A while back Adrien emailed me with some questions and comments about Werewolf News, which I was happy to answer, but he made one fatal mistake: he let on that he and his crew had done some extensive work for a recent, widely-released werewolf film. I’d seen glimpses of some awesome-looking werewolves in the film’s trailer, so I was keen to know more. (The film itself was <diplomacy>not great</diplomacy>, so I won’t get into it, but as The Wolfman reminds us, it’s possible to enjoy the eye-candy of great werewolf effects even if the film they’re in stinks.)
After badgering Adrian relentlessly for months (I guess he was busy, like, making more incredibly cool stuff), he was kind enough to provide Werewolf News some exclusive behind-the-scenes photos and video of the werewolves’ builds and final results. Have a look!
“I have dreamed all my life to work on a werewolf movie,” he wrote in an email to me, “[and] when the producers approached me for this one, I simply couldn’t refuse.” I’m glad you didn’t, Adrien, and if another chance to create creatures like these comes your way, I hope you pounce on it. Thanks for sharing with us!
I got in touch with Tom after some rather interesting photos appeared on the Tom Spina Designs Facebook page, and to stop me from asking “Whatcha doin’? Can I see?” via email every five minutes, he swore me to secrecy (real easy to do) and then gave me the scoop. He and his colleagues had just taken on a client who had a Wolfman suit from the Del Toro / Baker movie. “We’re doing a custom mannequin for it,” he said. “Custom base, making new feet (didn’t have any) and claws. Rich Krusell [of Gotham FX] is doing the head (we brought a test shot of it to Monsterpalooza). The client’s got the full Benicio torn wardrobe as well, which will go over this when we’re done.”
So the folks at Tom Spina Design and Gotham FX collaborated on the reconstruction of the missing parts. Rather than going over the details here, I want to direct you to the project page on Tom’s site – there are progress shots and notes galore, as well as detailed credits. They’ve also put together a two-minute video that shows the process (and a very happy, very lucky client).
In addition to sharing all of these details, Tom was kind enough to answer a few questions about the project.
What are the biggest technical challenges you face when adding new, from-scratch components to an existing piece?
Blending our work with amazing original costumes like this is definitely a challenge. Sculpting new pieces and trying to capture the look and style of the originals is probably the most difficult part. Rich Krusell of Gotham FX did an amazing job with the head and teeth. He’s a super detail oriented guy and put in a lot of extra effort to get the head just right. A great artist and friend!
Matching colors and hair can be tricky as well, depending. In this case, we had a good sample size for the hair and matching went pretty well.
I don’t recall seeing any publicity photos of the pedicure Rick Baker gave the Wolfman – did you use any reference materials when sculpting the feet, or did you create an original design?
Most shots of the actors in costume showed them wearing sneakers! Eventually, we found some reference for the feet in the DVD behind the scenes galleries, as well as some photos online (apparently taken of an original pair of feet and hands on display some where). We did our best to get those looking as close to the originals as we could.
Did the client provide you with any guidance in terms of the pose or the base? How involved was he in determining what the finished project would look like?
The client definitely helped us with research and finding reference. He and I talked through the basic direction early on and came up with the pose and base together. The pose was pretty much set right out of the box… I called it the “Wolverine just popped his claws out” pose! Soon as we hit on that, we knew that was the look to shoot for. I gave a few options for the base and he chose the burned wood floor look. He has a good eye though. When we were just about done, he had a few good notes for tweaks to the hair styling (on the head) that I feel really helped nail the look.
He also had a few words to say about the origins of the suit and clothes, and about what it was like to work on a suit designed by Baker and Elsey:
…if I’m not mistaken the fur suit and gloves are from a stunt player and the tattered costume is Benicio’s. The costume itself was really incredible! The hairwork on the body and arms was exceptional. It’s always wonderful to see work by folks of that caliber and an honor to be asked to display them. We just hope our display does the costume justice.
Yeah, Tom, I think it does! Well done to you and everyone at Tom Spina Designs and Gotham FX! Here’s a close-up shot of the head Rich Krusell and the Gotham FX created – to see the rest, click here.
NY Times writer Alex Pappademas has written an article that perfectly articulates my own mixed feelings on MTV’s Teen Wolf reboot, and it only took him six pages. From the article:
The new “Teen Wolf” show is not as clever or allegorical as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but the comparison is almost unfair; Buffy was about teenagers but didn’t try particularly hard to be for them, whereas “Teen Wolf” is on MTV, which has a bigger investment in selling youth to youth… If “Teen Wolf” builds on the original’s sneakily radical message of self-acceptance instead of fetishizing its characters’ suffering like “Twilight,” there’s a chance “Teen Wolf” 2.0 will look as zeitgeisty in retrospect as some of its adolescent-lycanthrope genre forebears: a no-judgment monster show for the same proudly atypical fan base that Lady Gaga refers to as her “little monsters.”
I’m trapped. I don’t know what to do. There’s a strange momentum building behind this show that I find exciting, but I can’t find its source. The glimpses I see of non-pretty-boy werewolves look terrific, but every time I really pay attention and watch a trailer, read an article or see one of @MTVteenwolf‘s chipper PR tweets, everything other than the effects (you know, important stuff like “story” and “acting”) look flimsy. Superficial. Shallow. When Pappademas asks leading man Tyler Posey why he thinks werewolves are so appealing to women, Posey responds with this gem: “Girls are just really naughty and love to be thrown around”. Super. He’s obviously joking, but jokes are supposed to be funny and not make me dislike the person telling them.
This show is built to sell, which is fine, but I wish the people behind it weren’t so two-faced about their motivations. Executive producer / writer Jeff Davis waxes philosophical about the history and cultural significance of the werewolf, but then he asks for “scarier glowing wolf eyes” to be added to a scene in post-production. You know, for authenticity. He cheerfully admits that using the “Teen Wolf” title has more to do with appropriating a recognizable brand than anything else, then goes on to admit of Hollywood: “I don’t think we’re running out of culture. I think we’re running out of courage.” What am I supposed to do with that?
I just want to watch a show that 1) has cool werewolves in it, and 2) doesn’t insult my intelligence. If Teen Wolf winds up checking both of those boxes, awesome. I’ll eat humble pie for all of my fence-sitting “opinionated dork with a blog” comments. I’ll buy the DVDs. But for now, I really just want to filter out the PR hype, because none of it is making this show look like something I want to watch. Please give me some more creature effects shots and I’ll be content to sit quietly until June. I promise.
What kind of werewolf project are they working on over at Tom Spina Designs? I know the answer but I ain’t tellin’ (until the man says I can).
A number of teaser photos have appeared on their Facebook page over the past few days (go and Like them!), with this lovely hand shot being the latest. Seeing this stuff make me want to quit my day job and go back to school. Look. Covet. I know I am.
Check out the detail on this sculpt. [insert dumb joke about manicures here]
And these nails…
… are going into these feet, which are getting some hand-punched hair added.
MTV has released “Watch The Transformation“, another teaser trailer for their upcoming Teen Wolf series. A more accurate title might be “Watch A Slow Reverse Dolly As A Bare-Chested Tyler Posey Loses His Sideburns”. This is a transformation from werewolf form back to human, but either we join our hero when he’s already 90% done with the change or this is the most minimalist werewolf design since Jack Nicholson in “Wolf”. Judge for yourself. [Note: using a YouTube embed for this because WordPress is choking on the MTV embed code]
I understand that there are a number of different werewolf “types” in this show, some of them more monstrous than others (presumably the “villains”). I’m hoping we get to see more of these rumoured beasties before the June 5th debut. At the moment, I’ve only seen a single frame of footage from all of the trailers and teasers that interests me, and that’s from the official trailer that came out last month.
That’s right. A hand. A big clawed hand. All my hopes and dreams for this show hang from you, scary hand. Please take good care of them.
It’s got more of a “wolfman” look than last year’s Big Bad, but that definitely works for an over-the-head latex mask that’s not likely to have the internal structural support for a decent muzzle. I’m digging the hand-laid fur and the gnarled skin texture, and those dirty fangs are great, too – dental hygiene is important, but a proper werewolf isn’t going to have much to do with floss. Some of you will undoubtedly comment that it’s a very ape-like design, but I’m seeing way more “monster” than “primate” here, and I think it’s a great sculpt (other than those massive ears, but those seem to be par for the course with masks like this). One other downer, as the title of this post suggests, is those bloodshot eyes. I’m sure they’re meant to convey monstrous rage and insanity, but to me they just make the poor guy look hung over (or like he’s just had a good cry).
Overall, I quite like this mask, and for the asking price of $59.99, I think the good points outweigh the flaws. The Horror Dome is taking pre-orders for July delivery, so if you want to get one, now’s the time!
The Academy is pro-lycanthrope! Last night Rick Baker and Dave Elsey each won an Academy Award for Best Makeup in recognition of their fantastic work on The Wolfman. This is Baker’s second Oscar for werewolf work, the first being awarded for An American Werewolf in London on the eve of the category’s inception (insert Inception joke here).
I wasn’t able to find any video of the actual award for this (although I’ll update this post if one pops up), but apparently the Academy gives winners some extra time back-stage to continue their thank-yous.
Update: Six years later, the backstage video is long-gone, but here’s the award:
Congratulations to Mr. Baker and Mr. Elsey, and hey Rick? I really hope your Hugo Weaving wish comes true.
Oh boy, it’s Oscar time, and if you’re a blogger for a major media outlet and you haven’t got something to blog about, you’re fired. The Carpetbagger‘s Melena Ryzik is no slouch– last week she posted an interview with Oscar nominee and Werewolf News perennial favourite Rick Baker. There are no earth-shattering revelations, but it’s a good read nevertheless, especially if you’re interested in the ways crepe, human and yak hair can be combined to wolf out one’s face and body, even the relatively hairless Benicio Del Toro.
“There was a lot of handling of hair, where we actually have a lot of loose hair that’s glued on the actor’s face. It’s almost a lost art in the makeup field, but it’s something that I perfected because of my love of Wolfman.”
I was also pleased to read about Baker’s disdain for Hollywood’s current love affair with buckets-of-blood horror filmmaking.
“I’m not a fan of slasher movies, of what a modern horror movie is,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of ‘let’s see how we can kill the people in the most graphic ways.’ Zombie gore doesn’t bother me, but when it’s just somebody killing another human being in a graphic way, I’m not a fan of that.” … The gory stuff is really easy to do, and I found that out as a kid… the gory stuff doesn’t impress me.”
Even if you don’t recognize his name, you’ve probably seen Greg Nicotero‘s handiwork. He helped form KNB Efx Group in the 80’s and his creature & gore special effects have been seen in films like Cursed, Splice, Grindhouse, The Mist, Predators and most recently, AMC’s The Walking Dead. Werewolf News reader Viergacht sent me a link to an awesome little short film Nicotero directed last October: The United Monster Talent Agency.
“What if classic monster weren’t special effects but real, (sort-of) trained critters?” writes Viergacht. “A short by special fx artist Greg Nicotero… which includes an out-of-control Wolf Man tearing up the set and getting shot with a tranq!” Watch it below, and keep an eye out for cameos by Eli Roth, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Darabont.
That’s an industry I could work in! If you’re interested in reading about how Nicotero put this together, Shock Till You Drop interviewed him in October– it’s worth a read!
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards, and I’m supremely pleased to see Rick Baker and Dave Elsey nominated in the Makeup category for their work on “The Wolfman“. They’re up against “Barney’s Version” and “The Way Back“, both of which I will glibly dismiss as contenders for this category because I haven’t seen them, and because come on it’s The Wolfman! This is Baker’s second Oscar nomination for werewolf makeup effects – he won the first Academy Award for Makeup in 1982 for his groundbreaking work on “An American Werewolf in London“. You can watch Baker and Elsey collect their hardware (and hopefully see The Social Network sweep everything else) on Sunday, February 27th.
Here’s a gallery of Baker and Elsey doing the work they were nominated for: transforming Benicio del Toro into the eponymous lycanthrope.
