THE MONKEY VFX BREAKDOWN
with Christian Convery as both young Hal and Bill). “Visual effects for twinning these characters was a key part of it,” says Douglas. “We came up with a series of gags early in the film where we would show Hal and Bill interacting together. In one of the first instances, Bill – who’s the bully and older brother by a couple of minutes – shoves Hal. The way Oz shoots his dialogue is much like how the Coen Brothers do it. They are with the characters rather than over the shoulder, creating an intimacy between them, even when they’re not on screen together. We have these interaction gags and then just let everything else play out in performances.” Due to the nature and budget of the shoot, it was vital for Douglas and his team to achieve the twinning shots in minutes, as opposed to hours. “You have these incredible twinning sequences all the way back to Dead Ringers, which have intricate camera moves,” he explains. “Our incredible Steadicam operator, Leonardo Harim, could repeat motions with green-screen passes just enough to allow seamless tracking and compensation. This also made the process quick and easy for young Christian Convery, allowing him to stay fully present in both performances without technical distractions. Tatiana Maslany – who plays Lois, Bill’s mother – has done countless scenes and sequences like this before on Orphan Black. One of our doubles even worked with her on that show. So, we had a lot of that spiritual experience.” Werner Pretorius at Amazing Ape Productions created the animatronic monkey, as well as many other practical creations. Chris van Dyck of Niche VFX was responsible for the monkey-on-fire sequences, as well as nearly every other shot that touched and supported the monkey itself. It was also crucial for the film to be a blend of practical effects and visual effects. The aunt Ida sequence
...MONKEY DO VFX supervisor Edward J Douglas (right) and director Oz Perkins (middle) on set
proved to be a mix of elements, led by Tom Rolfe – visual effects supervisor at CoSA VFX – who also created the pawn shop harpoon scene, final apocalypse and pool explosion, among many others. Additionally, Ole Vezina, special effects set supervisor, was the technician in the green suit throwing all the limbs in the pool scene. One of Douglas’ favourite sequences to capture involved close collaboration from all departments to make it happen. “There’s a bit of magic that I’m proud of,” he admits. “Bill’s father is trying to destroy the monkey once and for all, but he fails. Adam Scott’s character unleashes a flamethrower on it, yet the monkey only grins as everything melts around it. We were inspired by the iconic face-melting moment at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I called up Werner and Greg Pyne, our special effects lead, and we began assembling pieces. Werner was able to cast a gelatine monkey that we could melt. We built a dummy monkey head
from the same material as the mandrel for aunt Ida’s head, allowing us to set it on fire. The wardrobe department supplied extra pieces of the monkey costume to burn. In the end, nothing had to be CG – we gathered all the necessary ingredients ourselves.” The Ricky (Thrasher) hornet sequence was led by van Dyck, which turned out to be the heaviest CG sequence on the film. “When I first saw this in the script, I knew it would probably be the biggest challenge,” notes Douglas. “It’s the Looney Tunes logic of Oz Perkins in this film, the same with some of our exploding people. Every person in this movie explodes with three times as much blood as a normal person should. We knew the hornets would be CG, and we wanted to give the audience something they’d never seen before. Ultimately, the key to this scene was trypophobia, the horrifying reaction to little holes. We created all these holes from which the hornets would emerge, like dots and holes within holes. “Oz’s dad is Anthony Perkins – that’s another cool element that gives him a personal connection to the kind of story about the randomness of death. As I’ve gotten to know Oz, I can feel how this is utterly his most personal story – the most authentic to how I know him as a person, and I’m proud to have worked on this film,” concludes Douglas.
EVERYONE EXPLODES WITH three times as much blood AS NORMAL”
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DEFINITIONMAGS
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