But in the closeup shots, we’d be making the eyes more sunken and caved in, and adding this stretching membrane over the mouth.Īs it happened, the prosthetic appliances proved very hard to see through and breathe when they were being worn, so it made some of the physical scenes, where Ellie’s being chased, quite difficult, especially in the dark. The idea was that we could, maybe at a distance and in some shots, we wouldn’t have to do much in the way of visual effects to enhance them. We had Barrie’s team make these prosthetic facial appliances which would cover over the eyes and the mouth. We knew we wanted to do some prosthetic work, but we also knew it was going have to be enhanced digitally, because there was going to be a subtractive component to it. This is all to say that Edgar wanted to have a practical approach, at least partially practical approach, to the Shadow Men so that it helped get the right sense of dread across to everybody working on the film. And that’s what the film is entirely dependent on. If there’s some tracking markers on the villain’s face, then you’re going to have a hard time really knowing if you’ve landed it. There’s something I actually learned on A Cure for Wellness, where you don’t really get the effect on the audience with a temp. And I think it’s really important for a crew, on the day, to understand what it is everyone’s getting into together, especially in a horror movie, which is dependent on a palpable sense of dread. Everything needed to be grounded and shouldn’t feel visual effects-y. Edgar was really keen that the film have a tactile feel to it. We also got together with Barrie Gower, who’s an amazing prosthetics designer. Oscar, Edgar’s brother, has always played a big part in his films, in getting concepts and key visuals so he was involved in this, too. We experimented with different makeup and then we quickly got into doing some proper camera tests at Ealing Studios with the team that was assembled. Tom Proctor: We got into doing some concept work and I shot a couple of super Lo-Fi tests at DNEG, using some of our crew. This was something that inspired Ellie’s first visions of the Shadow Men.ī&a: How were those Shadow Men visualized? And we looked into sleep paralysis, this phenomena where people wake up or think they’re awake when they see dark figures sitting on their chests or approaching them. There’s a lot of films with masked figures in them with sinister, obscured features. The Shadow Men were actually one of the first things that we talked about because they needed the most exploration, and the methodology was going to require VFX to help work out how to make them. Then we quickly got into discussing the specifics of the film. And, obviously, Suspiria is a huge influence on the film, of the lighting, those red and blue drenched scenes. There’s Blood and Black Lace and Black Sabbath. Giallo movies of the 1970s, particularly the Mario Bava movies, as well. And another real touchstone film was Polanski’s Repulsion. Darling and Poor Cow were two ones that we watched. And then there were the kitchen sink dramas. One of the ones that we watched was Don’t Look Now, for its sinister psychic tones. He was drawing inspiration from a lot of classic British films in the 1960s. So as you probably know, he’s an amazing cinephile and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of movies and a real love for a lot of classic movies. He wanted to be sure that the whole team got off the ground running with the right kind of sense of what it was going to be. Tom Proctor: Well, the very first discussions we had with Edgar were about the tone of the film in general. B&a: This is clearly an ‘invisible effects’ film, but what were some of the early visual effects-related conversations you had with the director about the work?
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