I have come to admire about the Doctor Who show has been their creative ability to make some of the most brilliantly subtle characters with the budget they have. One of my favorite episodes from the third season is called Blink. This episode I admire on few different levels.
For one this episode barely features either The Doctor or his companion, but rather focuses on the lives of the everyday people that may occasionally find themselves sucked into his world of aliens and monsters. This style of storytelling I'm sure has been done done in one of the previous seasons of Doctor Who. But what makes this one stand out is how the Doctor is remains in background through a series of DVDs that give the present day protagonist the instructions on how to deal with enemies for the episode.
The Full Speech on DVD
But the main thing that I enjoyed about this episode were the Weeping Angels that played the antagonists for the episode. The Weeping Angels are a race of extremely fast aliens that can only move when you're not looking at them. When you do they become frozen in their statute positions as part of a genetic defense mechanism. What makes these angels so terrifying is that whenever you blink at one of them they are able to move closer to you.
At first I thought the Angels were statutes that the people in production design had created in a variety of posses but I later discovered that they were actually done by actresses. From what I've gathered the make up department made a series of casts on the actresses faces in an array of facial posses: neutral, shock and feral. Afterwards after getting into their stone like costumes, all the parts of their skin that weren't covered already were painted over the various shades of stone grey.
I've come to think of these Angels to be almost like the Xenomorph Aliens from the 1986 Ridley Scott film. The reason I say this is because both of these creatures blend perfectly into the background.
Not sure if there were any in this particular shot
But a lot of them did tend to hide like this
Little changes in expression to keep on your toes.
This is a really cool video into how they shoot the Walking Dead, do the zombie make up, and blood effects.
The part I found to be pretty funny was how everyone is so surprised in the comments that they fill condoms with blood for the blood splatters. I thought that was pretty common knowledge. And the fact that it took the make up people two hours to dress them as zombies is amazing. The zombie's always look really believable and disgusting. I also liked the directions he was giving the extras for how to be an effective zombie when they get shot so the special FX person had an easier time lining up the blood.
Costume and make-up design has always been one of my passions. I have also been a huge fan of science fiction. So when I heard The Rise of the Planet of the Apes "prequel"movie was coming out this summer, I was quite excited... until I learned there were no actual animals on set since they were all animated.
Now from a movie-maker's standpoint I completely understand why this decision was made. First of all animals are difficult to work with on a set, so having over 100 apes running free would probably be a huge liability. Second of all, trying to get the proper emotion from an animal that doesn't necessarily speak English can't be the easiest job. Now even if they didn't use apes but instead humans, like in the 1968 and 2011 movies, the production company would have to pay for all of the make-up and costume materials as well as the actors themselves. Plus, rather than just having a make-up or costume designer, you would have to pay for someone on set to manually create the cast of 100 apes. So, CG animation it is.
My issue is, while CG has come quite far in its development, I'm not sure if I would rather have a man in a monkey suit that looks physically stable, than a creature who may have the proper dimensions of an ape, but looks like a computer-generated hologram.
However, after experiencing the character development of Caesar, I realize that the acting done by Andy Serkis and the rest of the cast would not have been nearly as effective if he were physically restricted by an ape-suit. With CG, Andy Serkis was able to fully explore his body movements, since he could move around with greater ease, and show a variety of emotions that wouldn't have been possible if he had latex put on his face. Having a background in make-up, I must say that the spirit gum and mask required would have lowered his ability to move his cheeks, lips, and eyes, resulting in a weaker performance and personification of Caesar.
With the technology used to create the movie, the actors had greater control over their body and faces, which allowed them to further the character development necessary for the plot of this film. So while others who may be aesthetically displeased with CG like me, we need to remember that story telling is the most important element in our industry, and so long as we continue to advance our production quality but follow through with the plot, films should continue to amaze and astound the audience.
