|
|
John Carpenter's
 |
|
|
SPECIAL EFFECTS
One of The Thing's most memorable
effects...
Immediately upon its release The Thing set new standards for special effects in
film. New ground was broken by the talented FX crew. The long hours and extreme challenges the special effects team were
trying to pull off worked and worked damn good. Today, two decades
later, the effects of The Thing hold up against the computer
graphics imaging that modern films now use.
Rob Bottin, Special Make-Up FX
Heading up the FX
team was a 22 year-old Rob Bottin, fresh from working on The Howling and
The Fog. He was hired by Carpenter to do the 5 big effects sequences
in the film. Bottin worked closely with storyboard artists Mike Ploog and
Mentor Huebner. Ploog conjured up incredible storyboards depicting the
creatures in the film, encouraged by Bottin to take the monsters to
the extreme. Ploog would come up with a walking mouth on legs and Bottin
would say, "Put some eyeballs on it!" and Ploog would respond,
"You can't put eyeballs on a mouth!"
Mike Ploog, Storyboard Artist
The make-up
effects budget for The Thing was $750,000. That number
eventually swelled to $1.5 million as the production went on. Bottin's
crew of illustrators, designers, sculptors. painters, and mechanical
effects technicians quickly grew to over 40 members. For Bottin, work on
The Thing began in April 1981 and would span the next 57 weeks
into late May 1982. (Remember, the film first screened on June 11th!) Rob,
pushing himself against an ever diminishing schedule, slept at the
Universal lot and lived off of candy bars and cola. Upon completion he had
to check himself into a hospital for 2 weeks to recover from extreme
fatigue and burnout from the constant stress.
Bottin and Carpenter with the Palmer
sequence effects puppet
The Thing employed pretty much
every conceivable and known special effect at the time. A
combination of many effects was used. Rob said, "If you named it we used it!" Some techniques that the FX
crew utilized: hand puppets, marionettes,
reverse filming, radio controls, wires, hydraulics,
and pull cables. An extensive ingredient list was
concocted to create the gore: heated bubble gum, strawberry jam, mayonnaise, cream corn,
gelatin, and food thickener. Some synthetic
materials used were metal, urethane, fiberglass,
foam latex, rubber and KY Jelly. The "Blair Monster" in the
film's finale required 300 pounds of foam rubber alone!
For scenes involving autopsies of
the Thing and its victims, Bottin originally planned to use real animal
organs purchased from a slaughterhouse. However, this was scrapped after a
box of raw meat was absentmindedly forgotten at the back of a soundstage
at Universal. It was discovered by one of the studio guys a week later
who complained that the entire stage "smelled like shit."
The special effects were a major factor in the
script's being re-written. As production went on and the FX crew came up
with new and outrageous ideas, like the Norris sequence with the chest and
spiderhead, the story was re-worked to include these incredible scenes. Almost nothing turned out as originally planned but in the end both
Carpenter and Bottin were pleased with the result. Much had to be
scrapped for various reasons including an extended Blair Monster
stop-motion sequence in which a bizarre Dog-Thing bursts from the Blair
Monster to pursue MacReady. Stop-motion animator Ernie Farino spent
nearly 2 months constructing the puppet armature for this scene and
unfortunately it did not end up being included in the final film. It
can be seen on the DVD's Bonus Materials.
The live-action, full-size Blair Monster had 63
technicians operating it. They were pulling cables, manipulating hand puppets, and
tugging monofilament line. Says Bottin: "The guys were just outside
of the frame. John had to scrap a couple of shots as fingers and elbows
would show up in the frame." Bottin himself became the Blair Monster,
climbing inside to operate the dog that bursts out of the stomach. Despite
being wrapped from head to toe in trash bags Rob came out so covered in
slime and goo he could've been the Thing!
Deleted Scene of the "Blair
Monster" stop-motion animation
Still shot of the "Blair
Monster" model for the stop-motion sequence
THE KENNEL-THING
"I don't know what the Hell's in
there..."
The Kennel-Thing model
(designed by
Stan Winston and sculpted by Jim Kagel and Lance Anderson)
Stan Winston of Stan Winston Studio
Effects wizard
Stan Winston was eventually called in to cover part of the dog-Thing
sequence. Rob Bottin turned this project over to Winston with much relief. He was sick
of dog effects from working on The Howling and was already
wrapped up with the film's other huge effects sequences. As it stood now Bottin was already needed in two or three places at once. Winston told Bottin he did not want screen credit so as not to take away
from Bottin's show. However, Winston is recognized in the film's end
credits with the line, "Special Thanks to Stan Winston."
Model dog stand-in for Jed with concept
sketches
Concept art and sketches for the
Kennel-Thing
Rob Bottin and the Norwegian-Thing
Rob puts finishing touches on the
Norwegian-Thing
A couple of rare photos of Charles Hallahan in the Norris
Creature SFX scene.
A shot of the Blair Monster head and
Spider-Head made from wax by Henry Alvarez. Photos courtesy of
alvarezwaxmodels
SFX photo sent in by Willy Whitten - June 2008
In the
months leading up to the film's June '82 release, Fangoria magazine held a
contest for readers to "Draw The Thing!" The Grand Prize was a
trip to Universal Studios in L.A. to visit the set. Here are the finalists:
Outpost #31 interviews SFX artist Rob
Burman - April 2007
For me, the difficulty was in
keeping enough foam latex parts available. Each piece had to be flawless (Rob,
having come out of Rick Baker's, was quite the perfectionist). We would
stock-pile as many as 30 of the Norris head skins - Then, over the weekend, the
mechanical crew would use them to test a mechanism and shred them all. I'd come
back on Monday and there would be a major push to get more foam skins to the
finisher's so they would have something to actually use on film - Lots of
all-niters. The Blair monster was the biggest thing I'd ever cast - Five 20
quart mixers to fill one mold (that comes to roughly 75 batches of foam in two
separate injections)
I think that the Norris sequence is still one of the best "live" effects ever
put on film. I also think that having the dog puppet push out of the Blair
monster's chest and sit there like a writhing cancer patient was pretty
disappointing (Especially since it was designed to chase MacReady around in the
underground tunnel via stop motion - too bad the footage didn't match the live
action stuff.)
The main thing I remember being scrapped was when Nauls gets it. We called that
monster the "spaghetti monster" since it looked like a plate of pasta with
meatballs that the table flowers fell over on! I believe that they referred to
it as the "box" or "crate" monster at the time. It was played by artist Vince
Prentiss' arm!
I was there from about mid September through mid April. I left about two weeks
prior to final wrap. Prep the mold, weigh the foam, mix the foam, inject the
foam, clean it up - REPEAT! Kind of grueling actually.
From what I understand the only place you will find any parts of Thing monsters
is in Rob Bottin's old basement - everything from his shows got piled in there
indiscriminately. Don't know how true it is, but that is what I was told.
I had a "What were you thinking" moment when I watched John Goodwin microwave-ing
Bubble Yum to test its viability in stretching the Norris neck - How do you
reset for take 2?! That kind of thing rarely, if ever, works. I knew it and I
was barely 19. Of course, I was third generation in my family to do this work
(Grandfather made stuff for Jack Pierce strating with "The Wolf Man", Dad began
on "Planet of the Apes" and I had a couple of years at that point on things like
"My Bloody Valentine", Happy Birthday to Me", "The Beast Within" and had just
come off of "Cat People").
Huge amounts of drawings were made but very little that was "started" was
abandoned. The only one that I remember was Naul's demise from the
spaghetti/crate/Blair monster. Rob would sit in a room with Mike Plug and say,
"How about something that looks like this...", Mike would draw it and Rob would
say, "OK, now add this part over here to this...". And so it would go night
after night (Rob was only in shop, for the most part, from about 5PM until about
8AM, unless otherwise needed)
In retrospect, I have to say it was one of my greatest opportunities working on
film. It is definitely iconic in more ways than one. I got the job when Rob's
shop called my Dad's (The Burman Studio). He asked if my Dad would offer some
advice on how to get the foam to work better (They were having people running it
as a "side" job at that point). My Dad said he would come by and take a look but
Rob wouldn't allow it. Rob then asked who did my Dad's foam and asked if he
could borrow that person. Well, it was me and my partner at the time, Dale Brady
(we were neighborhood and school friends). We interviewed and got the job a week
later.
Talk about trial by fire, we had never run foam in such quantities before -
Turns out, no one else had either. After that, I was known as "The Foam God"
around the industry. It landed me work on many films, including Ghostbusters,
The Fly and Tremors.
I haven't seen it in years, but there is some pretty good info from my interview
with Cinefantastique magazine in the article on Rob and "The Thing". I look like
a crazed wild man in the photo. (Page 57)
Have fun at THING-FEST!
Rob Burman
Info Sources:
- Cinefantastique Magazine, The Thing
Special Double Issue, Vol. #13 No. 2 & 3
- Fantastic Films, #31 November ’82, Interview with Rob Bottin on make-up
effects
- Fangoria #21, Rob Bottin and the Effects of The Thing
- BEHIND THE MASK
: The Secrets of Hollywood's Monster Makers
|
|
