Creature effects

imagined it like a fisherman who sort of takes his time de-hooking a fish that's sitting there suffocating on his line, that there's a careless quality about it with the creature's life. Social de-evolution appears complete. Typical human behavior is now entirely absent.

38:47 · jump to transcript →

And our Wall of the Dead. Our Wall of the Dead, which is really more significant, although still significant in our current ending, was more significant in our original ending. In the original, right. Did all of them die? Yes. This is the theme which Francis and I have called Who's the Monster? Which is really a theme that's very consistent with the source material, the original novella. And our movie, although I think in its current form

1:13:33 · jump to transcript →

We would have needed to have done some reshooting. Like another six weeks in Washington Square Park. And they weren't ever letting us near Washington Square Park again. No. You know, and here again you get this alternation of close-ups that are kind of good and some mediums that are bad. Not so good. Yeah. But some of this is kind of fun. I like some of this sort of chase. Yeah. And I really like it when he goes back upstairs and then you're back into this kind of, you know, the creature in the ceiling.

1:23:00 · jump to transcript →

My name is Patrick Tatopoulos. I'm the director, this one. And I have something to do with the two other ones as well. Hi, Richard Wright, producer of all three. Gary Lucchesi, producer of all three. James McQuaide, VFX supervisor of all three... ...and executive producer of all three. See, we don't stray far from the family. We like to keep this in-house. - That's right. This is the first time you're gonna see a Sketch Films logo. I just want you to know that. - Won't be the last. My family and friends all cheered in the premiere at that. Viktor increased his army, creating... So, Patrick, do you remember the original concept... ... for how far we were gonna start, how far back we were gonna go? We were gonna go to the beginning of the story. I mean, the plague, with Corvinus and everything. But the thing is, we had a plan to actually shoot... ...some little elements of that and get to the little sequence at the beginning. So we'd see actually part of the plague... ...part of the first bite, you know, William. And, yeah, ultimately, we had to concentrate this... ...on something a little tighter, and that's what we got. You know, just ran out of money. And you know, when I first saw that baby right there... ...when I saw the dailies, I thought it was animatronic. When it was next to the werewolf. - It is. Actually, we were watching and... Real werewolf, though. - Yeah. I thought there's no way they're putting a real baby... ...next to a terrifying creature. What price stardom?

0:20 · jump to transcript →

We went for, like, one... One big transformation that I really like is the one where, you know... ...when Lucian regresses. We often see transformation one way, from a man to wolf. This time, it was like from the creature to the man. I was really pleased with that. Michael again gave us the whole choreography there. Beautiful shot. And Dan built us so many corridors. This is all like... I mean, we had a big chunk of corridors. We kept playing, turning around corners. lt was actually quite a big set. It was huge. lt was a three-storey set... ...basically all the way up to the ceiling of the thing. And with short ceiling on the lower floor... ...and then in the dungeon chamber, two storeys. And again, that's the big set. - The courtyard set. And this next action sequence too is an example... ...of just really squeezing everything out of what you've got... ...to make a sequence. I think we had, at the time... ...maybe two practical arrows that came in and maybe two hallways. And one real firing arrow, and just... We were able to be creative and make a whole sequence out of it. Well, this was one of the sequences that benefited the most... ... from Clint coming back with more money. I'm so glad we did that shot of the man in the face too. It was... - Excellent. Again, only one crossbow actually fires. Everything else was, you know, just editorial. You know, there's a huge culture of the weaponry... . like the machine gun in Underworld 7 and 2... ... that when you do a period, you just have bows and thing. lt was important that we have big bad-ass crossbow. They were more like machine guns than anything else. Just because I'm sure the audience liked what you had... ...with the guns, and the rifle and the other one. And that sort of like replaces it in some ways. The very powerful... We played with sound a lot there. So they look like when they shoot, they're really massively powerful. Same arrows. - Same arrows, yup. And who did the CG for the actual men that are getting pierced? We did extensive post vis with a company called Proof. And they had never done final VFX shots. Oh, Proof did that. - They came in and did the finals. They did a great, tremendous job. - Yeah, they're great. No! My lord. I wanted to do that shot so it feels like how big the corridor. I think it's kind of cool to see them walking across. It's a bit of an homage to Jacques Tati. Some things he's done, we see people walking for two hours before they... It's risky, but it sort of worked well with Bill in the foreground.

43:56 · jump to transcript →

I remember there was a whole other piece of sequence... ...before he actually landed that we cut out. Just didn't... I think it plays great without it, though. This is practical and CGI mixed together for the wolf again. With Luma not doing the effects. And it's... This was the one we struggled with the most. When the creature starts crawling up right here. You need to tell the story of him climbing to the top. Some angles just looks like a man in a suit. Completely. We just kind of cut around. I do love the breathing Mike Babcock did for this as well. I mean, this little breathing of... Before he.... The howl. - That's right. Call to the-- Call to arms. So that's a mix of, like, a bunch of different sounds together. Gorilla, tiger, lions and things. That's what he did, I think. Yeah, that right there you're talking about, right? With the nose. And the snarl. Yeah, that's cool. I love that. That little sound that he makes. This is unfortunately one of the places... ...Where you had to cut a bunch of effects shots out. Like the wolves arriving. No matter how much money they give us, you always need more. When it's your peak you have to kind of be selective... ...and just sometimes it's a better trim. Still, I would have loved to see them coming from the back there. Yeah.

1:12:18 · jump to transcript →

the creature in there, it'll be perfect framing. Patricia was exceptionally good in working without her co-star next to her. This stuff is a lot harder than it might seem. I asked Alan Armstrong

39:49 · jump to transcript →

The creature sounds here for the pygmies are a great piece of work by Leslie. We always felt that they were somewhat comic creatures, but they also had to have some bite to them, which makes it a rather difficult thing to design their voices, and I think he pulled it off.

1:33:05 · jump to transcript →

I remember when Speedman first called me. He was really nervous about how much of a wolf he was gonna have to be... ...because he'd never played anything like this. And the conversation was all about, "Lam gonna have to roar?" When we went to the creature shop to get fitted for our teeth... ...and you were in Budapest, they made us, for the photos, roar. I was so horrified, and Speedman was even more horrified than me. Yeah, I think they had Guy Himber... We laugh about it now. I think, to get him into it, they had him crawling around or on all fours... ...IS the story I've been told. It may or may not have happened. And it just freaked Scott out... ...and he thought that's what he'd be doing in the movie. I like the little slow-mo thing there. The what? - That little slow-motion thing. Yeah, a little bit of Mountain Dew that we used in the syringe. Was it? - Yeah. All the blood was cranberry, right? - Yes. I'm really picky about blood. The colour, once again. It needs to be, like, a dark, almost brown, brown-red. I hate blood that looks like Kool-Aid or is a bit too bright. This is a new scene. Oh, yeah. I haven't even seen it. Was that longer originally? It was just to let the audience know he was actually calling for Selene... ...and that he's a bit nervous that he has to confront him... ...and let him know that he's screwed up once again. I sent for Selene. Bill's great. I had such a great time with Bill.

1:23:34 · jump to transcript →

So in the original one, he doesn't find him there? He finds him here, but what we were just talking over a second ago... ...when he comes in, and Speedman's hooked up and singing an A-Ha song... ...and leaves him there. And this as well. Again, just a lot of little pieces, going down these stairs... ...and all this stuff was cut out of the original, for good reason, I think. Run here, run there. Yeah, I had you guys go up and down those stairs... Because I didn't know, exactly, the geography of the underworld... ...when we were shooting that, I didn't know exactly what was on... ...the first level and second level when we were shooting. It's so random. And so I just had them do every version. I'd have Kate and Scott run up... - Run about. ...with guns, run up without guns, run single, run, you know. Lip gloss, no lip gloss. - Yeah. He practised for so long, those whips. - Oh, yeah. I remember, Scotty, he showed me... ... his whole whip routine at his apartment... ...1n the parking lot, and it kind of sold me on the idea, he and Danny. With the transformations that you have, I still get that fear every time I see it: "Oh, God. It's gonna be cheesy." And then it isn't. Because we've seen so many cheesy werewolf transformations in films. You did a really good job with that, because it's not at all. I was really happy with how they turned out in the end... ...because I wanted it to be shaky and look painful. I didn't want it to be smooth. I was telling the guys to try and make the transformations look... ...as much like an animatronic effect as possible. Actually, if it looked like there were guys in there with bladders and.... "Bladders"? - Bladders. What's a bladder? Come on, you know what a bladder is. Every woman knows what a bladder is. No, basically, It's a.... How can you toss a bladder in and not explain yourself? It's a balloon that, in the old days, where they'd have a transformation... ... you'd blow into them and make the cheeks and everything expand by air. They'd inflate these bladders. Stop saying bladders. - Do we have to take a break... ...because I said bladders? - I have to pee now. You have to dismiss yourself? This is a new scene with you. Again, cut for pacing. Again, it's just wandering about. I thought it was just... I remember you making it, and I ran up and down that thing so many times. Another one. "I'm not exactly sure... ...S0, again, 16 different versions of running about." I'm glad it finally got used. And that was cut out. It's an homage to Blade Runner.

1:43:00 · jump to transcript →

E. Elias Merhige

to these puppets. It's become the puppeteer. It's become the god of both of them. And now it is going to work out its awful ritual. The awful ritual that Schreck and Murnau are going to work out are a result of the camera manipulating the both of them. And in many sections in this film you see the camera irising in and irising out. I had that iris built

1:21:41 · jump to transcript →

Ridley Scott

All the photos in her room are... Maybe we had a character in Italy in the book... ...which is factual, which is about Il Mostro, the monster... ...which would be about the same time as Hannibal was there. But Il Mostro is fact. And they at one stage arrested one person who... Then they had to turn him loose because of lack of evidence. I think he subsequently died.

1:09:27 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

But then, of course, she presses the button on the back of her pack... ...and a whole new tree of clips drops out... ...and she's suddenly got all the bullets she could need. She then pounds those bullets into him again and again... ...and runs out of that ammunition. In the meantime, she's shot off one of the creature's faces... ...and he appears to be obliterated. But, of course, he just spins his head round and he's got a whole...

57:23 · jump to transcript →

Watcher is one of those scenes that was a little bit of a fight with the studio that there was always a feeling that it was unnecessary that we could just have the door open and they'd just go straight into the mine and carry on going to the mine but I always I loved the notion of the scene I thought the film needed some more you know a good monster sequence at this point in time and so I kind of fought for it and obviously it's a little bit more than what's in the book even because in the book you don't see the creature as clearly as you do here you just see the tentacles

2:03:03 · jump to transcript →

Barry Sonnenfeld

Again, this is all on the stage. The dog didn't have a cigar. There was no smoke. The cigar and the smoke was added by Rhythm & Hues... ...and they also, obviously, added his mouth movement. The worms were all puppeteered, we erased the worm puppeteer guys. But this is all done in postproduction by Rhythm & Hues. Frank?

1:11:45 · jump to transcript →

I have a screenwriter friend who said, "What has become of this prop?" I think the editor has it. I'm sure Dino has one. This book? - Yeah, there are two of them. Universal maybe has one. I should have one. - Yeah, and I should have one. You and I should have one. Why don't we have one? We could auction it in 20 years. Anyway, talk a little bit about how you got Ralph Fiennes into this cast. Like I said, I went after the actors that everyone told me I couldn't get. "Ralph's never going to do a movie like this, he's a Shakespearean actor." Basically, I sent him the script. And he loved it so much he agreed to fly in and meet with me. I gave him my vision of it. I told him he was not going to live in a haunted house. He told me he was very attracted to the idea of playing a monster who had a soul. That he had some kind of inner life and was not just a bogeyman. He loved the relationship between him and Reba, Emily Watson's character. He loved that there was humanity in this horrible person doing horrible things, but there was humanity in him. Here's a great sequence. We should talk about the way you staged it. This was originally written, if you remember, as an outdoor exercise scene. I said to Ted, "I can't see Hannibal Lecter "even if there were guards all around and they cleared the whole yard, "I can't see him in an exterior location, out of prison." The scene was originally through a fence. A sort of dog run or something, or a big mesh fence. And the dialogue between Will Graham and Hannibal was through a fence. It was an electrified fence. But I said, "Then there's no threat." There's no real threat. And I said, "Why don't we put him on a dog leash?" And I found this location, which is in an actual location for the mentally disturbed. There are mental patients all over this building. This was another case where Kristi would talk to Brett, and then she would send me drawings for the design for this knowing that it might help me as I thought about the scene and wrote it. Kristi had a lot of fun with the look of this scene and so did Dante. Dante did an amazing job because his interpretation put a lot of smoke in here so that the white lights would... Dante liked the way Lecter goes in and out of the brightness so that he almost seems to be a ghost. Which is like evil light as well. He said, "Evil light doesn't only have to be dark. It can be white as well." This leash thing, I love. He meant to use the bolt cutter to enter the house, but he didn't. That shot I did earlier, where you see the line saying, "Do not cross." It was the last shot of the night, and I almost forgot it, but I said, "In this whole scene, when I shot it, I don't remember seeing the floor. "I have to establish it so that the audience knows there's a do-not-cross line." Why is he standing there? The original idea for the scene was that you'd think it was a dream sequence. If you look, it's shot very close. The way you shot Edward's entrance into the room, we don't know at first where he is or whether it's a dream. And here comes Lecter walking towards him with no bars between them. Then we pop out and reveal that he's on a leash. It's a great moment in the film. When I was working on the first draft, I just thought, "This is a scene that's not in the book." Most of these Lecter scenes are not. I thought, "If I were directing this movie, I'd like to get away from that cell for once. "And give the actor a chance to use his whole body. "And have nothing between the two actors." To me, it was really the parallel of the scene with Jodie and Tony at the museum in Memphis, in that big cell that Kristi designed, which was amazing. I needed a set piece as magnificent as that, 'cause that really opened up the movie. I thought you'd be very grateful not to have the Plexiglass between them for once. And to have them be able to move together, walk together. Sometimes just the technical challenges you face force more creativity. It was only his first time. Already in Atlanta he did much better. Rest assured, my dear Will, this one will give you plenty of exercise. I love Will's reaction to that line. Edward's great when he's not saying lines, actually. You know, the mark of great acting is: How interesting is an actor when he's only listening? He's a very good listener. - Jodie Foster is a great listener. She listens with such intelligence and such engagement, and Edward can do the same thing, and so can Tony. It really is a hallmark of great acting. You see that a lot with Ralph Fiennes here. He doesnt have a lot of dialogue. He's listening, thinking and reacting. It's a very poignant performance by Ralph. It's easy to play the monster. It's hard to be the guy who's a horrible monster... It's hard to make the audience care about the character instead of just dismissing them. This is Azura Skye who is one of my favorite young actresses, who was in 28 Days. She had a small part in Bandits and she was awesome. Again, the importance that Brett gives to casting every part, even if it's an actor who only has a one-page scene. You want somebody who looks like they could star in their own movie. If this movie suddenly became about this bookstore, it would be interesting for the next 90 minutes. Even the voice of the girl on the phone, I cast the voice very specifically. Did you drive the studio crazy by waiting to cast some of these parts for so long? Till the last minute, yeah. ...darn it, she never did. I'm just a temp. Linda will be in on Monday. I have to catch FedEx in about five minutes. I hate to bother Dr. Bloom about it because he told Linda to send it and I don't want to get her into trouble. This was hard for timing because it's one shot and it's a lot of dialogue, and I wanted the camera to land at the right place. The camera and the lens that you pick help with the emotion, intensity, and realness of the scene. Is it hard to move in like this without changing lenses and keep the focus? Yeah. Especially anamorphic. The focus on this move is impossible. Mike Weldon was the AC on this movie. He's a genius. Anamorphic is the wide screen? Anamorphic is wide screen, but there's not a lot of depth of field at all. So it's impossible to focus when you're moving into a subject. It's just the hardest thing ever.

43:19 · jump to transcript →

This sequence was shot in the wet set. We call it the wet set because it's wet, I guess. It has water, but it's basically a pile of sandbags shaped like a big swimming pool, and it was on a parking lot. So we were standing on the asphalt of a parking lot. We flooded it. This was where we shot the outside the mines of Moria with that lake where the monster attacks them outside the entrance of the mine. We used it for the dead marshes in the two towers, and it also served as flooded Isengard, so it was a really worthwhile bit of set to build.

14:16 · jump to transcript →

We wanted to have big themes and work in the Jedi trials. We had, I think, a little rough time in the beginning because we kind of knew the themes we were working in, but how are we going to wrap a story around these themes in this limited amount of time? And then we got the invasion of Coruscant. So there was a lot of stuff to work in. These are great layouts by Mike Kim, who drew a lot of the monster. What?

24:25 · jump to transcript →

James McTeigue

I wanted it to be like a fascist state but more about... ... how people live now. About more how... ... society is, and politic is... ...and people are controlled by capitalism. It's not about beating people into submission anymore. I think everyone's worked out that those manifestos don't work. Today, I think a dystopic vision... ...lncludes something more like, you know... ...material comfort, sort of, you know... ...quelling your desire to speak out against injustice, or something. It's more like an Iran totalitarian society... ... than a Soviet Union totalitarian society. You do have the creature comforts. Maybe your choice is limited. But it's not about being beaten into submission. It's about being complicit. He should conclude that the New Bailey will become the symbol of our time... ...and the future that our conviction has rewarded us. Mr. Heyer. Our surveillance cameras captured several images of the terrorist... ... though the mask obviously makes retinal identification impossible. We also managed to get a picture of the girl that Creedy's men were detaining. Who is she, Mr. Finch? - Not sure yet, sir. But we're working on several leads. - Anything else? We located the fireworks launch... ...and found traces of the explosives used at both sites. Unfortunately it appears that despite the heavy level of sophistication... ... these devices were homemade with over-the-counter chemicals... ...making them very difficult to trace. Whoever he is, chancellor, he's very good. Spare us your professional annotations, Mr. Finch. They are irrelevant. Apologies, chancellor. Gentlemen, this is a test. Moments such as these are matters of faith. To fail is to invite doubt into everything we believe... ...everything we have fought for. Doubt will plunge this country back into chaos, and I will not let that happen. Gentlemen, I want this terrorist found... ...and I want him to understand what terror really means. England prevails. England prevails. TV is so ubiquitous, you know. I mean, it's everywhere. You can't escape it. Part of it is a bastardization of what happened in the novel. There is, like, a TV station siege. Then, I think it's pretty obvious... ... that, you know, capitalism has won out, everywhere. Part of your social strata in some countries... ... 1S how big your TV is and how many TVs you've got. That's a way of disseminating information. And whether that information is right or wrong or it's bad or it's good... .or it's true or it's untrue. I think that's what I was trying to get at. It's also a part of the, obviously, part of the system of control. You have a government broadcasting station and it seems to be the only one. I mean, I can't remember. I might be wrong. But it seems like it's the only station that everyone.... And then you see everyone watching that very station... ...and Evey's working at it. And Deitrich is ready for his tea. I don't get it. Why does he wear a Guy Fawkes mask? Didn't Fawkes try to blow up Parliament? It's not too late. He's still got another 16 hours. Maybe he's just getting started. Yeah? Okay. A lead on the girl. Look, don't get me wrong, I love it. A cow getting crucified. It's hysterical. But you'll never get it approved. You've got to rewrite it, okay? Gotta go. I don't recall getting stood up by a more attractive woman. Mr. Deitrich... - Gordon, please. I don't need "mister" to make this body feel any older. Gordon... ...I was on my way last night, but there were Fingermen... ...and I got scared and went home. Sadly, after last night, I think our curfew will only get worse.

11:00 · jump to transcript →

black rain wait a minute yeah what the hell is that thing it's actually um there's a combination there's a uh is it animatronic it was there's an animatronic head and then there was a um a um a little person inside of a suit um stuntman guy and he and i wrestled a little bit it's like that movie alien though the less you see of the beast the scarier it is right except for this beat we have to reveal this is a little bit what you think when you see that mr black

49:16 · jump to transcript →