Animal wranglers, prop masters, stunt performers, food stylists, costume designers, Foley artists, and more explain how they quietly shape Hollywood
“I always say we’re the hostesses of a giant cocktail party, but we’re not actually on the guest list.” Illustration: Sam Island When Jenny Beavan won the Oscar for Costume Design at the 2016 Academy Awards, the ensuing moment wasn’t just an acknowledgment of the unforgettable desert dystopia aesthetic she created for Mad Max: Fury Road — it also served as a tidy metaphor for the standing of TV and film craftspeople in Hollywood.
Once they get up to the house, the first thing I had to do, which is crazy with Foley, was the sound [that turned] Brad Pitt’s head [to notice the Manson Family members]. So, I had to nudge a door and jiggle a door knob, and it cued the dog’s head to look over. That was the sound that kind of started everything and triggered a reaction.
After he smashed her head into the phone, he hit her face into the cement mantle, which they played huge, almost comical. It’s gross, but I had to come up with the sound for it. What I did was mic it super close and then I took the palms of my hands, the meaty part, and I smashed them on my stage on a cement slab surface that’s a little hollow underneath for the thunk. I got those face hits so you could hear face and skin.
I’ve been working [at SNL] long enough that you think it’s all easy, and you can manage the whole thing. But a year and a half ago maybe, we did the royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. We had the read-through on Wednesday, before the wedding had taken place, and we read a sketch that was all about the wedding, with Prince Harry and William and Queen Elizabeth and Pippa and Kate Middleton, and a bunch of other people.
On its surface, the job of a music supervisor sounds like a dream: Who doesn’t think highly of their own curated playlists, their ability to match an obscure song with a precise, emotional moment? But having great taste is far from the only requirements necessary in this line of work.
“In situations like that, we send them a form with all the necessary information, the requested rights, a suggested fee. When it’s down to the wire, especially if it’s a song that we know will stay in the final cut, the key information is, ‘We need you to confirm that you actually do control this and that you approve the use.’ Once we finally got a hold of everybody, they were very excited to be a part of it. So that part was easy. We finally got it cleared the night before the scene was shot.
“Visual effects has evolved to the point where we can do so many different things, people just assume that we can fix it later,” says Derek Spears, a VFX artist who has worked on The X-Files and The Walking Dead. “It takes a lot of [production] planning out of the equation. A lot of the consideration goes out the window, because you no longer need it.”
2. The substitute legs. Derek Spears, VFX supervisor, Pixomondo: In season six and season seven of Game of Thrones, we started putting Daenerys on top of the dragon. One of the things we learned, doing season five, was that when those dragons flew out of the arena, it looked a little bit too simple, because the cameras didn’t move. We thought, well, next season we should move the cameras more, and move her more, too.
3. The dripping. Martin Pelletier, VFX supervisor, Rodeo FX: The Duffer brothers are full-on fans of ’80s movies with old practical SFX — good old animatronics. If you want fake blood, you bring fake blood to the set, and if you want slime, you get real slime. Of course, this approach requires really long reset times, and it’s not always convenient.
Shopmaker is a veteran in her field, having worked primarily in the independent world, casting everything from Party Monster and Shortbus to That Awkward Moment and First Reformed. Among her proudest achievements is the work she’s done with Borderline Films, producers of Antonio Campos’s Afterschool and Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene .
Food stylists work in tandem with prop masters, adjacent to the art and props departments. They tend to be specialists, brought in when the script calls for food in the foreground. “Prop masters have a team, and the team can handle scenes where, like, kids are eating hot dogs at a birthday party, or there happens to be a tray of lasagna on a table,” explains Susan Spungen, who’s done food on Julie and Julia and Eat, Pray, Love.
Our prop master was very diligent and was able to find two of these old scoops online, on eBay. Of course, they were rusted and falling apart, so we had to rebuild them and replate them to make them usable. The scoop looks like a cone and has a spinning knob on top like a nut that you would turn, and you would scoop the ice cream and turn it and it had two blades on the side to release the scoop. I had to very, very gingerly scoop the ice cream, to protect these old scoops.
We did four different versions. We froze it. We did it raw. We did it cooked. We tried everything — it was like the puzzle that would not let me sleep. The director was unhappy with all of them. In the end, one of the prop kids, he was super diligent, and he took it home on the weekend and did it all with an X-Acto knife. It was insane.
In Water for Elephants, there’s a wonderful scene where Robert Pattison has to feed the lions, and he feeds them a bucket of slime. We had real lions for that. We made this big fake bucket of slime stuff, but the lion just wasn’t going to have it. The lion simply was not fooled. It’s like, are you kidding me? So I had to go get livers and bones and all this stuff. Stuff the lion would actually eat. On top of that, we had the PETA people out there.
As Andrew Poppoon says, “Everywhere we go, we are visitors.” Sometimes it’s easy to be a visitor, but it can also be a downright dangerous job. “I’ve been called everything you can be called in every different language living in New York for 12 years.” Location management is yet another one of those Hollywood professions that’s arguably at its most effective when no one notices it.
[data-uri="www.vulture.com/_components/article-sidebar/instances/ck0lpr5yc000z3h665s3xvpqi@published"]{border-top:3px solid #000!important}[data-uri="www.vulture.com/_components/article-sidebar/instances/ck0lpr5yc000z3h665s3xvpqi@published"] .article-sidebar-content{margin:0}[data-uri="www.vulture.com/_components/article-sidebar/instances/ck0lpr5yc000z3h665s3xvpqi@published"] .instagram-media{margin:0 auto 12px!important}[data-uri="www.vulture.
The director and cinematographer have to agree on the three main parts of photography: composition, mood, and movement. And once an aesthetic has been jointly agreed upon, the cinematographer — also referred to as the director of photography — has to relay the stylistic decisions to a squadron of camera operators, focus-pullers, gaffers, key grips, and assistants, who then get to work bringing what’s been imagined to life.
“Funny story: While we were on that set, the Penguin’s supposed to receive an [RSVP note from Batman], and a monkey had been trained to hand it to him. It was a formerly dangerous monkey, and even sitting on your shoulder, it could rip your face off. It was all a matter of familiarizing him with Danny DeVito. We’re rolling, and the monkey’s not handing him the note, so Danny reaches for it, which was not the blocking during training.
When I was starting to do research 40 years ago about how you train those animals … I find that the methods used to train wild animals are very harsh and inhumane. Domesticated animals have been bred and sort of reprogrammed to deal with man. I’m so happy CGI has come along.The call went out for a dog to replicate Queen Victoria’s King Charles Spaniel. The scene calls for the dog being able to bark at Tom Thumb. The exact look was the hardest thing to find.
The American Humane association is a third-party observer. And they’re paid by the producer to be there. They can say, “We don’t think you should do that; we’re not going to give you the seal,” but they don’t have any law-enforcement protection. They sign a nondisclosure agreement, so they can’t even call law enforcement if they witness something that’s been wrong.
But, when given the opportunity to choose, what does Olazabal make for a hungry, dietarily complex cast and crew? Vegan 7 Layer Dip. Here’s her recipe:1 16-oz. can refried beans1/4 cup whole black olivesIn a glass casserole dish, spread refried beans followed by mashed avocado, salsa, and sour cream. Top with green onions, olives, and cilantro.What Stunt People Dream About By Elana Scherr
México Últimas Noticias, México Titulares
Similar News:También puedes leer noticias similares a ésta que hemos recopilado de otras fuentes de noticias.
This Season, Joan Smalls Is Bringing Her Fashion Savvy to the Front Row.joansmalls and stylist Eric J. McNeal worked together to create unforgettable looks during Fashion Month:
Leer más »
Instagram Made Me Break Up With My Acrylics For Gel ExtensionsInstagram made me break up with my acrylics for gel extensions:
Leer más »
Flood closes Musso & Frank Grill ahead of its 100th birthday celebrationA flood temporarily closes Hollywood's storied Musso & Frank Grill.
Leer más »
How Patrick Schwarzenegger and Abby Champion Became a Model CoupleHow Patrick Schwarzenegger and Abby Champion Became Young Hollywood's Model Couple
Leer más »
25 Years Later, Where's the ER Cast Now?Hollywood was forever changed when the medical drama debuted in 1994
Leer más »