious things and the comedic side. That goes for the actors too. There’s a more comedic side to Jennifer Tilly’s character, and Fiona Dourif’s character is very serious, so the fact that Don was able to put of them in the same room to have a conversation with serious impact and gravity to it but still have Jennifer able to play the humorous sex kitten part at the same time, the mashup of all that is what makes this one really different. And he’s done it successfully, which makes it that much more enjoyable.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I really enjoyed how it brought together all of the storylines and characters from throughout the franchise while expanding the mythology.
Don doesn’t discount anything in any of the stories. He goes out of his way to reference all of them, sometimes in little ways. I think that’s really cool. He’s really the glue that holds the entire series together and makes it work, because he understands the characters so well. They live in his head; he knows how they talk and why they say what they say. If anyone is going to mix those worlds up and make it work, it’s going to be Don. Hats of to him for having the guts to dive in and give it a shot in the first place!
How has the advancement of technology changed how Chucky is brought to life?
It’s helped us a lot, because we’ve been able to use digital technology to erase the puppeteers from shots, especially in this last one, so that we can get closer to the puppet and do a better a performance with his physical moment. When we did Seed, all the characters are 100% animatronic and we operated through the floor. Almost all the puppeteers were underneath the set watching monitors in order to make it happen. We were pushing for some rod puppet work for some of the scenes, and we did one or two in that film, but people were still of the mind that you had to frame things certain ways. It felt very limiting.
Then when we did Curse of Chucky, we had some scenes on practical floors where we couldn’t get under the floor. We could be right on top of the character in order to put more life into them and then be digitally removed. And then with Cult, we had three of them operating at the same time. We have limited resources as far as animatronic puppeteers, so to be able to shoot each one separately and then combine things made life so much easier. It’s still complicated and hard, but to not have to frame based on where somebody is operating a puppet makes a huge difference in how you can film it. It impacts the performance as well. The advent of digital technology has really been our friend, because it’s an awesome tool for us to be able to take advantage of.
Don Mancini is primarily known for being a writer, but you’ve worked on all three films that he’s directed. How would you describe him on set?
He never loses his cool. I don’t get it! [laughs] He’s amazing on set. He’s very calm and very focused. He’s able to roll with the punches. He’s able to actually articulate what he wants, how he wants to do it, and, if anybody asks, he can explain why. He’s a really solid leader, and he has a really solid grasp of his subject matter. He’s super articulate in being able to tell all of us what he wants. Most importantly, he’s really calm and he stays very focused. He’s a really smart guy.
Your daughter, Kyra Elise Gardner, made a short documentary focusing on the familial aspects of the Child’s Play movies, which is included on the Cult of Chucky Blu-ray. I really enjoyed it and wanted to know if there’s any plan to turn it into a full-length documentary.
That’s Kyra’s goal, to do a feature documentary. She goes to Florida State University, and she was evacuated for the hurricane recently. We had two events go down with Chucky projects. Jennifer Tilly came to the opening of Halloween Horror Nights, and she agreed to sit down with Kyra for about an hour an hour half. She did a super in-depth interview with her. And then Kyra saw Fiona the following night for a Cult of Chucky panel at Monsterpalooza, and Fiona stuck around for about an hour and talked more about herself and her experiences, as opposed to the family dynamics that’s more the subject of the short documentary. I think Kyra is working on it as we speak. She’s getting stuff that a lot of people have never been able to get. More power to her!
Do you have a favorite effect that you’ve created, or one that stands out as being a particular point of pride?
Honestly, I think the half-corpse from Return of the Living Dead is a favorite, because I was in my early 20s and I didn’t know what I was doing. I had never done animatronics, and I had this really cool opportunity. I built like 80% of it myself; I had some friends help out with mechanics in the hands. It was a learn-as-you-go type of experience. I had an amazing design by William Stout to base it off of, and then I only had like two weeks to build it at night, becuase I had a real job during the day. It holds this warm spot in my heart. There’s nostalgia, but it’s also sort of a stepping-up-and-showing-what-you’re-made-of moment. I love the character too and how successfully we were able to bring her to life. I had never had the experience of going to set and puppeteering an animatronic character before. I really enjoyed it. Oddly enough, it’s Don Mancini’s favorite creature from a movie, so I think it did me well! [laughs]
I’d say so! As someone who worked on the original, how do you feel about the recent news that Disney is planning to reboot Hocus Pocus with a new cast?
It’s been conversations that have been ongoing for seven years, honestly. I feel like there’s a meeting once a year for it. The fact that they’ve finally announced something publicly means that they’re serious. There have been so many scripts over the years, the question is: which direction are they going to go? I know the fans all want to see the three witches, and it’s amazing how many girls want to see Billy Butcherson come back. I don’t know where it’s going to go. I’m super excited for it. It also makes me a little a nervous, because the whole idea of a sequel living up to an original is always daunting. Don Mancini has pulled it off, but not too many people have. The world is definitely a different place than when the first Hocus Pocus came out [in 1993], so if you’re going to put it in contemporary times, I’m curious as to how much adjusting of the content is going to need to take place and how that’s going to impact the characters. I’m excited, but I’m nervous!
In addition to the ones we’ve discussed, you’ve worked with several other iconic films and characters, like Aliens, Army of Darkness, and The Blob. Are there any other big franchises that you’d like to tackle?
I feel like we got to do a lot of really cool ones already. Darkman is a personal favorite as well. We’ve been able to do some cool animatronic ones and some cool prosthetic ones. On a selfish note, I think it would be really fun to have the opportunity to be involved in a lot of the genre films. We almost worked on a Friday the 13th reboot at one point. It was exciting to take over Chucky and keep him going, so I thought it would be interesting. There’s quite a few other horror icons out there that it would be a blast to bring back to life. But I feel I’ve been really fortunate at this point.
As a kid, I wanted to remake Planet of the Apes, but it’s been done a million times and now it’s a computer. If I had to pick a film to redo just for pure selfishness: The Day the Earth Stood. The robot in that, Gort, was a favorite. That whole film was a favorite, but that robot in particular always fascinated me. You can kind of see a bit of it in one of the Daft Punk promos. It was one of Thomas Bangalter’s favorite films as well, so we felt justified doing a little homage.
You’ve dabbled in directing short content, but have you ever wanted to make your own feature?
To be honest, I don’t know if I have the attention span and the focus to do a feature. I really enjoy doing music videos and short films. If I had nothing else that I needed to focus on, I would love to take on a genre feature. To do something along the lines of the original The Thing - something that offers you opportunity to really stretch your imagination - would be exciting enough to me. If I could drop everything else to do it, I would be happy to.
DREAD CENTRAL: Exclusive: Tony Gardner on The Dollhouse, the Horror Family, and Happy Death Day
Exclusive: Tony Gardner on The Dollhouse, the Horror Family, and Happy Death Day
Tony Gardner is the man behind the doll – sometimes literally, as he puppeteers Chucky! Of course, he has a great team of folks to do most of the heavy lifting (and heavy stabbing), but Gardner is the mastermind and certainly one of the most talented effects guys in the biz. You can see his handiwork in the brand-new horror flick Cult of Chucky(review) – we caught up with him in his studio to talk to him about working on that movie specifically, but there’s a lot more to the tale so we delved in a bit deeper, looking into the past (Michael Jackson’s Thriller) and the future (Kyra Elise Gardner’s “The Dollhouse”). Read on!
Dread Central: How did you get into this awesome world? I mean, you have a dream job, for sure! Where did you get your start?
Tony Gardner: My first professional job was for the music video, “Michael Jackson’s Thriller,” working for Rick Baker. I was eighteen. So my first professional job was essentially a horror film, where I even had the opportunity to build a zombie character on myself and be in the video. John Landis knew that I was interested in filmmaking and during post production he invited me to come into editorial and watch them working on the video, which was incredibly cool. So I was in the shop during all of the zombie and werewolf construction, had a hand in a little bit of everything there, including fabricating a character of my own, then be on set for the full week of filming, act in front of the cameras for a couple of shots – and then watch editorial in progress, with George Folsey, Jr., the editor, explained how they were structuring the behind the scenes footage to help explain things to an audience, visually and through the audio as well. I felt I was able to be involved in the entire process, and it was this life changing experience for me. I was a student at USC at the time, and I dropped out of school. I tried to do both for a while, school and the music video, but I realized, “I can’t do both, I can only do one of these and I know what I want to do – I want to make movies.”
DC: And being in the horror genre every now and again – you do lots of sci-fi and comedy, too – you must be showered with lots of love. The horror community really is just that, a community, wouldn’t you agree?
TG: They’re so open and so friendly. You go to a genre convention and everyone is so nice. I went to Maskfest, and this guy came up to me, a big, scary intimidating guy with his head painted like an evil skull, and he was so polite: “Hi, so nice to meet you, and I really enjoy your films.” Everybody is so nice and so genuine. It’s really a great genre to be in, everybody we meet on the periphery of it and within the studio system, is great, and sometimes it’s funny because everybody’s so normal.
We’re all eccentric in our own different ways, but everybody within this horror world seems to be a really genuine human being. Everybody’s always been super nice. I think a lot of it comes from the people on top and their attitude trickles down on set. It’s camaraderie and support for one another. Everybody’s in the trenches together. Everybody actually has a lot of passion for the subject matter and I think that makes a difference. It definitely impacts the attitude on set which just makes it easier to work.
DC: You’ve got your genre family, and your actual family. I’m kind of curious about whether you let your own kids watch horror movies when they were young, because, as you said, guys painted like skulls come up to you at conventions, and I’ve seen lots of families at those cons too.
TG: We tried to wait until they were a bit older – around ten seemed a good age, but even the ‘age appropriate’ stuff had things in it that were scary. They didn’t watch horror films at a young age, but they all have liked scary stories ever since they were little. And there’s things that we showed our kids that we didn’t think were scary, that impacted them completely differently than expected.
We were cautious, we had some friends whose kids were watching stuff at far to early an age to comprehend a lot of what they were watching, and we really paid attention to that. My wife Cindy was really aware of how this industry skews your perspective on things and how you really need to look at it through the child’s eye and make the right decisions. Now she’s the President of the School Board in our community, and is really into child development and education, so I’d say she’s the one with the healthiest perspective all around.
But all of our kids really love horror and when their friends come over to our house it seems they all enjoy watching something scary. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good horror film or a bad film – there’s fun in both of those – but it seems like horror is quite often the ‘go to’ in our house. And we didn’t push it.
A lot of the films that we were doing when they were little were more comedy based actually. So it wasn’t like we were bringing home work that was horror related. Once we moved into our house and were starting a family, we made a conscious decision to keep the work stuff at work. If I ever had to bring stuff home to work on or finish off, like a severed head or whatever, it stayed in the car until everybody was in bed, and then I’d work on it late at night.
Although, in referencing a severed head, I remember when we were working on ‘Seed of Chucky,’ I had taken the head of myself home to work on. I have to admit, there was a moment where I did wonder, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I pretended to trip upstairs and roll this head down the stairs?” Followed immediately by, “I don’t think I’ll have enough money for that kind of therapy for the rest of these kids’ lives.” The practical joker side of you thinks, this would be a funny joke and then the parent side cancels it out immediately – not a good idea! But I did tell them about it when they were older and the response was basically, “Yeah, that probably would have ruined me but it would have been funny.”
DG: At least one of your kids, Kyra, is following in your footsteps in that she’s making horror movies too. Her short documentary “The Dollhouse” is a special feature on the Cult of Chucky Blu-ray. How awesome is that? Can you give us a little backstory on that?
TG: Sure. So my daughter Kyra is a film student in Florida State. And part of the curriculum for the first year of film school is a short form documentary. The film has to be seven minutes long and you have to pitch your ideas to the faculty. So my daughter went into her meeting with a lot of different ideas to discuss: we had just done makeup effects for Ana Lily Amirpour on ‘The Bad Batch,’ which Kyra had been involved with, taking photos for Lily, and one of her ideas was to interview Lily on the gender bias in this industry among other things.
During Kyra’s pitch meeting, one of the professors heard that her dad works on Chucky and said – in trying to help each student find their own unique voice: “If you do seven minutes on Chucky, I’d watch that.” I think it was an offhand comment but at the same time they keep telling the students: Look what’s in your own backyard. Talk about what you know. What sort of resources do you have? So she took a few steps back and realized that she’s had this family, this sort of extension of our own family through work that’s been connected to us for over fifteen years.
She’s nineteen so she’s heard David Kirschner and Don Mancini’s names for most of her life, heard all about them, and had only ever really known these people from a distance. To make a film about this group was a chance to kind of get to know everyone face to face – to sit them down and interview them. So she decided to make her documentary just as much about the process of meeting them as well as the shared experience that we all have, this community, this extended family. And she really wanted to talk to Fiona because Fiona’s dad is the killer doll and I’m the guy who builds the doll. And then Fiona’s dad kills her own dad – and there’s all these layers to it that made it kind of funny. She ended up with a ton of material actually.
She asked Brad and Fiona to sit down together, talk father/daughter, and then she and I sat down the same way, and then she also sat down separately with David Kirschner and Don Mancini – interviewing everyone in their own homes – it was very casual, none of us were really ‘at work.’ There was a bit of a debate at Florida State Film School about the structure of a documentary and should the documentarian be in the film themselves in the context of a student film, but she finally put together something she liked that was true to her original idea after debating the different options, and was really happy.
She sent a link to the finished film to all of us who had been interviewed, an e-mail that thanked everyone for being in it, basically saying ‘here’s a link, I hope you like it.’ Well, David Kirschner watched it and got on the phone with Universal and told them that he felt that this documentary should be on the ‘Cult of Chucky’ DVD, and that he thought the fans would really like it. And Don Mancini had the same opinion and did the same. So there ended up being around six or seven weeks of paperwork and legal hell for Kyra because her film wasn’t put together with the intent of being anything other than a student film. She had already gone through a lot of paperwork to get the rights to some of the music and clips from the Chucky films to use on a student film level, and now all of a sudden Universal wanted to use her film as part of their own product. So it turned into another whole series of contracts and negotiations that went on literally down to the wire. I think she learned a lot about film-making and learned a lot about working with a major film studio above and beyond what she expected. She had to deal with the merchandising department and the legal department and the home video department – it was so great that Florida State’s Film School is so supportive of their students, I don’t know how it would have happened without them. So this one little experience gave her such a great opportunity to learn and to grow.
As all of the Universal paperwork was wrapping up, FSU had also started sending her documentary out to different film festivals. Meanwhile Fright Fest contacted Don Mancini and asked if he would like to premiere ‘Cult’ in London like he had done with ‘Curse’ five years ago, which thrilled Don and all of us to no end. Not long after that Don received another e-mail from Fright Fest stating basically ‘hey, we received this fab documentary about your films through our regular channels and we think you’ll really like it. You’re in it and it’s called ‘The Dollhouse,’ by Kyra Gardner. We’re thinking it would be really cool to screen it before the world premiere Cult of Chucky because it would give the audience a taste for who you are before they watch the film.’ Don responded back, ‘of course,’ and then I got to tell Kyra.
It was really kind of overwhelming because she had been a bit hesitant to talk about this stuff and then the film and even the process opened up all these doors for her, resulting in her student film world premiering in London before the ‘Cult of Chucky’ world premiere. She went for the screening, and the festival organizers invited her to go up and speak before the film. She went up in front of over a thousand people and literally winged it, and did an amazing job, thanking her mom and the crew and everybody that had been in it. And then it premiered.
Fiona, Jennifer and I had gone to England with Don for the premiere. And Adam Hertig – who is in the film – was there from Canada as well. We realized then that our little film family has started to like, stretch out a bit, with Adam being in the last two Chucky films and Jennifer being in the last three.
The Dollhouse has gone on to screen at a lot more film festivals, and will be showing at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival next month before they screen Cult of Chucky. Kyra’s going to go. Florida State’s going to let her disappear for a couple of days. So she’ll get to meet the rest of the Canadian side of the family.
The Chucky connection keeps on going, though. FSU was evacuated due to Hurricane Irma, so Kyra ended up back home with us for a week. The Monday of that week we shot Chucky for an “Entertainment Weekly” spread for their Halloween issue, so we had Kyra onboard as a Chucky puppeteer on that. Friday of that week was the opening of Halloween Horror Nights, and Kyra had helped puppeteer Chucky on the footage that we shot for that a month ago, so she went to the opening and finally met Jennifer Tilly. And Jennifer was willing to come early and sit down with Kyra and do an interview with her. That very next day Don, Fjona, and I were on a ‘Cult of Chucky’ panel at Son of Monsterpalooza [a horror con], and Fiona sat down with Kyra after and spoke with her some more about her own experiences as opposed to her shared experiences with her father. Now Kyra’s wondering if she should interview Adam Hertig when they’re both in Toronto. It’s just really cool to see Jennifer and everybody be so supportive of her. And, it is real is kind of a family. They’re all kind of protective. It’s just really sweet. I didn’t realize until recently, how rare that is in general, but in this industry how extremely rare it is, so it’s nice to have my family get pulled into it.
DC: Are your other kids in the industry, too?
TG: All three of them have been involved in different ways through the years. My oldest daughter Brianna was in the movie “Shallow Hal” when she was seven, and both she and Kyra played the same character at different ages for a Daft Punk music video a long while back. My son Austin gets involved occasionally as well. When we were filming Chucky here at Alterian recently for a lot of the online promo and the footage for the Terror Tram ride at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, Austin was one of the puppeteers. He’s a med student in Irvine now, so we can’t involve him as often anymore. Brianna was home for a week from England – she’s at grad school in England – and she helped puppeteered on another promo shoot while she was home. And Brianna also actually worked on the film itself. She painted in our shop for all of pre-production before we shipped off to Canada. So, there’s definitely a whole family dynamic thing – and it keeps extending out. It’s a really solid group of people and it’s really nice. There’s no drama and there’s a lot of support.
DC: Happy Death Day is coming out soon. What did you do on that film?
TG: Well, it’s a Canadian production, so we couldn’t really be on set for any of it, but Chris [director, Christopher Landon] wanted us to design the mask for the killer. He wanted some sort of iconic face. We had created a mask here at Alterian that became the Scream mask, way back when. We did the Ghost-Maker kits and other Halloween masks in the past, then more recently the masks – or helmets – for Daft Punk. Chris said that he liked our sense of design aesthetic, and that it would be interesting to see what our take on his character would be. Production had two different ideas. Two extremely different ideas. We actually ended up just sculpting both designs full size for them. You can talk and sketch ideas to death but you actually have to see it in 3D to think about how you’re going to light it and how it’s going to move. So we just did two sculptures on a head and shoulders bust so he could see the proportions of the head in relationship to the neck length and shoulder height. And as soon as he saw it he was very decisive: “I want that design, and if you could move this tooth over there. Done.” We were taking photos of the sculptures on their busts, wrapping them in black fabric to represent a hood – figuring the classic grim reaper look. In the end, the final look decided on was actually a black hoodie. So the design process was fun. We really wished we could have gone on set but it being a non-local film – that’s part of the understanding going into it – didn’t make that possible. I’m really looking forward to seeing it because it was a really fun script.
Happy Death Day is directed by Christopher Landon, who co-wrote the film with Scott Lobdell. Jessica Rothe headlines the film, which comes out Friday, October 13th.
MOVIE MAKER: How They Did It: Designing the Amputee Protagonist of Ana Lily Amirpour’s Dystopian Desert Trip, The Bad Batch
How They Did It: Designing the Amputee Protagonist of Ana Lily Amirpour’s Dystopian Desert Trip, The Bad Batch
There were quite a few visual effects challenges I had to tackle in making my second feature, The Bad Batch: multiple matte paintings, a massive wall made out of shipping containers, a simulated LSD trip, sand storms, trained crows.
Once I’d written the script, though, it was clear that the first, most important question was: “How am I going to have my main character, Arlen—played by Suki Waterhouse and in pretty much every scene of the movie—lose an arm and a leg in the first 10 minutes of the film?”
Given the CG tools available, creating the effect isn’t actually that difficult—but I’m a practical-FX girl. A lot of the big-budget, FX-driven studio films we get right now have this chemical synthetic look—they’re two-hour long video games. I like the real world to be mixed organically with CG. I’m excited by filmmakers who use a mix of practical and digital FX, like Guillermo Del Toro, Darren Aronofsky, J. J. Abrams, Ridley Scott. They harness the beauty of the real world first and foremost, and then use the CG to amplify that beauty. I wanted that living, organic feeling in the frame. I wanted the tactile, tangible sense of light hitting the sets and objects and flesh. I want it to feel real. I’m a magician, after all.
The first person I talked to about the challenge of getting rid of limbs was Tony Gardner, who with his company, Alterian, Inc., is the mastermind behind things like the Chucky doll from Child’s Play, the iconic Daft Punk helmets, Darkman and the Oscar-nominated makeup (including the old-man balls) of Bad Grandpa. He is one of the greats in practical FX. Spike Jonze mentioned my film to him (they had worked together on Adaptation) and suggested we meet. Normally, Tony would be out of my reach, given my budget of only approximate $5 million, but he loved the story and world I was building, and he vibed on the fact that I was trying to get the effect without digital tools—not an approach most people take nowadays.
Ana Lily Amirpour on the set of The Bad Batch, which won the special jury prize at the 2016 Venice Film Festival. Photograph by Merrick Morton
The film that Tony had worked on that was most relevant to what I wanted to do was Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours. I was really impressed with how natural the arm prosthetics on James Franco, trapped under that rock, were. With hardly any digital FX, Tony created a prosthetic arm which Franco wore (his own arm was tucked behind him). That seemed like a strategy that could work for us. Tony would design a prosthetic shoulder nub for Arlen, molded from Suki’s body, that she would wear throughout the shoot, so that there would always be a real-life element on her of what she was supposed to look like. That meant that nothing was 100-percent created in CG; it was always a mix of practical and visual FX.
Which is not to say we didn’t still require extensive digital VFX work to sell that effect. We would still need to remove Suki’s actual arm from every single shot. No matter how I approached it, there would be a considerable amount of CG work. Anything we built would then need to be cleaned up and accentuated. So the next critical partner I had to find was a VFX supervisor who would come in and bring to life whatever Tony had started with his prosthetics. He would help me come up with a shooting strategy on set, for every scene, to make sure we were shooting to facilitate the ideal results in post-production.
One of the great resources for moviemakers is DVD bonus features of other films. I was checking out other directors who had removed limbs in movies. Two films in particular were my references: Rust and Bone and Soul Surfer. The bonus features of Rust and Bone—a film about a girl missing her legs—revealed what director Jacques Audiard had done with handheld camera work, elaborate CG work and a much bigger budget. In Soul Surfer, director Sean McNamara got rid of AnnaSophia Robb’s arm by creating a prosthetic nub that she wore for most of the movie—the way we wanted to go. Dan Schmit was one of the VFX supervisors on that film, so we got in touch with him and his company Engine Room. Since he’d already done the arm-removal effect before, hiring him made us ahead of the curve.
Keep in mind, Soul Surfer too was made on a bigger budget, with more than 700 VFX shots. I had to get the same effect with around 150 shots on my budget. Dan pointed out that we would also need Tony to build one complete prosthetic arm and bust of Arlen, just for shooting photos for 3-D rebuilding. This would serve as a model of what she was supposed to look like and Dan’s team could use this to recreate her body from side angles, when the viewer would see everything.
The Bad Batch was shot around Bombay Beach and the Salton Sea in California. Photograph by Merrick Morton
So we began, building one prosthetic nub for Suki’s front-facing shots and a different one when I was shooting her from the back, and sometimes a “double nub” with prosthetics on both sides. Her own arm was always somewhere behind or in front of her, painted green. Dan would remove that real arm for all of the shots, and sometimes animate the nub to give it life. And when there was not enough information for Dan to recreate the CG, he could use the bust of her body to fill in those gaps.
With just 150 shots, I had to figure out when it was essential for you to see Arlen as an amputee. I had to decide when I wanted to put the camera wider, in angles that really showed her body, and create shots that would require more elaborate CG work to sell the effect. Dan and I went through the script and figured out the scenes where we really wanted to do some fancier CG work, like animate the nub, really show it, and see it interacting with her and her environment. In the story of The Bad Batch, the fact that Arlen’s an amputee is almost a side-note—I just needed to show her physicality a few key times and get you to believe in who this character is, and then move on to so many other things. Any time we shot her nub, we were creating a CG shot, and even if it was an easy one, it costs money. My rule: Don’t shoot the nub if the scene doesn’t benefit from showing it. Most scenes in movies are anchored on close-ups of actors’ faces, so that’s where you invest your emotion. I’m not selling a freak show; I’m telling a story about human emotion. And that lives in the actor’s eyes.
That said, a big part of Suki’s job were the physical challenges all the FX required. This role wasn’t just hard on her as an actress; it was hard on her as a stunt person. She would have to wear heavy plastic prosthetics in a hot desert for the entire shoot and learn how to move and react with them in a way that felt natural. It was an exhausting role for an actress. She jumped right into the technical work, over many weeks of prep, casting molds of her body and testing them for camera. The tests were critical—you always wish you had more time, but any time you get is incredibly valuable. I spent many afternoons with Suki, her crawling around on the floor using only one arm and leg, trying to understand how to use her body the way this character would. I take my hat off to her and the gladiator work she put in, because she makes it look easy, and that’s why she’s remarkable.
Jason Momoa and Suki Waterhouse enter an unconventional romance as part of The Bad Batch’s wasteland community. Courtesy of Neon
The next important element for me was storyboards. I like to do them myself because I have specific ideas for framing and camera angles, and I like to over-prepare, especially for scenes that require elaborate camera movements, lighting or stunts. I often deviate from the storyboards, but with prosthetics and CG, you need everyone to have a clear plan. These blueprints were also important for my costume designer, Natalie O’Brien, who was working closely with Tony on designing Arlen’s outfits to work with the prosthetics.
I went through those storyboards with my camera team—a trifecta made up of me, my DP Lyle Vincent (who also shot my first feature, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) and our Steadicam operator, Scotty Dropkin, who also did a few scenes on Girl Walks. We three already have a shorthand, and we found a way to stay efficient and avoid creating more post work than I could afford. We also shot camera tests in all the locations so they knew the lay of the land in the extreme desert conditions. All of this preparation is so useful for showing up relaxed and ready.
Suddenly it was the first day of production, and we showed up on set. Even as prepared as you might be, your true approach reveals itself when you start shooting. We had the rare privilege of shooting this film almost in chronological order, and that helped enormously. Shooting was insane, the schedule was impossibly tight, with lots of surprises, changes, action sequences and fight scenes every other day. We had a kid and animals on set, and the desert is wild and unpredictable. All of the tricks we had devised played out in different ways depending on the scene: Sometimes we buried Suki’s leg in the sand, sometimes we cut a hole in a mattress, sometimes her real arm was in the back, sometimes in the front, and sometimes we just shot it not knowing how we were going to get rid of an arm or leg but we had to finish the scene so we had no choice. During her escape scene in the beginning, she’s in bandages, so that was an easier time in some ways. But bandages turned out to be more difficult to recreate and modify realistically in CG. That’s something we discovered months later when I was in post—cloth, it turns out, is trickier to animate. Things change on the day, the sun is hot, the latex is melting, the clock is ticking, and that’s the nature of this beast.
A few weeks in, we found our rhythm. It was a wonderful feeling: when everyone knew exactly how we were making this movie; everyone was suddenly an expert at how to shoot a girl missing an arm and leg. At the end of finishing any movie you become an expert at that particular movie. I’m now an expert on limb removal.
Amirpour with her crew on the set of The Bad Batch. Photograph by Merrick Morton
I like creating fairy tales. I like fantasy, and surrealism, and world-building, which always involved technical craftsmanship. For me, making a movie is creating a world of problems I then have to solve. And each project is a set of completely new problems, mediums, tricks, genres and techniques, but I know I’ll find a solution. It’s part of the high for me. I once did a stop-motion film called “A Little Suicide,” about a cockroach who is depressed because everyone hates him and he goes out and decides to kill himself. It was funded by the Berlinale, so I shot it in Berlin. It was six weeks of prep and a 21-day shoot to make a 10-minute-long film that was a mix of live action and stop motion. I had no actual stop motion experience before that (though I did have an arts background in sculpture and illustration). So I had to figure out how to animate. And I did.
What matters is that you have smart, solution-oriented collaborators and problem-solvers sitting next to you, helping you get where you’re going. It’s a lot like Apollo 13: that scene where they have to figure out how to get the carbon dioxide levels down in the spaceship, and there are only a certain number of tools to do it with. That was Tony and Dan and their teams: Here’s what they have available on the spaceship, and we have to figure out some way to make this happen with just those tools, and get home safely. MM
The Bad Batch opens in theaters June 23, 2017, courtesy of Neon.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: "127 HOURS," What James Franco's Severed Arm Taught Me
What James Franco’s Severed Arm Taught Me
Tony Gardner, special effects artist, on how his “127 Hours” handiwork is saving sick babies.
I thought some of the stories were hyped about people fainting during 127 Hours. Then one producer called me and said, “I went to the movies last night to check out your work, and it was quite an experience.” It turned out that somebody had passed out. I felt proud and then really guilty.
We designed about 10 different arms, each one worth about $10,000. We also designed bloodshot contact lenses and dental “plumpers” for James Franco’s face because he had lost all the weight before filming — we had to do something so his face could change. Before anything, we did a body cast and then built a couple different harnesses and could attach any of the multitude of arms to the shoulder depending on the scene. He actually had on a three-sleeve shirt because the fake arm had to come out in front of his real arm.
The main surgery arm [for the amputation scene] was loose-jointed and the one that had all the blood in it — different muscle groups and everything. It was made of aluminum and steel, then there’s foam, latex and silicone muscles. It had fibers embedded in the silicone so it would cut like muscle tissue, instead of cutting into other stuff that looks like Jell-O. It’s an arm, so you know where the veins and arteries are and where the blood will come through. Aron Ralston was so dehydrated, his blood was thicker — so it was a fairly clean process.
I got a lot of great feedback from doctors about my work in the film. So I started a business making neonatal training aids for intensive care doctors. Some kids are born with their intestines inside of their umbilical cord … and all other sorts of issues. We made a kit where you can put these prosthetic pieces on medical dummies, so doctors in training can practice in a real-life scenario. It feels good to be doing something helpful other than just entertainment.
WICKED HORROR: FX Maestro Tony Gardner Talks Cult of Chucky
Exclusive Interview: FX Maestro Tony Gardner Talks Cult of Chucky!
Tony Gardner is one of the premiere FX artists in horror. His career stretches from operating the cat Binx in the seasonal favorite Hocus Pocus, to building the equally iconic half-corpse in Return of the Living Dead, to Lost Boys, to Aliens and more. Since Seed of Chucky, he’s been at the center of the Child’s Play franchise, creating the dolls for that film as well as Curse of Chucky and now Cult of Chucky. Gardner has even stepped in as a producer for the new sequel.
We talked with Gardner recently about the process of creating the great—and varied—new looks for Chucky in the film, as well as what fans can expect and so much more.
Cult of Chucky is now available. Be warned. The interview will go into some mild spoilers.
Wicked Horror: One of my favorite things about this franchise is that each movie feels completely different from the one before it. Cult definitely continues this trend. When did Don Mancini first approach you with the idea and what was your initial reaction?
Tony Gardner: He actually had a couple of idea right while we were finishing Curse. And this was one of them. They were all equally cool, they were all standalone films that were almost completely different genre homages, in a way. They were all so exciting, but the idea of an insane asylum just opened so many doors to what’s really happening and what’s going on in people’s minds. So I was very excited and hoping he would go down that road and obviously I’m glad that he did.
WH: What was the experience like stepping into a producer role for this one?
Gardner: You know, I kind of feel like I’ve been part of financial management on the last two films. Just making sure things happen on time & on budget, and making sure all the time on set is maximized. It’s just a larger extension of what we do with the animatronic character himself. It was just sort of an expansion of a job that already existed for me. It’s nice being there from the beginning when things are being scripted. Just planning out what’s possible and what’s not, what’s not too time consuming, what’s financially possible and if there are ways to go around some of the financial restrictions.
Offering up alternate options, whether it be digital or otherwise, to pull of a sequence that we had in mind, like the finale with the three characters. It’s really just being part of the organization of everything from the beginning.
WH: This definitely feels like one of the most FX-heavy Chucky movies to date.
Gardner: A fair bit. I think that’s why I got pulled in right off the bat, because we had to figure out how to make it work with a limited number of shoot days. This was a very complicated story that Don wanted to tell with a lot of different characters and what could essentially have been its own 2nd unit. How do you integrate that into 1st unit as much as possible so that it’s cohesive? I think any time someone comes in with that much of a large-scope idea and that much drive and enthusiasm, you have to support that.
WH: And Chucky himself in this one, well…
Gardner: Himselves?
WH: Yeah, I was gonna say. He looks very similar to the first few movies in terms of that overall look, going back to the early days of the franchise. How hard did you work on that?
Gardner: That was sort of my obsession, to be honest with you. You go back to the beginning and have the chance to start over, literally. The focus was really Child’s Play 2 more than the first one, because of some of the design and aesthetic changes. He’s gone through such a transformation starting with Bride in particular. When we got into Curse, I was really taking Don’s concept of “Chucky has a Good Guy face stretched over his own.” I took that literally and I think trying to do that weird plastic surgery look didn’t really thrill people. Lesson learned on my end, obviously. So I really, really wanted to make sure that the Good Guy doll was back to its original proportions of the first few films. Size of the hands, everything.
There were some concessions made due to the aesthetics of the set, with everything being so white and washed out. Don really wanted the hair to pop more on camera in a more contrasted way. So it’s a little more orange as opposed to orange-brown than it was in the first film. There was no luxury of him going from a Good Guy doll to a more human doll, where he’s becoming more of a human being and his eyebrows are getting hairy. This one had to go back and forth from a Good Guy doll to a fully animated one, but one who is capable of conveying extremely evil expressions. There’s a bit of a bag under the eye to give him a look that’s a little more like Brad Dourif. It gives a little more of that evil character and at the same time helps us mechanically as well.
WH: It really does look great in the film.
Gardner: Oh, thank you.
WH: In general, with this being such a rapidly changing industry, how would you say the effects have evolved over time in this franchise?
Gardner: I think the best advancement has been everyone willing to be open to digital enhancement. We can do rod puppeting on certain scenes and eliminate a rod or a puppeteer out of the frame, as opposed to limiting how he’s framed, so that you can cut somebody out of the shot. We’re able to do that now and it really opens up the door for more articulation and faster shooting time. It takes so much less time to set up a shot. People’s willingness to embrace that technology is a help for us and it has really made a difference in the last two films.
We used it very sparingly in Curse of Chucky, just things like when his head pops off and his body stands up. A couple of things where you’re seeing him full-frame in the shot. We were on a practical floor, so we couldn’t be underneath it or do anything other than rods or marrionetting. Doing that to a minor degree on that film really opened up everybody’s eyes to how it could be used on this one. And when we get to the scene at the end where we have three characters going and we have green suits or green rods, it’s really been a huge asset for us.
WH: You kind of touched on this a little bit in terms of being a producer, but with there being so much FX work in Cult of Chucky, was there ever anything you didn’t think that you’d be able to pull off?
Gardner: I think what made it nice for me on Cult is that we had Adrien Morot on makeup effects and then we had Doug Morrow doing the applications in the FX shop, so we had people that we knew were solid and easy to work with handling most of the blood and guts. Sometimes there’s a real overlap. We knew we’d have our hands full with all the multiple versions of him, shooting out of continuity, and then that whole finale sequence in the office. We had a lot on our plate with just the dolls alone, so having those people on the makeup effects was a huge peace of mind for me.
WH: Going back a little bit, how familiar were you with the franchise before you came on board with Seed?
Gardner: Oh, I was super familiar with it. When the first one had come out, I remember thinking “A killer doll, I don’t know…” But I remembered the Karen Black movie called Trilogy of Terror, with the little doll with the knife, and that was a really great idea. I was excited to see how suspenseful it was and how much of a story there was in the first one. I’ve watched all of them since. And then when David Kirshner was going to Universal to pitch Bride of Chucky, we had just worked with him on Hocus Pocus. He asked if we could do a display that he could take in to pitch them the idea for the movie. He brought in all these sketches he had done of Tiffany and asked us to build a Chucky doll holding Tiffany, sort of standing on a threshold for a wedding, a display to put in the room while he pitched the film to the producers.
So that was my first experience with who these characters were and what they were about. I really enjoyed that short experience, so when Seed came about and they asked me if I would be interested in manufacturing the dolls—even though they came to me three months before it had to ship—I was excited. I don’t know what I was thinking, but yeah. I really loved the franchise and admired what David and Don and Kevin Yagher had been able to achieve. I think going in blind was really good too, because I didn’t have any idea how complicated it would be to have three characters talking, having conversations and arguments and throwing things at each other.
WH: Yeah, I mean, that’s the one movie in the franchise where they’re in it more than the human characters.
Gardner: Yeah, and having conversations! Having to figure out the eye lines of a puppet, and we did that all through the floor. All of it. All the controllers, the sets were all six feet off the ground, and we were all underneath it looking at monitors. It was a very new experience and very stressful, but very enjoyable.
WH: In general, you’ve had an insane, insane career. From Aliens to Return of the Living Dead and Lost Boys and so many more. Do you think you’d even be able to single out an effect you would say you’re most proud of?
Gardner: Boy. A lot of times, in those films from the eighties and nineties, they were the first times for me doing those things. Darkman was the first time I did an overlying prosthetic appliance makeup. It was exciting because it was new and it was challenging. I think that holds true for all of them in general, especially in regards to the ones I like the most. I think I would probably go back to Return of the Living Dead and the half-corpse. That’s something that I’m super proud of. I’d been hired fresh out of college to work on Michael Jackson’s Thriller for Rick Baker.
Through happenstance, within a few months of that, I was asked to build this animatronic half-body. And I’d never done anything animatronic before in my life, ever. I had Bill Sturgeon over at Rick’s, who was an amazing mechanical designer, help with the hands. I did the head myself and I took it on set and was able to operate and puppeteer it on set. It’s a really exciting experience to be able to follow something all the way through and have it succeed as well as it did.
WH: That effect is still incredible. It still looks so lively. And Cult of Chucky is incredible work too. You really knocked it out of the park with this one.
Gardner: Thank you, I stressed about it. I really wanted to be true to the whole canon and the fans. I really reached out to the fan base for feedback and tried to incorporate them in what we were doing. We had Garrett Zima as our historian for what we were doing. He had an original doll from the second or third installment, access to great reference material for us. He was also helpful for feedback.
We put it out to different Facebook pages and groups and people would be in contact with us a lot, asking questions or whatever. So we started asking them questions about things and getting that feedback and a sense of right and wrong within this world. And I hope we did it justice for the fan base because that’s what this one is really all about.
HAIRSPRAY: Special Thanks
Alterian Inc. thanking all of the talented artists responsible for bringing Edna to life.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Three Rounds with Chucky
Three Rounds with Chucky:
Everyone's favorite devil-doll joins EW for a killer night out
The star of ‘Child’s Play,’ the scariest killer-doll franchise of all-time, downs some brew (and takes a stab at some questions) in our filthiest and most fatal interview ever
With his distinctive blue overalls, ginger hair, and maniacal stare, Chucky is hard to miss as he walks through the door of Los Angeles’ Black bar to hoist three rounds with EW — at least, he’s hard to miss once you remember to look down. Not that the only-needs-one-name movie megastar has any regrets about his lack of stature preventing him from, say, fully enjoying amusement parks. “I don’t like roller coasters,” he says. “It’s hard to flee the scene of the crime when you’re strapped into it.” Chucky’s not joking. In 1988’s Child’s Play, the “Good Guys” doll was possessed by the spirit of a serial killer and embarked on a murder spree. That cavalcade of carnage has continued through six sequels, including 1998’s Katherine Heigl-costarring Bride of Chucky and the just-released, Don Mancini-directed Cult of Chucky (now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital platforms), which features franchise veterans Fiona Dourif, her father Brad, Alex Vincent, and actress-turned-poker-tournament regular Jennifer Tilly. In person, Chucky is doll — sorry, droll — company, but rumors of a short fuse prove true. The star becomes increasingly irritated by the presence of photographer Jeff Minton (apparently, Chucky’s publicist neglected to mention a snapper would be present) and turns positively terrifying after EW asks what it is like to work with Tilly. “The woman’s a genius,” says Chucky. “But she doesn’t want it getting out. For poker. Crap, now I’m gonna have to kill you. Seriously.” Oof, let’s hope he’s a good drunk.
ROUND 1: Pabst Blue Ribbon
JEFF MINTON FOR EW
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Cult of Chucky is set in a mental institution. Do you think you might benefit from therapy?
CHUCKY: I can’t think of anything I’ve ever done that would make me need therapy.
How do you explain the longevity of the Child’s Play franchise? What’s the special sauce?
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s on account of me. What can I say? Chicks dig me.
How do you think you’ve evolved as a performer over the course of the franchise? Do you feel like you’ve grown? (No pun intended.)
I’ve gotten really into improv. Comedians come up with the funniest s— when you pull out a knife on stage. But yes, I’ve evolved. I’d like to take on King Learone day. And Newsies.
What did you spend your first big movie-star paycheck on?
Bail. And a fitted tuxedo. In that order.
How do you relax?
A little light stalking. Maybe a simple strangulation. And some weed. Notnecessarily in that order.
Are you a good cook? What’s your go-to dish for entertaining?
Hamburger Helper, but instead of hamburger, I use people. No, seriously. I rarely entertain.
What’s the best and worst thing about being famous?
The best thing? Meeting the fans. The worst thing? Getting rid of their corpses.
What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done while drunk?
Hooking up with Katherine Heigl.
What do people say to you when they recognize you in the street?
“Hey, Chucky, what ever happened to Katherine Heigl?”
ROUND 2: Bloody Mary
JEFF MINTON FOR EW
JEFF MINTON FOR EWAs you don’t have a birth certificate, are you ever worried about being deported?
Not really. It would give me a chance to experiment. I’ve always wanted to kill on an international scale. I’m so famous here in the States. Sometimes I miss the anonymity, you know? The simple things, like being able to roll out of bed and kill someone on the way to Starbucks.
While we’re on that subject: How old are you exactly? (My editor made me ask.)
Let me put it this way… I take a baby aspirin every day. Gotta stay smart about heart health, you know?
Do you ever wish you were a different doll?
Sometimes I wish I was a Ken doll. Only because I wouldn’t have to wear these f—in’ overalls anymore.
Who would win in a fight between you and Annabelle?
Annabelle’s a showboat — all sizzle and no steak. She can make the lights flicker. Big deal.
How do you feel about the Babadook becoming a gay icon?
Hey, I did it before it was cool.
How come we never see you and Brad Dourif in the same room?
Contractual reasons. We don’t get along.
What’s the first thing you would do as president?
I would encourage the Senate to bring me a plan to boost infrastructure over the next 10 years that would result in government-subsidized training, job growth, and bipartisan support. I’d also make murder legal.
ROUND 3: “Fireball and a knife”
(This turns out to be a request for Fireball whisky and an actual knife, which Chucky uses to fatally stab EW’s photographer.)
JEFF MINTON FOR EW
JEFF MINTON FOR EWUh, I guess you’re ready for this interview to be over. Just a few more questions before the police arrive: What’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?
Scrub the blood from my fingernails. Start the day fresh, you know?
Have you ever met Chuckie from Rugrats?
No. I don’t hang out with babies as a rule. And cartoon babies? Forget it.
Which celebrity do you most want to meet? And why?
The Biebs. So I can finally put an end to our long national nightmare.
How come you’ve never been a pitchman for Chuck E. Cheese’s?
Because those animatronics freak me the f— out.
Whose posters did you have on your wall when you were growing up?
Bundy, Dahmer, the Coreys. You know, all the greats.
Do you ever worry that you’re giving ginger-haired people a bad name?
Do you ever worry that you’re giving journalists a bad name?
How are things between yourself and your girlfriend Tiffany these days?
None of your damn business. We’re just good friends. Next question.
What’s your favorite sexual position?
The Reverse Chucky. It’s my own design. The Dirty Puppet is a close second.
What are you packing “downstairs”?
I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.
Which superhero do you most identify with, and why?
Loki. Take a f—ing guess.
Editor’s note: Senior writer Clark Collis disappeared two days after filing this interview.
JEFF MINTON FOR EW
DREAD CENTRAL: Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse – Exclusive Interview from the Set: Tony Gardner
Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse – Exclusive Interview from the Set: Tony Gardner
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is the first zom-com renowned makeup effects designer Tony Gardner has worked on since 2009’s Zombieland. Five years later, Gardner’s appetite for destruction hasn’t lessened one bit – and he’s got even more to play with this time around. From setting an especially gory scene in a strip-club called “Lawrence of Alabia” (which is also the location of this interview), to a lonely road littered with the carcass of an undead deer, Gardner had his toil more than cut out for him.
Gardner’s body of work is impressive, to say the least. He’s been in demand steadily since the 1980s (his first show was with Rick Baker on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”), into the ‘90s (Army of Darkness), up to right this minute with the Marlon Wayans parody Fifty Shades of Black.
We caught up with Gardner in a Los Angeles parking lot in the middle of night, while he was in the middle of preparing for the shooting of a zombie attack scene with tons of oozing extras.
Dread Central: Just how much of this is practical effects, and what do the zombies look like?
Tony Gardner: There was a decision early on to try to achieve as many of the effects practically as possible, with digital assistance only “as needed” per specific character designs, so most all of it is practical. As far as their appearance, the idea was to base the zombie design in some sort of believable medical reality, so that the comedy comes from the situations the characters are in as opposed to the appearance of the zombies. Trying to base their look on real medical concepts has been a challenge, especially given that the transformations all occur within one night, but in the end our starting point for each zombie was the concept of blood poisoning. Something I saw as a kid that scarred me for life was a graphic illustration of a person getting bit by a venomous snake, which showed the speed of the poison spreading out through the person’s veins as a darker color than their blood, illustrating that fast action was required to stop the spread of the venom, or the person that was bit would die. The design aesthetic with the zombies is the same: The zombie infection is spreading rapidly through the person’s body, and there’s a sense of discoloration taking place throughout their veins as they’re infected.
With that concept as our foundation, the question then was: How can we make each one of these zombie characters interesting in their own right? The description of the shopkeeper’s death is described in the script as essentially “the shopkeeper is attacked and one of his arms is chewed down to the bone.” I liked the image it implied, so I asked the director if we could literally go down to the bone on a good length of that arm. I wanted to make that one arm completely shredded, but still functional, knowing that we would require hiring an amputee or need a digital assist in order to make it happen. My idea was to mount a false arm that was “chewed to the bone” on a shoulder harness the actor would wear, so that the skeletal arm sits in front of the actor’s real arm, and then put the actor’s real arm in a green screen sleeve and have the actor puppeteer his own torn up arm from behind. Fortunately we had time to do a few designs that illustrated the concept of a puppeteered false arm and were able to show Chris something visual so that the idea made sense. I thought it would be more interesting if the torn up arm did more than just hang at his side and was more engaged. In a lot of these zombie films you might have the prosthetic make-up zombie characters and then perhaps some zombies that are more skeletal and achieved as puppets, like The Return of the Living Dead. The goal here was to marry those two worlds and then use computer graphics to enhance the effect and make it more interesting. The core idea was that these zombie attacks were more like animal attacks, with the resulting carnage being a lot more “violent” and a lot more torn apart. Being able to enhance the makeup effects digitally made it possible for the bites to be deeper and more graphic in nature, as opposed to the more superficial and “on the surface” look than an additive prosthetic makeup usually has.
DC: And we heard there is a crazy cat attack?
TG: Yes, there’s a house full of zombified cats that attack our main characters. The scene is a bit humorous from the start and harkens back to old 80’s horror films, so the idea for this particular scene was to present the animatronic cats in a style that we could have fun with. The scares are legit, but I think with that one we were able to have a bit of fun with the cat design. The cats attack [their master, played by Cloris Leachman] first, and it’s not the speediest of attacks; with all of these little mouths biting her, she ends up bloodied all over. There are some deep scratches to her hands, her face, the tip of her nose, her ears, her legs. There are some deep wounds as well based on the stories you hear about somebody dying and their cat eating them to survive…
DC: Are the zombies in different states of the disease?
TG: Yes. Based on the time frame of when they’ve been bitten or attacked, the disease is at a different level of progress in different characters. And there were story points that factored into the appearance of some of the characters as well, like the director not wanting to “tip his hand” that Patient Zero or the Stripper are already dead when you first see them. The idea with this film was to try not to do a zombie look that you’ve already seen before – to make the look of these zombies unique to this specific film. I really wanted you to be able to go through a flip book of different zombie films and be able to say, “Okay, that’s a Zombieland zombie” and “This is a Scouts zombie,” and just know what film you were looking at a photo from based just on the look of the zombie.
Besides the zombie look, we were trying to come up with a unique look for specific zombie characters as well. There were characters that had been zombified by a major attack , and we wanted to take the opportunity to maul those characters up a bit more than the rest. Some of those ideas, like the Broken Back zombie, were a bit extreme; and we also had the added challenge of trying to cast actors or performers able to do the required physical action for that character, who would also be cool with wearing contact lenses that were fogged and veined to the point where they were basically blind but still willing to run after other people.
SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, Left to right: Sarah Dumont plays Denise, Tye Sheridan plays Ben and Logan Miller plays Carter in SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE from Paramount Pictures.
Photo credit: Jaimie Trueblood
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DC: Chris [Landon; director] said he actually wanted to experience that.
TG: Yeah, Chris was clear on wanting to know what it would be like to be in one of these makeups from the actor’s perspective. I think he experienced things up to the point of going through a full-blown makeup test. Having him know and experience the limitations that the actors were working with really helped in regards to how he worked with the actors on set. Once your vision is that impaired, it puts you in your own little world, and then several of the main characters had a lot of other physical challenges to work with. The actor playing the shopkeeper, John Kreng, besides his torn apart arm, also has a really torn up face and is missing one of his eyes. We masked that torn up eye socket area, with the idea being that we’d digitally deepen that socket area in post. So now we have an actor blind in one eye, and then he’s got a fogged contact lens in the other, one of his arm’s behind his back, and he’s puppeteering a fake version of that arm while he’s walking towards you and also taking a squib hit and falling backward all at the same time. It’s a lot to ask someone to do, and we’ve been very fortunate that everybody has been so cool. The guy who’s going to work tonight is our Broken Back zombie, and the challenge with this character is: How far can you push the concept of a broken spine to make it look realistic, but still have it be able to visually register on camera, but not push it so far that it appears cartoony?
DC: Is that a performance by specific zombie character, or is it an extra?
TG: This actor has actually been in some of those competitive events where you’re racing on all fours; there are apparently hand-running events where there are cash prizes and trophies and the whole deal. This guy can run after you and fall to the ground while he’s running, and you think he’s fallen and he’s going to lie there, but instead he takes off on all fours after you and is able to pick up an amazing amount of speed, and it’s the freakiest thing in the world. We talked about having him running on grass (where he’d be his fastest), but I think it’s going to come down to where he’s running around on his hands through this graveled parking lot tonight. We’re trying to do something stylized with his design so that when he’s down on the ground on all fours, we can really read the broken spine from a distance while he’s moving. So his spinal column is literally jacked out of his back through broken skin, essentially broken in two halves but connected by muscle. We’re hoping for some cool sound effects with all the bones cracking and banging against each other and making a lot of noise when this guy runs on all fours. Regardless, he comes across as really scary when he runs right at you, pretty intimidating actually.
The makeup and the lenses have been a little intimidating for some of the actors, and it’s been interesting seeing how each of them deal with the challenges. Elle Evans, the actress who plays the character of Amber the Stripper, comes from the world of modeling, where looking attractive and your best is your livelihood. Then she comes here and it’s like, “Hi, nice to meet you; we’re going to make you look all veiny and gross and we’re going to put these fogged lenses in your eyes and bump up your veins, and then we want you to go over there and pole dance. Part way into your dance your neck’s going to get torn out, and you’re going to spray at least 5 gallons of blood on a guy, and then you’re going to fight him on the ground, he’s going to take a broken bottle and jam it into your forehead, and you’re going to leak probably another 3 or 4 gallons of blood out of your forehead onto him before you fall over on your side on the floor.” Her response? “Okay, that’ll be great!” And she was great. She was very much a last-minute casting decision and we were worried that she walked into this not knowing what was involved and it would be a nightmare, and instead she’s been the most fun of all of them.
DC: You’ve got a greater sense of design freedom, knowing that the movie is definitely going to get a hard R-rating?
TG: Yeah, I did because we wanted to make it bloodier but, again, trying to be realistically bloody. I was literally thinking about how much pressure is in the body and how far is it actually going to spray and going for it. Because it’s a hard R, somebody could get cut where an artery is and spray 20 feet away — and it’s legitimate, so we’re trying to push all that kind of stuff . The reality thing has been the real trick. I have a friend who is the head of an ER [and I got some advice from him].
DC: Chris talked about not just doing generic zombies, but that each one is a character.
TG: Yeah, and we’re trying to have some fun with a lot of the zombies being specific characters but not turning them into caricatures or making them cartoony. Keeping the overall look of them specific within the same design universe has definitely been the biggest challenge, really. When you’re hiring talented artists, everybody brings their own tricks of the trade with them in regards to how they are going to do a makeup, and sometimes that means they might lean towards their favorite color choices or the materials that they prefer, but those might not be the color palette for this movie or the technique that gives the specific look we’re after on this film. One way to maintain continuity on each character (whether we had to change makeup artists on a specific character or just recreate the same character for several days in a row), and just to make sure the zombies all looked the same in general, was to actually design their makeups as tattoo transfers.
hat technique has really helped with characters like David Koechner’s Scoutmaster, too, because he’s in shorts and showing a lot of skin, and he’s on camera a lot. It’s funny… everybody seemed to end up with less clothing on than what we talked about originally. There’s the naked old man at the window, Patient Zero, Cloris Leachman, and the zombie with the broken back… they were like, “Wow, his back’s broken so let’s take his clothes off so we can see it!” The Koechner zombie goes up in flames and ends up charred. There is half burn makeup on him, but he’s a little less medically accurate in the perspective of how someone would burn; since he’s already dead, you’re getting more of a barbecued chicken look with the skin blistering up on half of his head and one side of his body. We didn’t know what to expect with David in regards to all of the makeup he would have to wear, and he’s been phenomenal. Now that he’s burnt on one side, the lens that goes into that eye is more extreme and more opaque so he’s got even less vision than usual, but the dude is so funny and so nice and he comes on set with so much energy. I feel like you could pile a ton of stuff on this guy and he would still make it work. He’s so impressive – it’s been great.
We have an animatronic deer that has been zombified that attacks Koechner and tears his throat out. It’s like, “How do you make a deer scary?” If you look at the facial anatomy of a deer and how its mouth opens and what teeth are visible, there’s not much to work with in regards to making it scary. It’s like Mr. Ed… never scary; no matter how much teeth he’s showin’, it always looks goofy. So we went with the idea that some of the deer’s teeth are broken so that we can get some sharp points on some of them and also went with the idea that the deer’s been a little beat up and bloodied by what he’s been through… anything to make it look scarier. The deer has whited-out eyes as well, but we are trying very consciously not to go down the Evil Dead deer trophy-on-the-wall route because even subconsciously getting that concept into somebody’s head, automatically there’s a “fun factor” to the deer. It’s still inherently funny regardless, but we’re trying to be creepy, and it’s got to be scary, too, because it’s an important scene. So, finding the balance for us has been interesting. I know that in the end we’ll have sound effects added, and it’ll be the editor who really pulls the scenes together, but on set it’s a bit humorous, so we’re trying to make sure we get everything on camera that he might need.
If you were here the first day we shot any of the effects stuff – it was the dead deer on the road – you’d see that there’s been a progression in the approach to the gore. The deer gets hit by a car, the kids get out of the car to check it out, and you see the entire animal laid out with its stomach split open and its intestines hanging out, and there’s some blood and liquid on the road. After dressing the blood and guts for the scene, I remember Chris and Samson saying maybe we should back it up a bit and have less blood and keep the guts more inside the body. Now that we’re a few weeks into it, the call on set is “More blood!” because they realize when they see the blood on screen that you really need more to register the horror.
You need to read the violence in the zombie attacks in general, and Marylou Lim, the costume designer, is really up for getting everyone’s wardrobe as torn up and bloody as the characters are. So often on a film like this where we will do makeup that’s really extreme, the costume design team is still very hesitant to tear the wardrobe up. But with Marylou it’s, “Yeah, let’s tear it up, let’s go for it. We need more blood!” We need to really be able to register the carnage from a distance at night, so Marylou’s attitude has been really refreshing… it really feels like we’re all part of the same team.
This film really is a team effort, from top to bottom: There’s the actor who has to wear the effects makeup and has to “sell it,” as well as another actor who needs to respond to it on camera and make it believable. It needs to be lit dramatically, and then the visual effects team might be on set as well to line things up for digital enhancement, so we all really work as a cohesive team in order to pull these effects off.
From a makeup effects perspective, altering the eyes and mouth of a character is always an effective change, and it’s an easy thing for people to register right away, as we seem to talk to people’s eyes and mouths when we communicate with them. Messing up those two areas of the face goes a long way right off the bat… then to gouge up their faces and add raised veins, discoloration, and blood and have the actor change their posture and movement makes for an effective zombie from a distance as well as up close.
Hopefully we’re bringing something new to the mix on this film, and this won’t be the same old, same old. It’s a “zombie movie” so it will exist within a specific type of reality, really… the challenge is trying to put something that’s a little fresh on the map.
PR NEWS WIRE: All-American Rejects' Tyson Ritter Ages at the Hands of Makeup Effects Artist Tony Gardner
All-American Rejects' Tyson Ritter Ages at the Hands of Makeup Effects Artist Tony Gardner
When Director Catherine Hardwicke was dreaming up the concept for her music video for the song "There's A Place," a very moving song from her Drew Barrymore/Toni Collette film "Miss You Already," one of the biggest challenges was how best to illustrate the passing of time and love lost.
The song was written and performed by Tyson Ritter, the front man of the band All-American Rejects, and was written specifically for the film; Tyson is in the film as a love interest of Toni Collette's character.
As Tyson would be singing the song on camera within the music video, it was decided that he would in essence represent his film persona within the video, and gradually age from his thirties into his nineties during the course of the performance. A great way to illustrate the passing of time, but how to achieve all of this within one night of guerilla style film-making?
The answer: Makeup Effects Designer Tony Gardner, whose past prosthetic makeup challenges have included turning John Travolta into a buxom housewife for the film "Hairspray,"
Gardner and his team of artists at Alterian (www.alterianinc.com)
Tony Gardner is no stranger to projects with high demands. Director Danny Boyle came to Gardner to realize sequences from the film "127 HOURS," asking Gardner to design and create the prosthetic effects pieces that would allow James Franco to cut through and sever his arm on camera and in real time, and with complete medical accuracy. He's also had his share of odd requests, from creating robotic helmets for Daft Punk, to creating movie characters with a high list of demands.
"The weirdest meeting I can recall was for "Hocus Pocus," and went essentially like this: 'Can you design a 300 year old zombie who has his mouth stitched shut with leather cord, gets his fingers sliced off on camera, and his head knocked off and reattached a couple times? And while you’re at it, we also want to run over a cat with a bus and then have it reinflate on camera. ...and please make this all “kid friendly” of course, ….this is a Disney film.'"
Gardner continues, "Of course I said yes! Challenges like those are what I find exciting, and the more 'impossible' someone says the project might be, the more I seem to be attracted to it. For this music video, four stages of progressive age makeup filmed outdoors, and all within one single evening, definitely qualified as one of those projects."
Time was definitely the major challenge, as was the complexity of the final stage of prosthetic makeup. To solve the issue of the three hour application time for the 90-year-old version of Tyson, it was decided that Tony and Hugo would start that makeup while the sun was still up, and time the completion of the makeup to sunset, so filming could start literally the moment the sun went down.
"Working in reverse order was the only way to make this work," said Gardner, "Subtracting prosthetics from Tyson to make him younger was faster than adding prosthetics to make him older. The biggest challenge was peeling of the 90-year-old neck and replacing it with the 75-year-old neck while also swapping out all of the hairpieces for what we called his 'Neil Diamond look," all within the two hour timeframe alloted."
Gardner added, "We had until 5:00am or so to get everything on camera, that's when sunrise would end our day. Thankfully we had (Producer) Jamie Holt on this to help manage our time wisely, and keep things moving at a fast pace - she was a godsend."
"The entire process was a great experience, and actually very emotional to film... something I wasn't expecting, really, and very rarely experience. The shoot was a labor of love from the entire crew, and I think that it really shows on screen. Tyson was amazing to work with, and made it look effortless to pull of everything he had to do: hours in the makeup chair, lip syncing to playback only he was wired to hear, and pulling off an emotional performance all at the same time. And Catherine was pretty brilliant in regards to how she used what little light there was and even the local residents to add richness and life to what's onscreen, and never made anyone feel rushed or stressed. The 'impossible project' really turned out to be quite the dream job."