We ’ve madeno secret of our admirationfor special effects creative person . This workweek , we get to verbalise with Dan Rebert , the Effects Producer for MastersFX , the house that make the alien of Stargate Atlantis and Slither . Rebert told us all about his cultural influences , speak Stargate , and gave us the inside scoop on the fang physiology behind his current task , HBO series True Blood . What influence you when you approach designing these devil and aliens ? Well the biggest influence , I think myself and what I attempt to project to the shop , is to look at the instinctive kingdom for ideas . I hear so many people – other creature designers , other workshop possessor , thing of that nature – say everything ’s been done before . But meanwhile , I call on on the Discovery Channel and I see mammals , amphibians , crustaceans – hooey that I ’ve never seen before , and I ’ve always been a big fan of nature shows and stuff like that . And I cerebrate , I ’m 40 years quondam and I ’m still see new creatures on Earth . And that ’s where we should be attend for design as opposed to looking for old movies or other artists ’ interpretations of what monsters should depend like . So mammalian , crustaceans , is there any particular slice of the fauna kingdom you prefer to use ?
No , I reckon it ’s basically base on what comes out of the script . You know , you endeavor to relate things that are basically along the lines of what ’s in the book . A good case in peak is how the whole True bloodline fang designs come about . Way back before we even did the pilot , Alan Ball called a meeting with Todd [ Masters ] and myself to hail in and talk about lamia teeth . They want something raw ; they wanted something no one ’s seen before , and they still want it to be sexy and cool . And the first matter I thought of , and the conception that Alan really wish , is modeling the teeth more automatically off of the way snake teeth work , the style they unfold from the back of the roof of the mouth of the mouth as contradict to go away from , like , a stiletto - type action at law from the gum . And Alan really care that idea , and , again , it was based on basically the way the anatomy of a snake ’s inner mouth work . Obviously we did n’t make it needle - tenuous like a snake ’s would be , but we essentially meld what was already there on a ophidian with what ’s already there on a human , and even down to the point of the fang – which I doubt we ’ll ever see in the show – but there is little holes where they would suck the rip up , up through the fang . Wow . I had read about the snake ’s teeth , but I did n’t realize it was so elaborated . Well yeah , the other thing on that is , again , we started out with doing some Photoshops , and that was the one Alan care the good . But then it also came down to this is in terms of – what we call up out on this – we were talking to the visual effects , who were actually doing the fang egress from the palate . That was always adjudicate : that was going to be a visual consequence . But everyone had a unlike mind about how that would look . So what we did to make it so everyone was on the same pageboy – all the animators , all our guys establish the actual prosthetic fangs – is we made a mechanical mock - up that actually shows this . It was the upper and abject roof of the mouth and the tongue and the teeth of one of the actual performer . It had a little mechanism on the top that you pulled the levers . And the really cool thing about these dentition – which is n’t really like a ophidian – but the eye teeth that you see in front are in reality false little front , and they close up back into the gum as the vampire / snake teeth come out . So , when you see something like “ fang , ” you consider Snake River or bats . Is that typical , that you see something in a script like that and you ’re inspired ? Like , was there something in the Slither script that jumped out at you ? really that ’s another skillful point of what we did on that . Once again , where we started out first with Slither is that right after we read the hand and we commence designing prototypes on it , the first thing I recommend is all of us go to Sea World and take a look at invertebrates and things like that – jellyfish . And that ’s where a slew of one of the big concepts follow from with Slither of everything have a exculpated tissue layer over the top of it . When you look at a lot of undersea creatures , they do n’t look like painted sculptures ; they do n’t look like painted silicone . It looks like there ’s an groundwork and there ’s like a clear membrane that ’s gentle on top of it . And that was one of the things we in reality run through a mountain of bother to achieve on Slither was having that double - tissue layer skin . But again , that ’s where we started .
And again , a circle of our earlier designs were believably a lot more ground in what you would see in the animal realm . But James [ Gunn ’s ] vision was he wanted everything to look substantial and to have very real textures to it , but he also want a little bit of a cartoony tone to it . And I remember not agreeing with that when we were making the movie . But then after see it , completely realizing James ’ vision , if we would have made it so ultra - realistic and so smutty , I call back hoi polloi would have been vomiting in the aisles as defend to being frightened and then express joy . Now with Slither , we see the man turn into this monster over the course of the motion picture . Did you originate that design bit by bit , or did you derive up with the ending monster and work backwards ? Well , that ’s actually a really good question , because , as I said , there were a fate of designs on Slither of all unlike stages . And basically what we start with was the design that Todd did on the Henenlotter ’s Ranch goliath , which was actually kind of a middle point , and we kind of worked backwards and forwards from there . Again , it was always decided that , just like the yellow being at the beginning of the show , the detailing on it would have that really gelatinous , doubled - absolved - skinned look to it .
Now on a hebdomadary show like Stargate Atlantis – I have it off that different house have different approaches to weekly exotic shows . What would you say your goal is on a hebdomadal exotic show like Stargate Atlantis ? A lot of what I calculate at – and again , keep in mind , too , that the workshop that I run down here in LA – we have a shop in Vancouver , too , and the Vancouver shop does the bulk of the prosthetic work for it . The LA shop , we chiefly get involve when it ’s creature or full trunk suit or a prosthetic that is very complex . So the shop down here , we ’re more set up for larger creations .
But this shop class down here did the initial construction of the Wraiths , and we actually just did something that I was really proud of for Atlantis . I conceive it was last year or the year before , but it was an episode call “ Vengeance ” that was basically an homage to the Alien movies . And it was a moderately good episode , but one of the things – we had a bunch of unlike designers doing monster blueprint for it . But when I read the script it was like , “ This is manifestly an homage to the Alien movie . ” So what I did then in terms of a design was something that was very reminiscent of that outlander . And so a lot of clock time in read those scripts – the Stargate shows kind of are a festivity of skill fabrication and a lot of times they kind of nod to other shows that have been done before – and a lot of times , when I see that in a playscript that obviously they have for the shows , obviously we do n’t require to want to directly copy off of anything , but I think that ’s the best approaching for them is really read the script , find out what they had in psyche when they were writing it , what maybe they were think of , and give it an original design base on those directions . The agency I did it with the Vengeance monster , a lot of the front of the human face was very similar to the extraterrestrial being – I know they would like that – but in terms of the repose of the body , I actually modeled it after a flea . [ Laughs . ] Well , they ’re pretty terrifying - look when you see them up nigh . And I actually secernate them that when they were up there and they were very happy with the ogre . And it was like , “ Yeah , this was what we wanted . ” And I was like , “ Yeah , I modeled it off a flea . ” And they were like , “ A flea ? ” Well , you know , you take what work . What kind of stuff do you use in your designs?Slither , we could n’t have done that show without the thermic charge card . A lot of the tentacle sheath I had talk about were made out of that , the yellow being at the beginning of the moving-picture show was , and the famous stretching tendrils that you see dressing the house monster and the inside of the meteor were all constructed with this thermal plastic . Another material we utilize a lot is silicone , and we have the silicone that basically , with adding mineral oil to it , you’re able to replicate all the unlike material body consistencies of the human consistence . And we do a lot of dummy bodies here . And we , basically , if we ’re doing a body , we ’ll do the skin will be soft and then we ’ll have a more denser muscle structure on the interior , and then it goes back to fundamentally a steel armature . And it ’s a pretty involved process , but the outstanding matter about that is , if you construct a body like that , it ’s not just a prop any more . When you pick it up , it has weight . When you lie it down on a board , you do n’t have to lay it . It just kind of falls into berth and looks completely lifelike . That ’s one of things that I learn on the first episode of Six Feet Under , ‘ cause we always made our bodies out of silicone polymer , but we used a silicone that wait great , but was very besotted . And if you allude it , it did n’t really experience very real . But I detect for the first time of year , we always seemed to be pick off the body to look good every time they moved the television camera . And I was like , this is preposterous . I want a eubstance that is not a property , that is in reality go to feel and move and articulate like a substantial human physical structure . Did you have consultant on any of the scientific discipline fabrication shows , or was that mostly on the other shows ? Not so much on the Stargates and hooey like that , but there normally is a medical consultant on most of the medical procedure shows we do . Like , we did a show a long metre ago , Kingdom Hospital , and there was a medical adviser that was very mired in the nous surgeries and thing of that nature . I ’m adjudicate to think if we did n’t have any consultant on True descent . I ca n’t think of any off - script . They do n’t really have too many lamia specialists . I conceive that was Alan ’s occupation because Alan came up with the whole mythology of the vampire . I had an audience for HBO and I was explaining to them how vampire rakehell is very thick and syrupy and human bloodline is more runny and brighter red , and they asked me , “ Well , how do you know what lamia bloodline looks like ? ” And I read , “ Alan Ball told me ! ” Well , he ’s the boss . Yeah , I guess that ’s a whole game point of that show . It is . I mean the show ’s called True Blood . You better make certain you know what your blood looks like . [ Laughs . ] On that note , too , I will say that out of all the TV shows that we ’re currently working on , and maybe have ever worked on , I in all probability feel the strongest about True Blood . I just loved get those scripts every week . They were always really exciting in terms of where the game was going . They had a portion more special effects than I was expect after read the account book . And what really , really turned me on the most about dependable Blood – I was worked up about it from the beginning , act with Alan again was going to be large and doing a vampire show with him was start to be swell – but what I did n’t realize about True rip of how much of a fancy story it is . It ’s not just lamia . There ’s a whole innkeeper of magic creatures that come in up through the season , and the depth of the mythology for a video show really is what amazed me about the show and the conception . It ’s not just a vampire show . It ’s much more .
on-key blood line
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