WEBVTT - Making (and faking) Aliens 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.719 We think about aliens a lot, Brent, and I partly 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.000 because sound, light and frequency lives at that intersection of 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.240 Hollywood and UFOs, which means we do spend a fair 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.639 amount of time asking what aliens look like, particularly when 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.640 they cross over from witness reports and folklore and nightmare 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.400 fuel onto movie and television screens. As creatives, we do 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.520 know a fair amount about the phenomenon as people report 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.880 it and they say it's real, and we know the 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.680 familiar categories. If you think about it, it's the Big 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.120 Four first, of course, grays certainly, but also Nordic's mantids 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.159 and reptilians on screen. Of course, the menu gets even stranger. 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:42.040 Then you have xenomorph's, benevolent light beings, humanoids from another dimension, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.519 aquatic intelligences, and the good old bug eyed monsters and 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.440 whatever else a writer, a director, a studio or a 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:53.120 special effects budget can dream up. But the journey from 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.680 the mind to the movie theater is rarely a straight line, 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:58.880 and it's almost never easy. I'll give you a case 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.840 in point. I learned that the hard way on my 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.240 first produced UFO movie, which we've talked about on this podcast. 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.280 It was called Official Denial which was the original film 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.039 that launched the Sci Fi Channel. Now, the script had 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.959 about as many UFO ideas as I could cram into 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.039 ninety minutes without requiring an actual forklift, But it also 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.480 had a captured gray in it. Because I was trying 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.000 to be authentic. That turned out to be my biggest mistake. 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.399 We had a modest budget to put it. Kindly, when 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.640 it came time to put that alien on screen, the 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:35.440 surviving gray called Doss was played by a fifteen year 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:41.720 old Australian dancer named Holly Brisly inside a rubbery alien suit. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.360 And let me be clear, Holly gave it everything that 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.120 she could. This is not a story about her failing. 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.760 This is a story about the unforgiving nature of alien creation. 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:55.280 Because if the alien doesn't work, the mythology starts to collapse, 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:59.080 and audiences they can believe in majestic twelve or hidden basses, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.720 recovered craft, often even time distortion, but only if the 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:07.400 being at the center of it all feels real. And 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.560 that's why today's conversation matters, because an alien is never 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.560 really just a creature effort. It's the answer to the 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.320 question that the whole story is asking. So today Brent, 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.799 and I have brought in a person who knows exactly 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.160 how hard that work is and who's triumphed at it 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.840 over and over. And Brent, let's talk about our guests, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.240 and let's bring this man in and get into the art, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.160 the science, and even the terror of the whole thing, 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.480 and talking about what it means to make an alien. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.760 I'm Brent Friedman. Years ago, a family friend who became 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.840 a cabinet member in the Reagan administration just closed to 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:04.080 me that aliens are real, They're here, and he'd seen them. 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.680 I'm Bryce's Abel. Later, when we were producing Dark Skies, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.960 an NBCTV series about an alien invasion, we were approached 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:13.799 by men who said they were from the Office of 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.320 Naval Intelligence and they wanted to give us inside information 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.200 in exchange for access to our show. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.480 We didn't take that deal, but we have never stopped 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:24.240 thinking about it. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.120 That's why we do this podcast. We're working out ideas 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:32.040 in real time about how Hollywood is portrayed aliens and 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:33.559 why every. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.160 Episode is different because there are so many questions. 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.320 We're looking for answers. It's an active investigation. Let's do 0:03:40.400 --> 0:04:08.840 this together, all right. 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.280 This is a very exciting episode for me because one 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.520 of my favorite parts of the process of development is 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.840 taking those ideas that we put on the page and 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.600 talking with an actual artist who's going to bring our 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.039 imagination to life. It's always a fun negotiation, if you will, 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.720 trying to figure out how those words can become actual 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.040 living things that fit within the budget and the schedule. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.520 But before I go any further, I want to introduce 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.600 to you today our guest who is one of the 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.200 absolute rock stars of Hollywood. He's definitely one of the 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.320 best special effects experts that I've ever had the privilege 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.400 of knowing for three decades, mind you, and we even 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.440 got to work a few times together. Todd Masters is 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.719 the founder of Master's Effects, which has a long list 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.760 of credits ranging from look Who's Talking to Star Trek 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.560 First Contact, to Tales from the Crypts the TV series 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.280 to Stargate SG one, and of course Brice our TV 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.520 series Dark Skies. Unfortunately, that quick rundown is not going 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.039 to do Todd justice. We need a full episode to 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.640 go over his long list of credits. But let me 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.040 just say this, Todd Masters is an innovator and an 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.080 Emmy Award winner, and most importantly a real good dude 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:23.559 who I'm proud to call my friend. 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.480 Wow, Hey, Todd, don't. 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:29.279 I got him? I got him blushing. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.120 That's exactly what I was get some some foundation on. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.520 Actually it's not thirty, it's forty, if you can believe it. Oh, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.159 but he is just about to be forty years old. 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.960 I've actually been doing this twelve, so that's more like 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.840 forty six years or something. Did you say twelve? Yeah, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:48.040 I started with us twelve. 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:53.200 Hey, Todd, Sorry, in all those years, how many monsters 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.480 and aliens have you created? How what's the number. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.320 At I'm possible to remember it? 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:01.520 Or is it a dozens? 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.760 Or is it it's well in the many hundreds. Yeah, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:10.520 it's We've been going strangely since the eighties. Brent. I 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.040 think we met on The Resurrected, which we were doing 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.600 in the late eighties. Yes, we were both five years old, 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:17.880 I recall. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.640 Yes, I was three. I think you were five. 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:25.440 Or yeah, you didn't have to be. But no, magically 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:30.440 a practical effects company still beats pretty strong. So it's 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.440 shocks even me the numbers like you've seen start Trek 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.799 First Contact is going to be thirty in November, feels 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.719 to the Crypts streaming right now. Those episodes are really old, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:40.920 so it's just wild. 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:43.600 But we have Dark Skies is coming up on our 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.200 thirty year anniversary this year. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:46.600 Yeah, what do we want to do? 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.400 So the number I want to go back to is twelve. 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.760 I know things are done differently in Canada, but how 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.080 did you start working in special effects when you were 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:55.960 twelve years old? 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.359 I was a really big kid, had a really deep voice, 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.840 kind of like that, and I was just fascinated by 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:09.240 Ray Harry Housen movies and these animated cyclopses and every Sunday. 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.320 This is before we had recording mechanisms this. I don't 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.520 even think there was satellites beaming this end. It was 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:19.760 probably just Yarn and the Tin Cans. But we used 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.840 to watch Sunday Sci Fi Channel. I'm sure you guys 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.640 did too. I saw in the magazines Ray Harryhausen and 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.640 a couple other names, and somehow I got keyed in 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.360 that there's these things called phone books, and so I 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.320 started I went to the Seattle Library and I pulled 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.760 out the London phone book. Hey there's Ray Harry not 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.560 many Ray Harryhausen's, and so I started calling him and 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.920 a couple others like Will Vinton and Tom Burman, just 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.040 because there was no Internet, there was no real there 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.160 wasn't even many books, and so I'm sure I called 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.120 Harry Hausen Ont like three in the morning. I didn't 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:02.440 undertand type songs, and so that kind of started this pursuit. 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.720 And I looked in the local phone book for animation 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.560 and stuff, and I found these guys called the Hill 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.560 Brothers cartoons down the worst part of Seattle. Took the 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.119 bus down there at twelve, just talked my way into 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.840 getting a gig, and we were doing an educational film 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.760 about birth control. And I was this kid that my 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.800 parents hadn't told me anything yet, right, So all of 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:32.040 a sudden, I'm painting sperm and I'm painting prophylactics and 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.040 uteruses as cartoons. And so I got a pretty good 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.400 education that summer, and by the time I was thirteen, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.600 I became head of the department, which was pretty funny. 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.839 And I just was like this kind of talker. I 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.840 could talk myself into almost anything. And there was another 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:54.840 thing going on downtown Seattle at this lab called Alpha Cine, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.080 which the Hill Brothers told me about. That's where we 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.679 were having our film process. I went down there and 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.840 I talked myself into an effects job in the optical 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.800 training department. I started cleaning inner positives and shit like this. 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.960 One day film comes through sideways and I go to 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.840 my boss what is this And he's like, oh, that's 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:19.319 Star Wars too. I'm like what And it was Empire 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.520 Strikes Back. And so I started working at Empire Strikes 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.080 Back at twelve or something, I don't know, Wow, and yeah, 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.080 it was a blue screen of snowspeeder se. 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.080 For the people who are listening who may not know, 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.160 tell us who Ray Harryhausen is was. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.840 Mister Harry Housen is well known in our world as 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:46.439 kind of the godfather of horror and science fiction effects 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.000 and animation. He did a lot of aliens in fact, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.320 so back in like the fifties and the forties he 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:55.920 got to start with making these little black and whites 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.120 like Mighty Joe Young and there's a great one Earth 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.480 versus the Flying Saucers where all these Saucerers smash into Washington, DC. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:09.160 He's probably best known for the Seventh Voyage of Simbad 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:14.440 effects and the Cyclops early technicolor. This is model animation 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.240 so it was a puppet that they had jointed and 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.880 they shoot a frame, he'd move at shooter. Frame went 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.160 all the way up to Clash of the Titans. But 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.319 he's known now as kind of the guy that opened 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:28.000 the door for George Lucas and Phil Tippa and Spielberg 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.880 for this kind of upgraded fantasy because before him, there 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.640 was really just people in bad suits. 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.080 Let me ask you this when you just mentioned that 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.880 it's been hundreds of these creatures, whether they be alien 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.280 or monsters, that you've been involved in creating. I'm sure 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.040 many of the directors are producers or writers that you 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.520 work with are like Brent and I we were like, hey, 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.400 we need something completely original, but it's got to be 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.800 super authentic and no one's ever have seen anything like 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.120 this before, but it needs to be familiar. So I'm 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.439 sure you've had that conversation many times when. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.760 You're talking every day. Yeah, pretty much. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.160 So when you're creating all these different let's call them 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.880 aliens for now, let's separate the aliens from the monsters. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.560 Although they're all kind of nhi, aren't they they're non 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.520 human intelligence of some kind. But when you're creating an 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.040 alien and somebody says, give me something different, Where do 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.319 you start. What's the process by which you identify how 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:29.600 to give somebody something that unique. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.000 Let's really changed over the last few years with AI. 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.920 A lot of people are doing like AI concepts right now. 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.560 Back in the day, more like the nineties and the 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.400 early two thousand and I still do it. We generally 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.400 look at the room. We try to figure out tonality, 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.040 what is the thing that we're trying to create. If 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.360 it is an alien show, I might go looking for 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.760 whatever the alien group is, for things that look like 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.160 they're going to inspire me, inspire the direct and other people. 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.120 And I look for hits because it's I'm not a 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.839 big fan of AI and everything. We still do here 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.240 and there for concepts, but it's better to use your 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:17.040 human powers to try to source out the samples. I 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.200 am not a fan of starting the process with, oh, 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.320 this has to be a makeup or this has to 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.880 be a long armed guy in a suit. I don't 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.240 think that really helps the film in some cases, maybe, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.680 but I find it better to just feel through the 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.480 void a little bit with these helpers like the style 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.880 guides and maybe Sama and lots of conversation, just. 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.920 As an example, a lot of people who are listening 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.680 to this podcast have gone on the journey with me 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.800 and Brent where we walk them through the Dark Sky's experience, 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.520 and so a lot of them have gotten either they've 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.640 seen clips from Dark Skies or if they were lucky, 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.240 they bought an old copy of the DVD set or whatever. 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.679 For those people who are saying, wait, there's these grays 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.200 in Dark Skies? How did we make the grays? Were 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.840 they puppets? Were they people? Were they cgi? How would 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.199 you describe the Dark Skies aliens? 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.560 They're saying, I'm going to back that up just a 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:23.240 little bit, okay, because that's all a fascinating explanation. But Bryce, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.200 if you remember one of the things that we threw 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:30.200 at Todd and we were those director like saying we 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.800 want something totally different, totally new. Our whole approach was 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.240 we had read stories that there were small grays and 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.680 there were larger grays, and so we were like, Okay, 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.240 instead of having two grays, what if we take the 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.640 idea that it's the same creature that just has the 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:51.040 capacity to stand up and expand yes night. And so 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.000 we came at Todd with that and I'm sure you 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.800 were like, wait, what, So with that in mind, take 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.720 us through the process, if you you can run going 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.120 back thirty years, What was it like trying to design 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.760 these dark sky's grays that we threw at you. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.160 Well, first of all, we love that idea just because 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.560 we hadn't seen it before and we were going into 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.280 this project with this certain familiarity in the design style, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:24.000 meaning that if you recall, we made early mccketts, which 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.760 are little clay design sculpts. Yes, we did a very 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:33.160 traditional if I can use my fingers there, traditional gray 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.840 just standing there. I think Jeremy Iyello sculpted at this 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.720 mccutt And then we did another one where it was 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.000 that all stretched out just again feel in the dark 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.360 or we close, is this what we want and do 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.520 it at small scale? Back then we did it in 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.400 small scale like that just because it's easier to fix 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.160 and change. We love the idea of the stretchy stuff 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.880 because we were just right there on switching into this 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.840 new material cult normal plastic, which was a high temperature, 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:08.960 vinally kind of substance. It wasn't silicone, it was it 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.640 was actually sex toy material that one of our artists 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.960 had discovered he had made a bunch of frogs for 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.920 that one Tom Cruise movie This shit Magnolia. Yeah that 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.320 all fell down. Oh you know who that was. That 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.920 was Steve Johnson that did that stuff. He had kind 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:32.440 of done some groundwork already and found this really amazingly 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.720 elastic stuff. So we started sourcing it. It was sextuy 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.160 material and the makers of Fleshlight, if you want to 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.360 get there, And so we started using that stuff for 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.520 all the stretchy stuff. It was super stretchy. I mean 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.120 we could plasticize it and stretch it around the building. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.840 It was crazy. And it was also translucent so we 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.520 can get some nice backlighting, which monsters always loved that. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.200 So we were encouraged by that, and it was almost 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.760 like you fed into our plan because we wanted to 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.800 kind of pursue more of that. As far as the 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.200 rest of the design and all that, we were totally 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:10.200 going off your guys leads. I don't remember every specific, 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.040 but so there was on set practical puppets that we 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.160 had a couple one that just had a lot of 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.840 animatronics in the face, usually remote control, and that was 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:25.440 with that really weird translucent sex toyskins, and then we 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.880 had another one that did the change. Oh, and then 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.920 we and these were really full bodies and we had 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.720 some really funky hands and they were pretty cool. They 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.400 seemed to work for the most part. This is back 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.680 in the mid late nineties, where we were pretty good 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.360 amatronics at that point, but we had never pulled that 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.960 kind of material and we were doing pneumatics all sorts of. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.400 We were crazy back then, but we got some cool stuff. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:55.720 There was also digital ones that kind of were also 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.040 part of the equation, and we'd often have meetings to 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.920 figure out where why ends and the other begins. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:04.560 Are you talking about practical and digital? 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.160 Yeah, So they would shoot clean plates, which is basically 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.160 shooting all the actors except for the grays, and then 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.840 they would digitally create a model, light it in the 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.920 computer and composite it onto that clean plate. And that 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.359 worked good for walks because we couldn't really do a walk. 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.840 They worked good for wide shots. Close ups were pretty 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.639 challenging back then for digital assets, so that's usually where 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:32.960 our stuff came in. But yeah, I think I'd have 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.960 to watch the show again. Practical effects, but they're kind 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.800 of they seem to last a little longer than that 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:41.160 era's digital effects. 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.200 Speaking of the skies, you just described the dark s 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.760 eyzed ones, which, by the way, we'll probably show these 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.840 in the video version of this. Brent I recalled that 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.000 we had an artist sketch out some beautiful artwork about yes, 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.720 these grays could do, and you saw them punched over 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.840 with their legs and then expanding, and so I think 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.240 we probably dropped those on Todd and people watching this 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:07.440 or seeing them now. But Todd, when you also did 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.160 speaking of skies, you did Falling Skies, if I'm not mistaken, 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:11.720 did you not? 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:13.440 Yeah? 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:18.960 All right, years later, at least more than ten years. 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:21.880 You've had a whole lot of new tools in your 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.879 belt at that time. What did those tools allow you 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.439 to do in Falling Skies that you weren't able to 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:28.399 do in Dark Skies? 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.440 Falling Skies was pretty interesting for us because they had 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.040 shot a pilot in Toronto and we didn't quite have 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.080 our Toronto shop up and running yet, and so they 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.760 did the pilot without us. You got to remember this, 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.040 Falling Skies was a Spielberg show. Yeah, after the pilot, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.680 I got called by those guys, come on down to ambling. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.440 We want to talk to you about doing more practical stuff. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:57.879 Now we're going to be in Vancouver. Rarely do we 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.199 hear this one, even back then. We want to do 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.360 less digital and more practical. You're the guy to do this. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.520 You know how to mix things, so you know, music 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.080 to my ears. I hadn't seen anything until I went 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.840 down there to a bunch of people in the ambulance 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.960 office and they showed me the pilot and say their 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.639 skinner design sucked. It was so bad, and so I 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.159 had to find this way. I didn't even have a 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.480 gig yet, I had to find this way to tell 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.199 them fucking Steven Spielberg, and it was like, I think 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:30.960 it would be better because the original design had the 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.320 big buck teeth. It was hilarious. You probably want to 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.000 do this and that and maybe changes goddamn buck teeth. 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.399 I guess that sort of got them excited about us, 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.720 because we weren't afraid to say, look, you got buck 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:45.439 teeth at a show and it's going to kill you. 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.440 And we redesigned the skinners. And as we got more 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.640 comfortable with the producers and showrunners on the show during 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:57.880 the making of it, new characters come along and theirs too. 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.800 Right the mas. So, yeah, I have a whole array 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.880 of gas station cups with all our characters on each 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.320 one of them. It's pretty cute. But yeah, they started 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.439 doing the max. I don't know if this was like 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.280 following any uphiology or anything, but they did all this 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.000 stuff and then they brought in Doug Jones to be 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:22.199 playing this character called CoA Cheese And there was a 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.720 lot going on during there. We were doing skinners, we're 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.080 doing makeup effects, we're juggling other shows trying to figure 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.480 out what this thing is going to be. The Doug 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.560 thing shows up and they have this concept that I 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.960 also not my job, but I view I vetoed it 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.680 saying it was gonna suck, and this was the original 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.280 digital they're planning to do it digitally, and it was 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.560 just it looked like a digital muppet. So we pitched 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:49.920 a hybrid way. Since it was Doug, we knew Doug 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:50.880 would really bring it. 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:53.399 Who's Doug again for the audience? 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:58.359 Oh sorry. Doug Jones is the pre eminent sup performer actor. 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.040 I would think he's probably more an actor that he's 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.959 a suit guy. It's hard to describe a talent like that. 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.040 Is he's a sweaty suit guy, but he does a 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.080 lot of suits. He works with Ilmobile too quite a bit. 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.920 His resume is crazy long, and so we got him 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.240 involved in following Skuys to play this character called Coachese. 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.679 Everybody loved Doug and it really should have been a 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.440 Doug character. So we figured out a way to digitally 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.160 slave his blinks and his brows and his little face 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.119 breathings and all that stuff with his voice track. It 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.720 was really very innovative by our team, and we started 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:39.160 doing several seasons of practical and digital and mixing them together. Anyway, 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.840 that's kind of going way out there. One thing I 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.600 want to say about Doc and the character Go Cheese, 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.080 and I didn't realize this until you guys started doing 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.400 the Spielberg stuff, the character that they designed for Night Skies, 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:57.480 which was the pre et but Alien's Bad Story, which 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:03.080 was designed by Rick Baker oddly another huge makeup effects guy. Dude, 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.360 and I got to say, there is a similarity between 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:12.960 CoA Cheese and Night Sky's character, just in the way 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.560 all the forms, and I had never seen it until 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.400 you guys started talking about this, and the Toby thing 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:21.480 kind of got my ears perked a little bit. 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.040 Yeah, did you get to know Toby Hooper? 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.480 Oh? Yeah, yeah, you know. 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:33.920 Toby Hooper told Brent that Steven Spielberg told him that 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.960 he had been read in he knew things. Is how 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.280 Toby put it. Did he say something they told Steven 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:42.240 to do a deal and he was spoke in a 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.960 cigar when he said that you've worked with Spielberg, you've 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:50.440 assessed him personally, as have Brent, and I do you now? 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.280 Spielberg denies it and Toby says it happened. Where do 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:55.480 you come down on that one? 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.760 I don't think Toby has any reason to lie. And 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.679 the way I heard it from him was that he 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:08.719 and Steven had been buddies for so long and Steven 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.320 had just brought it up casually that there was some 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.359 sort of arrangement for close encounters. I think it was, 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:18.560 and I don't know if it was earlier, like night 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:21.720 skies or whatever. I just I'm following the popular knowledge 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:24.280