Mike Elizalde is the president and co-founder of Spectral Motion. "Hellboy" marks his first effort as an independent creature and effects company. Clint Morris caught up with him to see how it all went.

Moviehole: What was your involvement with the film?


Mike: My title on the film is Creature and Makeup effects Supervisor and I am the president and co-founder of Spectral Motion, Inc. My wife Mary and I formed Spectral Motion in 1994. Hellboy marks our first effort as an independent creature and makeup effects company. Although Spectral Motion has worked on many films before Hellboy, most of the projects that we can say we contributed to were done under someone else’s roof. Spectral Motion sub-contracted for Rick Baker’s Cinovation and Stan Winston Studio before we became independent. We feel very fortunate to have such a high profile and beautiful film as our first opportunity to show the world what we’ve got. I am deeply grateful to Guillermo del Toro (director) and Patrick Palmer (executive producer) for the faith and confidence they showed in my ability to assemble an all-star effects team and produce some of the most beautiful and memorable creature and makeup effects ever committed to film.

Moviehole: What worked out the best, and ah, not the best?

Mike: I think that every phase of pre-production and filming was successful for us. Not only in the sense that we were tasked with bringing to life characters that fans of the comics had very definite pre-conceived ideas about but also in that the creatures and characters had very complex physiological features. One example is Sammael, the demon who does battle with Hellboy throughout the film. The mechanisms for his eyes alone took up most of the production schedule to complete due to their intricacy. He also has a serpentine array of tentacles for hair which is totally animatronic. Abe Sapien is also a character that we are very proud of. From the conceptual maquette to the finished makeup every phase of his development was met with resounding approval not only by Guillermo but also by Mike Mignola and now, by the public. Thankfully, we were working very closely with Mike during our build. He and Guillermo and Tyruben Ellingson, who was a pivotal designer on the film, made frequent visits to my studio and that gave us a wealth of feedback from the creator himself. The only thing that we built that did not end up in the final cut was Baby Hellboy. We designed a rod puppet with an animatronic head that ultimately did not meet with Guillermo’s final design logic. He wanted to make changes to the design after we had finished building the puppet so he was replaced with a CG version at the last moment.

Moviehole: There's talk that this could be the year's big one. Whaddya think? Seen it yet?

Mike: I have seen the film and I must add my voice to the growing chorus of enthusiastic approval. It is difficult to be completely impartial since I feel a very close emotional connection to this project, not only because of my close relationship with Guillermo but for the more obvious reason that our work, which I consider to be some of the finest effects work I have seen in any film, is so prominently featured. This film actually has soul. It tells an intriguing story and is filled to the brim with cool monsters and elegant characters. I remember seeing a two hour rough cut when we were shooting in Prague and thinking that it was beautiful even though the score, sound and many of the visual effects shots were missing. After I saw the sneak preview I was overwhelmed by the final product. I am very confident that Hellboy will be remembered as one of the preeminent comic/graphic novel film adaptations ever made

Moviehole: How was Abe created? you going to do movie busts of him?

Mike: Abe was realized relying heavily on Mike Mignola’s original concept for the character with healthy doses of Guillermo’s vision. Jose Fernandez was hired to create the original design maquette and Guillermo loved that treatment right away. The maquette became the absolute pattern for the final rendition of Abe Sapien. Once the design was presented to Guillermo, we had actor Doug Jones come to our studio for a lifecasting session. Steve Wang, who was one of our principal designers and art directors on the project, began the sculpting process on the castings of Doug. Once the molds were completed by Brent Baker and his crew, Roland Blancaflor created the foam latex body and head appliances. We also incorporated clear fins and membranes to add to the ethereal quality of Abe. In addition to all of this we built a self-contained bubbling breathing apparatus and a pair of water-filled goggles that he wears when he is not in the water. We recently created several sculptures based on the Hellboy characters in association with Sideshow Collectibles. We did the sculptural work for the (13”) Abe Sapien polystone maquette, the Sammael polystone maquette and the three polystone busts of Abe Sapien, Sammael and Hellboy with the Mummified Corpse. We also created the sculpture for the Baby Hellboy “bronze” maquette. You can check these out on Sideshow’s website.

Moviehole: How's your job changed with technology?

Mike: We sort of have this built-in evolution of our art thanks to the technological advances in other fields such as medicine and space technology. As every other field develops new products and techniques our field is enhanced in turn. Additionally there are people in our field who are driven to advance the art through their own research and development such as Dick Smith. Dick has single-handedly made such an impact in our industry through years of developing new techniques which he is very generous in sharing with all of us who have chosen creature and makeup effects as our vocation. The other major development in the last ten years that has changed the way we achieve effects is the advent of computer-generated effects or CG as it is now commonly referred to. When CG first appeared it gave a lot of us a great deal to worry about. There was a time when the prevailing sentiment was that CG might someday replace tactile or practical effects. There have been a tremendous number of films that have attempted to use CG as the principal method of achieving creature effects but only a handful that have had any measure of success doing so. This presents us with the opportunity to revive practical creature effects and actually combine the two technologies allowing us to really stretch our effects and CG effects to their absolute limit. Guillermo is a firm believer in using all of the tools at his disposal to achieve what he is looking for in his films. He combined animatronics, CG and makeup effects to bring the Reapers to life in Blade 2 with amazing results. He has done this again in Hellboy and the results couldn’t be better. I don’t think it is a wise choice for any director to exclude any technology that is available to him or her to achieve their goals in filmmaking. It is comforting to know that more and more directors are realizing that CG and real time practical effects belong together. When both are used correctly, the audience is in for a truly mystifying visual experience.

Moviehole: How did you work turn out in "Blade Trinity"?

Mike: I’m very happy to say that our work on Blade Trinity was very well received by David Goyer, our director on that film. He expanded the use of our creatures by adding more scenes so that we could showcase our effects more prominently.

Moviehole: Was there anything about the makeup that proved more challenging?

Mike: One of the creatures involving makeup effects that we designed for Blade Trinity, a patriarchal vampire, was challenging in the sense that David wanted the design to include moving spikes and breathing ports which added to the complexity of our task. You’ll see what I’m talking about when the film is released.

Moviehole: Will we get to see some behind the scenes stuff of you and the guys on the Hellboy DVD?

I have been working closely with Javier Soto, the gentleman who is putting together the DVD package with Guillermo, and I am sure that you’ll see a lot of the footage I shot during the build phase for Hellboy on the DVD in addition to all the footage he (Javier) shot while we were shooting in Prague.

Moviehole: Are you contracted to work on the sequel? meanwhile, what's next for you?

Mike: We haven’t signed anything yet but if the success of the work that Spectral did on Hellboy is any indication, you can certainly expect to see more of our stuff in Hellboy 2.

Moviehole: Heard about anymore superhero projects? Would another interest you?

Mike: We are currently involved in talks with the folks at Marvel to explore the possibility of our contribution to some of the properties they have in development. This is a very exciting time for Spectral Motion with the release of Hellboy a few days away and Blade Trinity in post-production the film industry is seeing the caliber of effects that we have to offer. We are fortunate to boast the talents of some of the most sought after creature and makeup effects designers in the business and we will continue to deliver the highest quality effects for years to come.

CLINT MORRIS