By Lexi Stewart
As 2018 comes to a close, we've decided to reflect on the past year and take our hats off to the amazing practical and makeup effects on display in both film and television. We asked our community to pick their favorite FX accomplishments and now it's time to share the results! Congratulations to all the designers, department heads, supervisors, artists and teams on your incredible practical & makeup FX achievements this year.
10. Lost In Space
(Image credits: Netflix & Spectral Motion)
The Robinson Family returned to TV screens in April, when Netflix released Lost In Space, a ten-episode reimagining of the original 60's series. One of the standout elements of the show was the practical robot, brought to life by FX studio Spectral Motion. Company co-founder Mike Elizalde estimates that approximately 85% of the robot shots were achieved practically, with the rest being handled digitally. “It's exciting that there's so much of our robot in the series.” The robot was initially sculpted in clay, then constructed as a body suit covered in hundreds of overlapping fiberglass armor pieces. Veteran suit performer Brian 'CreatureBoy' Steele was tasked with bringing the robot to life, and operated many of the elements with his own head, arms, and hands via elaborate linkages and built-in cable mechanisms.
Impressive in both design and scale, the robot creators at Spectral Motion were thrilled to be part of a project that let them utilize 'practical effects' for most of the shoot.
9. Isle of Dogs
(Image credits: Fox Searchlight)
Master of the quirky aesthetic, Wes Anderson embraced the beloved medium of handcrafted stop motion animation to create a dystopian world in Isle of Dogs, enlisting Andy Gent as head of puppets for the film. Bill Desowitz from IndieWire explained in an article earlier this year, "There were 1,000 puppets: 500 dogs and 500 humans. For each individual character, a range of puppets was made in five different scales and each hero puppet took about 16 weeks to build. Every crowd puppet was hand-made as well."
The characters were all cast in silicone once their plasticine drafts were approved and molded. Lead animator Jason Stalman shared with SWSCA, “I feel like I’m sculpting the performance. It’s what kids do when they’re playing. I think of it like moving sculpture. We’ve got an amazing cast on this production. The animation comes out of that. You get their personality coming out in the style of the dogs.” The heart of the characters and stylized world proved a hit with the critics, who commended the stop motion animation as a beautiful form of storytelling.
8. Deadpool 2
(Image credits: courtesy of Bill Corso)
After their successful collaboration for Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds and the producers had no hesitation in bringing Oscar-winning makeup effects artist Bill Corso back to supervise the makeup fx for the sequel. Corso embraced the opportunity to improve upon what he'd done before, and completely re-engineered the makeup for Deadpool 2. "I re-sculpted it, changed little things I didn't like, and we reduced the makeup application time from almost four hours to literally just under two hours."
Corso and his team of industry-leading makeup fx artists were praised on the work they did to not only evolve the makeups from the first film but also for the plethora of new character makeups they created, including Cable, Domino, and the prisoners, to name a few. "Ironically, the Cable makeup is more complicated than the Deadpool makeup, and it kept evolving as we started shooting," revealed Corso. Turning cast members into mutants and letting them run wild is never an easy task, but thanks to professionals like Bill Corso, the audience can always be assured of a visual treat. It is practical makeup elements like this that can MAKE a movie.
7. Star Trek: Discovery
(Image credits: Netflix, (bottom left) Glenn Hetrick)
The new Star Trek series Star Trek: Discovery has drawn in loyal 'Trek' fans and newcomers to the franchise alike. The series is now on the brink of its third season and appears to show no signs of stopping anytime soon. Makeup Designer Glenn Hetrick, who has been at the helm since the beginning, had the daunting task of re-imagining the alien races, from Kelpiens to Klingons. Hetrick wanted to update the looks to be more HD-friendly, and as the show moves forward story-wise, so too does the development of the Klingon race.
As Hetrick revealed at the Star Trek Las Vegas panel earlier this year: "You're going to see different designs. ...Different houses you haven’t seen before. One of the most important things to us was that at this point in canon, as we head towards the current version of unification, is that the houses really each grow up on different planets. ...I promise that we'll continue exploring and unpacking and unfolding what the Klingon culture looks like on a wider level."
Although the series is shot in Toronto, most of the prosthetics and armor pieces are manufactured at Hetrick's Alchemy Studios in LA. Along with the critical praise for the show, Hetrick and his team received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup this year and we can certainly understand why.
6. Avengers: Infinity War
(Image credits: (top) Marvel Studios (bottom) Legacy Effects)
In this year's Top 10 list, the film with the biggest box office and the most jawdropping cliffhanger was Avengers: Infinity War. The stellar FX team at Legacy Effects took the helm on many of the practical superhero suit elements (Iron Man, Thor, Winter Soldier, Captain America, Falcon), as well as creating highly-detailed scale reference maquettes and the iconic Guardians of the Galaxy makeups.
Legacy co-founders Lindsay MacGowan and Shane Mahan supervised the team, which included a wide range of departments. “Legacy encompasses a lot of things, including costumes, props, makeups, and maquettes. On Avengers: Infinity War, we got to do it all.” After ten years of contributing to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mahan underscored the cohesive and harmonious relationship they continue to share with Marvel's Visual Development team led by Ryan Meinerding.
Overall, Avengers: Infinity War was a huge undertaking that brought together the all-stars of Marvel and won audiences over immediately thanks to the hard work of all the departments involved in creating such a dynamic and well-realized cinematic universe.
5. Westworld (Season 2)
(Image credits: (top left) HBO, Justin Raleigh of Fractured FX)
The HBO Sci-fi drama Westworld made waves with audiences in Season 1, and with the launch of Season 2 this year, the story and visuals increased tenfold. For season 2, the producers met with Justin Raleigh of Fractured FX, who was then brought on to head up the makeup effects department.
As Raleigh told Rue Morgue for a recent article, "The level and intensity of makeup-effects was night and day different. This season was so big, it had two separate departments: regular makeup that did their handful of characters and standard beauty makeup, and then ours, which handled all of the death, decay, blood, gore, prosthetics, specialty suits, and all that stuff."
Raleigh's team was responsible for some of the best (and most gory) moments of the season which included the extensive makeup FX for Maeve, the Shogun, and the Drone Hosts (which were achieved entirely with physical suits and no added Visual FX). Although the Swedish visual effects studio ILP would enhance some of the prosthetic makeup work in the final shots resulting in a perfect fusion of practical and digital mediums.
4. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
(Image credit: Entertainment Weekly via Neal Scanlan)
With talk of the next installment in the Jurassic World franchise came a lot of doubts about the dinosaurs, but fans were soon assured that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom would honor the original three Jurassic Park films and aim to incorporate practical effects as much as possible. "Animatronics are very helpful on set, especially for the actors so they have something to perform against. There's extra excitement if they can act with something real," said director J.A. Bayona.
The film features many scenes where the actors are in close quarters with their practical prehistoric counterparts. Neal Scanlan was put in charge of supervising the creature effects, working in collaboration with J.A. Bayona and the VFX wizards at ILM to bring the dinosaurs to life. Up to 15 puppeteers were required to operate the raptor 'Blue' alone. Veteran producer Frank Marshall raved, "What they were able to do is fantastic. And [compared to CGI], it’s so much faster to see what you’re gonna have. So that made it really cool."
3. The Walking Dead (Season 9)
(Image credits: Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
AMC's apocalyptic zombie series The Walking Dead pulled out a killer Season 9 this year and proved that it still has the chops to stick around. FX Veteran Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX has been an integral member of the team since day one, and nine seasons of 'walkers' later, Nicotero still manages to bring something new to the table. Throughout the duration of the show, he's worn the hat of director and executive producer, along with his role as head of special effects makeup.
For the Season 9 opener, which he directed, Nicotero wanted to make sure the zombies weren't completely overshadowed by the main characters. He explains, "Every key walker that I shot in the first episode, they get close-ups. It was important to me that the walkers are still very much a device to show how far the world has decomposed." As the series progresses, Nicotero and his team work on moving through the decomposition process to show how time has passed and this dictates the makeup designs. “The leathery skin, the emaciated look, the pronounced bone structure — we’re trying to convey the passage of time with the decay of these zombies.”
It was a well-received season this year, with critics describing it as the refreshing reset that the show needed, and Nicotero sees the show as a continuing celebration of practical FX. “The thing I’m most proud of on this show is that it’s given us an opportunity to shine a light on practical makeup effects and the people who create them,” says Nicotero.
2. The Haunting of Hill House
(Image credits: Robert Kurtzman & Netflix)
The Netflix series that Stephen King tweeted was "close to a work of genius", The Haunting of Hill House, has taken audiences by storm and is at the forefront of ushering in a new era of high-quality horror. It's an intense and sinister family drama that also happens to be crawling with ghosts and supernatural forces. Special Effects Makeup Department Head Robert Kurtzman has worked on his fair share of horror films, but he saw that this was something really different when he came onto the project. "95% of everything we did was practical, with elements of visual effects combined...Mike Flanagan's a very practical-friendly director," explained Kurtzman.
Kurtzman and his team not only took on the challenge of creating different levels of decay and mold for the ghosts, but show creator Flanagan also wanted the makeups to look desaturated in color on-set from the get-go (so they couldn't rely on post-production editing). This meant that Kurtzman had to refine and perfect a very unique grayscale paint job and color scheme for the looks that veered away from the usual red tones. The hard work pays off on-screen to audiences worldwide, and here at SWSCA, we absolutely recommend it. Critic Lindsey Romain summed it up well. "It’s not a paranormal story so much as a meditation on the distinct way grief and trauma maim the living. And it’s scary as hell."
1. The Predator
(Left image credit: Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox, Right image credit: Mike Fields)
Die-hard Predator fans wondered if director/writer Shane Black and co-writer Fred Dekker would deliver for the franchise with this year's big screen installment, The Predator, but it soon became clear that fans of the original couldn't resist the call of the intergalactic hunters that we all know and love. Fan nostalgia for the titular creature, originally designed and created by Stan Winston Studio back in 1987, puts this film at number one on our list, and who better to take on the Practical FX for the project than SWS veterans Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. of StudioADI.
This installment may not have surpassed the original, but the excellent practical effects by the StudioADI team once again proved the value of having a tangible creation deliver a performance, on set and in the flesh. Tom Woodruff Jr. told Den of Geek in a recent article, "there are several Predator characters in this movie that are practical, as they should be in our opinion, and we think it’s what the fans want to see: a real Predator standing next to a person."
They are no strangers to the inner workings of the Predator and have always been huge fans of the franchise. It was always going to be a practical endeavor. Woodruff Jr. shares, "To us, the Predator has always been beautiful. Not in a weird way, but because we love monsters. The Predator is one of the coolest monsters ever designed. We were with Stan Winston on the original, so it was nice to have been involved from the very beginning."