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Special Visual Makeup Effects CoA Interviews John Vulich, President of Optic Nerve Studios

Continued from previous page... He continues on with the creation process, "so, they’ll pick one of the three designs, sometimes they might need a second variation where we kind of do a more refined version or make some adjustments depending on what’s going on. In rare instances we’d be just totally wrong (laughter) that stand point and we’ll have to revamp what we’re doing and start from scratch. At that point, we try to bring in actors for a head cast session, if the character wears prosthetics they’re usually pushed to get those done as soon as possible, or whatever the part of the body we’re casting because it’s not always their head and teeth, whatever of those we need to do. And from that we start sculptures, we call them positives, they’re like plaster replicas of the actors faces and body parts. We’ll start doing sculptures and then from that we make negative molds of all the different pieces. Then depending on what kind of materials we’re using whether it’s rubber or silicone or urethane, (we) start generating the pieces." But nothing is done without a lot of planning as John explains, "At every step of the process we’ll have little impromptu meetings at the shop and little brain storming sessions where we work out different problems and try to figure out how "In rare instances we’d be just totally wrong and we’ll have to start from scratch." we’re going things. Because it always kind of changes and sometimes a schedule gets changed or we have to cut some corners and there’s not only creativity in the artistic end of it but there’s also a lot of creativity in the technical end that isn’t necessarily seen when you see a finished vampire forehead on set glued onto somebody. You don’t see the three or four other guys that spent a whole solid week doing a mold, cleaning it up, sculpting it, and pouring the rubber. It’s a real labor intensive work, probably far more than the finished product would lead you to think that it is." And finally at that point things just vary wildly, "sometimes we’ll do mechanical pieces that need to be inserted inside these things. Those guys that specialize in that type of work and there’s one guy Larry O’Dein particularly that I like to work with a lot. We have wigs made often times, sometimes we have hair suits made." With all this complexity what would you guess is the hardest item they have to come up with? "Usually we have these internal helmets that hold the horns on because the horns have to hold up to a lot of fighting and everything. So they have to be rigid enough so where they can’t flop around and they have to be somewhat flexible at least, they have to be able to be hit into walls without breaking. So a lot of times they’ll be fiberglass with a flexible outer cores and you don’t want to hurt people with them so the horns are probably one of the hardest things to engineer on the show just from the stand point of how they’re used." "I was pleased that (Anthony Stewart Head) actually was really excited about playing it . . ." The most creative demon this season may not have been on Angel, but on Buffy as Anthony Stewart Head stepped into the roll of a Fyral Demon! "Oh yeah, yeah. (laugh) Now in some instances, like in that case where as he had a stunt player playing some of his parts, (more often than not the stunt person is the main demon anyway because they don’t really have a whole lot of dialogue) there were a couple but the ones that Giles wore we didn’t have to worry as much about where as the stunt player, we had to make sure those held up really well. I was really happy with how that one worked out. I was pleased that he actually was really excited about playing it and was very enthusiastic. A lot of actors aren‘t necessarily, I shouldn’t say a lot but some actors just don’t necessarily like being covered in rubber. I think they kind of find it a little bit repugnant." I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to be covering in rubber! "He was really into it," John continues between laughs, "I mea "He was really into it... he was like, ‘Can I have feet and legs?’" n he wanted to wear more than... (laughter), he was like, ‘Can I have feet and legs?’ ‘Well maybe feet, I don’t know. (laughter) We’re gonna go over budget if we do this!’ But he was really into it and I thought he did a good job on that. And I think there was still that little element of recognizability too, which they’re really worried about that. They didn’t want to take away, it’s like they want him to be dynamic but they didn’t want to take too much away from him." "In those kind of instances usually we opt for is doing the more elaborate part like around the face, kind of framing it and then keeping the face kind of thin and subtle. I think with him, I know one of my initial ideas, I wanted to be a little bit more wrinkly and older looking but I think they wanted to play off the whole fertility thing in that and wanted to be a little bit more robust looking. I think that’s kind of an instance where the demon ties into thematically what’s going on in the story because he was kind of feeling old. I think there’s an irony of him when he became a demon, you know being a little bit more virile and strong. When I first heard the script I wasn’t necessarily thinking of playing off the irony, I was thinking maybe we should make him old and decrepit just to kind of go along with it. And Joss was like, ‘No, I want to be the opposite of that. I want it to actually be more vibrant.’ because he wanted it to be more of the irony then anything else. ‘Well I’m a demon and this is kind of cool because I feel old but this is not good.’ Again that just shows how the design has to support the story idea." Go to Next Page >>