Having gone for subtle effects in ‘Peter’, the episode ‘Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver’ couldn’t have been overt, thanks to a series of graphic cancer victims. “It was meant to be a bit disturbing, especially since we were taking such a beautiful actress, Diane Kruger, and covering her in disgusting boils and pus. The cancer design was right out of the medical books, as specified by the writers – and it was really awful.
“Our Vancouver team created that piece of work. Some nice squirting tumours by Brad Proctor and great application work as usual by our on-set heroes, Holland Miller and Mike Fields.”
No rest for the weary; the next episode to air was ‘White Tulip’, which opened with a train-full of corpses, life energy sucked out of them (“Those make-ups were designed and most created on set, with lenses and out-of-kit colours”) and ended with Peter Weller as a scientist who could travel through time by way of circuitry implanted in his own body. “That was pretty hasty, getting all of that together,” notes Masters. “We didn’t see Weller until the day before shooting, so we had to guess his size and just go for it. But it worked out well, and also made for some very interesting early mornings with Mr Weller, sticking him with wires. That episode feels like a weird dream!”
The sinister shape-shifters returned in ‘The Man From The Other Side’, which meant a hefty amount of effects work, including an embryonic shape-shifter seen early in the teaser. “Once again, we were pushing for a practical solution as much as possible,” says Masters. “We had several gags working there; everything from the ‘faceless men’ (played by our make-up artist, Holland Miller) to an amazing transformation sequence that Dan supervised in the LA shop.”
“So much went into this transformation effects,” Rebert continues, “it could be an article on its own. When Todd and I first discussed it, he told me he had shown the producers some of the test effects I had done for Slither and they really liked them. I believe his direct quote was, ‘Remember all that shit you did on Slither? Well, do that again!’
“Basically that meant constructing everything in translucent and transparent layers, as opposed to just simply painting cast sculptures. The other basic philosophy was to use sea creatures as a style reference. I hear so many people say that creature-wise, everything has been done before, and yet I constantly see fantastic animals on nature shows with design elements that have never been explored. This episode was a great opportunity to revisit some of those techniques.”
“The end result,” adds Masters, “which we actually shot first, was a little gimpy ‘Super Soldier’, the other dimension’s version of the KGB that we created. It was a slant-boarded critter we made of ooze and membranes, played by MFX regular Morris Chapdelaine.”
With the company’s first season of Fringe finally finished, it’s the perfect opportunity for Masters to look back at what he’s happiest with on the series so far, but it’s not the easiest of questions to answer. “I think it’s the fact that we’re still six feet aboveground!” he jokes. “I’m really proud of our crew, because it’s been a real test to get everyone in step so quickly, but they’ve all done such a good job.
“I’ve got to say, having a blast and it does feel like our Tales From The Crypt education is paying off, because we’re making little movies here. We’re all pretty exhausted but we’re also having a lot of fun. It’s creatively inspiring to be on this show.”
Next: Full behind the scenes and concept art image gallery.
