Imaginary Worlds - Making Up Creatures (Special Edition)

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

Every year, I like to play a full-length interview with a previous guest who had so much more to say than what I could fit into a particular topic. Last summer, I did an episode called Making Up Creatures where I talked with the creature designer Neill Gorton, who is best known for working on the reboot of Doctor Who and the BBC series Being Human. I talked with Neill about how he approached redesigning classic monsters he watched on Doctor Who as a child, why simplicity always beats spectacle when designing a new creature and what to focus on when working within a limited budget. Today's episode is brought to you by Faraway, a new short story collection from Amazon, CovertKit and BetterHelp. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? We have partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email [e-mail] or click the link below to get started. Imaginary Worlds AdvertiseCast Listing   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Old Spice Total Body Deodorant. 24-7 freshness from pits to privates with daily use. It's so gentle. We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body Deodorant now. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, special holiday edition, I'm Eric Molenski. I interview a lot of people for this podcast, and sometimes I interview somebody who's really compelling, but a lot of their tape ends up on the proverbial cutting room floor. So each year I like to play a full-length interview with a previous guest who had so much more to say than what I could fit into that particular topic. And last summer, I did an episode called Making Up Creatures, where I talked with the creature designer, Neil Gorton.

He is best known for working on the reboot of Doctor Who under the first two showrunners, Russell T. Davies and Stephen Moffat. He also worked on the Doctor Who spinoff shows, Torchwood, and the Sarah Jane Adventures. Neil specializes in practical effects, meaning effects that are not CGI. And I grew up watching movies and shows with practical effects, so I find this topic endlessly fascinating. And Doctor Who is famous for being jam-packed with aliens that need to be created on a limited budget. packed with aliens that need to be created on a limited budget. And this is a perfect time to play a longer interview with Neil, because even though he doesn't work on Doctor Who anymore,

the show is coming back on New Year's Day for their holiday special episode, featuring the classic villain, the Daleks. By the way, Neil was recording himself at home, and about 10 minutes into our interview, he discovered that his recorder was not on. I was recording a backup over Zoom, so that's what you'll hear at the beginning. And then after the break, you'll hear his audio in high quality. I began by asking Neil if there was anything he saw as a kid that inspired him to go into the field of creature effects. A big influence on me actually was I grew up in Liverpool.

Just up the coast from Liverpool is Blackpool, which is a popular holiday resort. And they had a Doctor Who exhibition there. And there was something about seeing all those props and the costumes and the masks in person. You suddenly realize someone made them. And I think that kind of really stuck with me. Do you remember what creatures, specifically you saw the Doctor Who exhibit, that you're like, oh my God, I have seen that on TV?

There was definitely a Davros in there. That was the one that really caught my eye. Because I remember as a kid seeing Davros for the first time and being really creeped out by him on the show and not understanding that it was a makeup. I mean, it must have only been about five or six. And just thinking, where did they find this strange little withered man? Davros, for the last time, consider what you're doing. Stop the development of the Daleks. Impossible. It is beyond my control. The workshops are already fully automated to produce the Dalek machines. And then, yeah, you know, they had the chair and the figure and the mask was obviously on a mannequin. And there it was in the exhibit.

Well, how did you get involved with Doctor Who? I mean, you must have been ecstatic when you first got, did you first just get a call out of nowhere? and ecstatic when you first got, did you first just get a call out of nowhere? It was almost. It was, I'd heard the show was happening and then I heard that a friend of mine, a makeup artist called Davey Jones, because he'd worked with Russell T. Davis before. And so I just kind of went, oh, well, there you go.

It's gone. Davey's got the gig. And what had happened is Davey had looked at the first script. He'd initially been told that it was, you know, it wasn't a big creature sort of prosthetics job. So he kind of, Davey kind of works as a one-man band. So he kind of said, okay, I'm sure I can handle it.

And then when he started seeing the scripts and there was eight foot, you know, slitheen and all the rest, he immediately just went, no, this is too big for me to take on my own. You know, one of the things I think is so fascinating about the new series is the way that aliens from the classic series are redesigned. I did a whole episode

about the Daleks, and I know there's a lot of pressure to keep the Daleks the same, but the Cybermen were totally redesigned. Or, um, what was the name of the alien? They're like these soldiers, like these clone soldiers, but their heads are kind of like Humpty Dumpty. Sontarans? Oh, yeah, Sontarans.

And your name? General Stahl of the 10th Sontaran Fleet. Stahl the Undefeated. Oh, that's not a very good nickname. What if you do get defeated? Stahl, they're not quite so undefeated anymore, but never mind. Tell me what that was like in terms of, you know, you grew up with these classic creatures

and to have the opportunity and even the challenge of making them seem believable with modern technology and even much better TV sets in which people could see your work. It comes with a whole host of issues. So there's people who are just like,

you can't touch anything. You know, I mean, ultimately, if I made a Sontaran look like a Sontaran looked in the 70s it'd be laughed off the screen nowadays because they really were just like a giant rubber head that did not move with a big cut out where the guy poked his lip out and his tongue out and they were completely mobile and of course like the

costume you know that was very that quilted sort of finish was it was done because it was a very cheap solution you know fast forward and you get to do that and of course you're going to make it more expressive you're going to bring it up to date you're going to make these changes you're going to and of course you're going to upset somebody so so you just have to take it on the chin I mean it is funny is funny. I mean, it was like people kind of get frustrated and they're like, oh, the Cybermen have changed. And it's like, yeah, but go back. I mean, they looked, there was kind of five different versions

of the Cybermen from the 60s, 70s and the 80s. Yeah, it was changing all the time anyway. Can you pick maybe one example of like one of those alien type characters that there was a lot of back and forth between you and either Davies or Moffat about like, how are we going to do this? And you sort of like, there were just a lot of questions you needed to answer. And the Cybermen with Russell was a huge thing because, you know, they're such a,

they're kind of second only to the Daleks. So we did the Daleks in the first series anyway. So really bring back the Cybermen. And it was a huge, you know, two-parter. And then they're in the finale and all that kind of thing. So it was a budgetary-wise massive undertaking. And just the whole redesign. And by that time, of course, it was the second series of the new series. So the first series, you could have done was the second series of the new series. So the first

series, you could have done whatever. There was no one to complain. No one had even seen the new series. No one even thought it was going to be a success. So come the second series, there was a massive amount of interest, lots of media interest, lots more pressure. You will be deleted. We're surrendering. Listen to me, we surrender! You are inferior. Man will be reborn as Cyberman, but you will perish under maximum deletion. There were massive fan reaction, especially amongst younger generations. Toy, the voice changer helmet of the Cybermen, was the number one toy at Christmas that year. That's kind of a real badge of honour in the UK is to have the number one Christmas toy.

And that was it, you know. So I'd like to think, you know, that alone kind of justifies that we got it right. You know, it will happen. People will get upset. Some people get frustrated. It's not how they imagined it. Interestingly, the only character I've never had a single comment on, because believe me, every single character we did anything with,

people had very strong opinions on. And the only one that never raised a single question was Davros. And I think it was just because everyone sort of felt like he was the same. The performance was so good. And really, no one really picked up on the fact that it was physically there was differences there. But I think it was kind of overall Davros enough. No one really had ever had an issue with him.

This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself. So is the idea that it's easier to relate to humanoid aliens, like the more humanish they look, there's more room for the actor to perform, there's more room for the audience to sort of identify with them? That's the principle. You get, I get into this discussion a lot

because you go into meetings where basically you've got directors who've not shot with people in rubber costumes, basically going, right. If I haven't got eyes, I haven't got a mouth and I haven't got, you know, the,

those humanoid features, those standards, how can I tell a story? So that's a constant kind of battle. Sometimes is the, the, there is often a push to make them as humanoid as possible but I'm always kind of pulling the other way and very much because you know it you look at different shows Doctor Who very much never worried too much

about that historically you know you had had those more humanoid characters but you also had you know quite extreme things, which didn't even have a mouth that moved or anything. And yet you could still get lots of character and you completely bought into it. So I was always kind of trying to go look, you know, I know it's easy to go over that way. And you feel that that's you're going to be more comfortable with that. But aesthetically, that's just more the Star Trek universe. And we want to bring this more into the Doctor Who universe where you can have something really bizarre. You've just got to have faith in it

and have faith in the script writing and the story and all that kind of thing. Well, I mean, how often is the aliens described so much? I mean, are there some times that it just says there must be a lot of aliens that you get to design just, just completely from scratch. Absolutely. I mean, but at the same time, you know, it's, it's fun working with an initial idea. If someone just says to me, design an alien, you, you almost freeze, you know, you kind of go, look, there's so many different things I could do. I don't even know where to start. Whereas if someone just gives you, feeds you a line, and you can really bounce off that.

So the face of Bo, for example, you know, the script just said, a giant face in a tank of gas. And that was almost written out. I mean, basically, they were doing budgets, and Russell was going, oh, it could be anything. It's not important. You know, just could be anything. It's not important. You know, just a throwaway. It's just a name I came up with.

But I just went, no, I want to build that. I just think there's a fun thing there. So I did a very quick little sketch and everyone agreed. And that pretty much was entirely our design. We shall meet again, Doctor, for the third time, for the last time, and the truth shall be told until that day. After the break, we'll hear more from my interview with Neil Gordon. Introducing Tim's new Infuser Energy Beverages, made with natural caffeine. They come in two

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So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Let's get back to my interview with Neil Gordon. One of my favorite shows that he worked on was called Being Human. It was about a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf that were flatmates together in the city of Bristol. Neil got a lot of praise for the werewolf transformations in that show, which is impressive because we've seen a lot of werewolf transformations over the years.

But they've gotten very CGI. And he made sure the effects felt really grounded and real. The BBC was doing this, had an idea, which was to commission a bunch of pilots in a way that hadn't been done before. It was kind of, you know, I think you do it in the US a lot more where they commission these pilot shows and then commission the series.

I remember reading the script and just being blown away by the script. It was such a great story, great characters. And the budgets were tiny. But in reading it, you know, it was so down to earth it was so real and the fact that we're filming in Bristol and the kind of locations it was all it wasn't going to be a fantastical show it was going to be very very down to earth so when I had a first meeting with them when we were talking about werewolves and transformations and all this.

Instantly, I was just like, you can't possibly do CGI because you will immerse an audience in such a real world, familiar world. The minute you do anything digital, it's going to jar badly. It's going to feel so wrong. We've got to do this all physically. And basically, there was no budget for a finished werewolf but the same were transformations we built for the pilot which i built for for no money i made absolutely nothing out of you know we just kept re-skinning and reusing them for everybody all the time yeah i mean the transformation that really got to me i mean i love the george the main you. Yeah, I mean, the transformation that really got to me,

I mean, I love George, the main werewolf character, but the transformation that really got to me was when he accidentally infected his girlfriend, Nina, because I really liked her character and I felt terrible that she got infected and she didn't even want to tell George at first that she was turning into a werewolf because he already had so much guilt and shame

about the fact that he was a werewolf. And that was also, I think, the first time I've seen a female werewolf transformation. So, I mean, what was the thinking around that? No, I mean, we'd worked out, you know, the principle was there, you know, I mean, Rick Baker did it on American Werewolf years ago, you know, the principal was there. You know, I mean, Rick Baker did it on American Werewolf years ago. You know, the principal was there with the stretching things. And then it was just trying to make them look a bit different each time and with each different character. And it was that, you know, keeping the sympathy.

The main thing was we were trying to avoid completely grotesque, you know, because you like these people. people you know it's a great show these are some of our favorite characters you know you don't want them to be so kind of horrific in a way visually and not be i don't know how to put it but you know put off by them in a way so yeah all the time you're trying to design those transformations to elicit those emotions. You know, people are engaged with it, feel sympathy, feel more of their pain than being horrified by it. That's so interesting. I think that is it. I think that's what made those transformations so powerful was that you really felt the physical and emotional pain that Nina and George were going

through in a way that I think I that that I think I hadn't seen before I think very often there it's often a like look how gross this is you know kind of say and or look how cool we can make this or look how yeah and and and again which is where the CGI thing you'll notice that there is a very little use of CGI there was like um a vampire decaying that they did what i think in one episode and it just totally takes you out of the episode it's it's just like this just feels so wrong in this kind of show which just feels utterly real whereas you know we had we stuck all the prosthetics on them and big teeth and bladders under the skins and stretch bits of them and then cut between the animatronics as well so

you never quite knew if it was the person or the mechanical thing and we blended them into the transformation so that you do you stay connected then because you feel it's real. It's an interesting, you know, I think CGI and digital and all that is fantastic tools and brilliant stuff, you know, but it's like anything, you've got to apply it correctly. It's interesting about Doctor Who, you know, I had a conversation with the guys who do all the merchandising. I basically said, look, what sells better? Toys of characters who were physical or toys of characters that were

CGI? And they went, oh, absolutely, the physical ones. They said, the CGI ones are always left on the shelf. You know, they don't seem to connect with the audience as much. And to me, you know, I know that, you know, if a kid is looking at a Cyberman on screen, he can tell the difference between a real one and a digital one. He'll like the real one more because there's a good chance he could also meet that character in the real world. So that makes it much more something they embrace more. Yeah, that is a fascinating point about the toys. I can totally see that.

So without mentioning any specific films or makeup artists are there elements of other people's work that kind of make you cringe just generally speaking that you're like oh god not that and i'm projecting practical effects of like certain cliches that people keep using over and over again there's there's a there's a lot of comedy ones that we all talk about in the industry i mean mean, we always get this one, okay? It's like a horror movie or something, and you'll get the director go, okay, so what happens now is the creature turns around and his mouth opens and it keeps opening

and it kind of dislocates his jaw and his jaw opens ridiculously wide and everyone just goes, oh, God. Because that same thing's been used so many times. It is not at all original. So we're forever trying to say to people, look, I'm sorry. That's just not that clever, really. We need to come up with something cleverer than that. What about on a much smaller scale?

You teach. What are some common rookie mistakes that students often make when they start doing practical effects? There's lots of very simple – I mean, the number one of – the one I'm always talking to students about is bigger isn't better. So people will go, I'm going to build this creature, and I'm going to have these horns, and they're going to be enormous. And you just go, you know what?

There's so many things that are just wrong with that which is it's going to be difficult to build difficult to make difficult and also you know you you want to put this in a portfolio you want to put this in a book if you the horns are four foot wide to get them in a shot means your head's going to be really small so think about you know how it fits in a frame you know whether it's on a screen or in a in a photograph you know you want this thing to be contained within an image so the minute you make something really crazy big or over the top you it's just off the frame anyway so it's not going to do you any good so yeah it's trying to bring people down you know from from throwing everything in i I mean, we have these talks.

I do this thing with the students where we talk through the principles of design. And I'm always pointing out, it's like a good design is something that you see and you get the story. You understand what it is without anyone telling you or needing lots more information.

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of like, I used to take screenwriting classes and they would often talk about your elevator pitch. Like if you're stuck with an executive in an elevator, can you summarize your script in one sentence? It sounds like it's kind of the same with a creature. Like you should be able to describe a creature in a single sentence, like the Ood, who you design.

I could totally describe them in a single sentence. They're these bald, alien looking humanoids who have tentacles instead of mouths. And then their voices come out of these little balls that they hold. All Ood are born to serve. Otherwise, we would die. You can't have started like that. Well, this is it. I mean, the Ood, you just hang your hand in front of your face and you almost, even when I'm talking about it, I put my hand up and like it's a bunch of tentacles, you know, you can't help that. And that's what good design is. You know, that's why the Dalek is such a classic, you know, because you can mimic it. You stick your arms out and kind of, you know, shuffle around in a certain way and kids can mimic being a Dalek.

Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! And Steve Moffat as well. I mean, I still think the Weeping Angels is absolute genius, you know, because to take something you could see anywhere and then just go, that's an alien. You mean those statue things? Creatures from another world. But they're just statues. and then just go, that's an alien. the most perfect defense system ever evolved they are quantum locked they don't exist when they're being observed the moment they are seen by any other living creature they freeze into rock it was pure genius you know and that's what created a classic monster without it even being

a monster you know i mean i love that and that's why i always loved about working with steve and russell was was just of, when they come up with something, you just think, my God, how did I not think about myself? It's so simple but clever and just really pokes at various emotions. Are there ever any misconceptions? Let's say you go home for Christmas and you meet a relative who's like oh so you're still doing that that special effects thing like what are like what are some of the common misconceptions that people have or or the sort of um uninformed questions that that sometimes you get from people who don't really understand what you do for a living yeah there's always um there's always those kind of things people think you know it's it's like you

just turn up on the day and you like model it on someone's face it's like you take out a big bag of kind of clay rubber and model something on someone's face and it's like no we've spent weeks before doing all these molds and casts and sculptures and and then you go and apply these prosthetics and it's just the usual misconceptions people get about any kind of filming you know they i mean everyone always thinks the daleks are all completely remote controlled you know and they don't realize it's actually you know a guy inside kind of pushing it along you know even davros people are always stunned to find out that julian had to actually move himself along and he he

literally had to practice for ages to to be able to move the chair without it looked like he looking like he was pedaling you know because he's actually his legs are motivating it everyone always thinks it's far more technologically advanced than it is. Oh, that's so interesting. I'm always fascinated by working in the industry when you step out of it and see what fans are interested in. It's like going to a convention. I mean, my favorite thing was going to a Doctor Who convention, my first proper Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles, and just finding the whole experience very confusing just because it's not what I expected and and I don't think it was meant to be this but there was a real kind of indifference to the work I did there was an absolute fascination with an actor absolute fascination with writers almost as much with directors but not as much anyone else, if you were behind the scenes people,

you seem to be irrelevant. And I don't mean to say that in a terrible way, but it was just interesting watching. I mean, there was even a queue of people going by, and basically, you know, you're sat there with your pen. And at one point, two kind of kids, like of kids like 14 year old boys were kind of in front of us in their cube waiting for someone else and one kid nudges the other and says uh so what about these guys you know kind of pointed us we're sat there with their pens and the other kid and this

is right in front of us and the other kid turns to the back to his mate and says no no i only get the important people oh my god it was just it was so funny though you know just the way he did it was just brilliant yeah i wonder if people just take it for granted to some extent that you the work you do because they don't maybe understand what goes into it i think i think there's kind of i don't think it's that i think if you look back at something like star wars it was an absolute revolution in production design. The robots, the aliens, all the creatures. It was fabulous design. It was streets ahead of things like Doctor Who at the time.

For Doctor Who, the aliens were secondary. The creatures were secondary to tell those stories. In the 70s, they were. They were made of bin bags and plastic bubble wrap and you know really really crude and that was part of the charm but also it wasn't about that's doctor who's always very much been about story i mean and russell said it you know about writing doctor who he like, it's the greatest story ever told. You know, it's the most simple and greatest story.

He can go anywhere and do anything and travel in time. So it is, it's an interesting perspective. And I see that, you know, I see that very much with what does, what attracts fans to different shows. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Neil Gorton. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweeted Ian Malinsky and Imagine World's pod. The website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.

The best way to support the show is to donate on Patreon. And I just want to thank everybody who donated this year on Patreon and on the Imaginary Worlds GoFundMe page. Your support really helped keep Imaginary Worlds going in 2020. So thank you very, very much and happy holidays.