And the tinkering that was done
When Shock Till You Drop caught up to actress Emily Blunt, we asked her about the delays plaguing Universal’s The Wolfman – read what she had to say here. Now, Total Film Magazine has producer Scott Stuber on the extra work that was done by director Joe Johnston.
Here’s an excerpt from their article:
Scott Stuber explained the movie’s metamorphosis. He said: “The visual effects work was so complex that some of the stuff wasn’t ready. There were so many textures we had to create, like landscapes of London and all the elements within the London sequence; they just weren’t where they needed to be.”
Asked about talk that the design of the werewolf had proved a digital effects nightmare, he said: “It was never our attention for this to be a CGI-fest. Our whole thing was to honour Lon Chaney Jr and the spirit of the original.
“It’s an authentic, make-up-driven film, but there are transitional pieces that we needed to do in CG, so you didn’t have to cut away during the change in the monster. Integrating the make-up and the effects to make them feel like one cohesive whole was always going to be a challenge and it’s something we’ve had to work through.”
He said director Joe Johnston had done “an excellent job” but the first test screening led to a need for reshoots: “We needed one more piece between Benicio (Del Toro) and Emily (Blunt). We added a new scene during the post-bite, pre-transformation sequence when he’s starting to realise something’s wrong.”
They also beefed up the action in the London set-piece, which piled more work on the special effects team.
A second test screening had ‘terrific results’ and Stuber is optimistic: “It’s a big quality piece of entertainment. It’s beautiful, rich, gothic, tragic – it’s everything you hope it would be.”
Source: Total Film Magazine
