Ivan Hayden, visual effects supervisor, Supernatural.
Role on the show.
The visual effects supervisor is there to help the producers and directors design and come up with
the best, safest and most efficient way to
shoot the visual effects and then make sure that everything is shot in such a ways,
that we can have the most lateral motion in host.
Creative challenges.
We have to do a new ghost or monster or creature every episode
and we have to come up with a way of getting the writers vision
different than we’ve seen every other time.
For example, every time we do this show there’s a new monster
that dies and we don’t want them all to go in the same way.
Supernatural research.
Vampires in our show don`t turn into bats and fly away.
So we have to come up with the look for a monster
that sticks with the vain of the show
and although we do look at what has been done in the past
we also trying to put our own fingerprint on it to give it our own
look and technology has gone a lot better so we can attempt to do things,
you know, that they couldn`t do in the past.
Creating the signature style.
This show is more about the acting and the relationships
between the two brothers and how they grow.
And the supernatural is sort of the engine that takes it.
It shouldn`t overpower what the boys are doing and what the boys are becoming.
So our effects are there to enhance the danger and the drama,
but not to detract from the wonderful acting
that both Jared and Jensen do on every episode.
Raising the bar.
Every episode that we look at there are the effects that we planned on doing
and then we look at the show and we look at the cuts around what we’re doing
and sometimes we’ll say "Hey, you know
it would be really cool if we made that guy’s hand twitch."
You know, he’s a dead corpse and he is just laying there but
sort of in a background wouldn`t it be neat if his finger was twitching a little bit.
Teamwork on set.
One of the scenes that we have is a woman is in her hotel room
and the invisible dog claws her pants off and cuts into her leg
and she’s bleeding all over the place.
And what we did is special effects tore the pants,
a special effects make up put the application on her leg.
It can`t be done without everybody.
I mean, every single person on the show makes every effect work.
Loving Supernatural.
Every single episode we have to do something else.
And it`s like playing. It’s you know, everyday it`s like being a kid, you get to pretend and your like
"Hey, wouldn`t it be cool if the werewolf and it`s mouth sort of went this way."
It`s a lot of fun.
Old-School haunted houses.
ecret passage ways, fog...
Might even run into Fred and Daphne while we're inside.
Daphne...
I definitely set out to do a horror movie.
A tv series that kind of caught the vibe of The Ring and The Grudge.
Yeah, like strange.
You know it’s one of the rules of the show is that we don’t invent anything.
Every story we tell
and every episode is based on like a real piece of folk lore.
There's 100 different legends on the walking dead,
but they all have different methods for killing them.
Some say setting them on fire.
Feeding their hearts to wild dogs. That's my personal favorite.
Action.
They showed up on the first day of work with like eighty of these just little one
liners of what episodes could be, just pulled
from this real life folk lore from across the country.
You know like killer clowns and arm ripped off and you know all these…
John Shiban: The Licked hand EK: Yeah the Licked hand JS: Yeah that’s one of my favourites.
It’s a fun show to work on
because you don’t sit around like banging your head
against a wall, you just start doing research.
And the homework is cool I mean with all the ghost stories and stuff.
- Or it's an invisible killer. - My favorite kind.
- What do you think, Scully? Wanna check it out? - I'm not scully. You're Scully.
No, i'm Mulder. You're a redheaded woman.
We’ll pull from old and new horror movies that we love and scenes that we knew
and that’ll be a seed for an episode and then we’ll start kicking it around and how…
what the Winchester version of it is.
We can`t stay here. We've got to get out of here, ause somewhere...
let people know what`s comming.
Yeah, that`s a good pint.
La Nuit des morts-vivants se finit plutot mal.
We will take vampires and do
what other movies and shows have done with vampires.
We’re working on a werewolf idea and it’s “How is it ours?”
What’s different about it? What makes it Supernatural monster? Not a…
not one you would see on something else, so
they all have their origins in real lore but then we run with it.
157 names?
- We got to narrow that down. - Yeah.
Or else we're gonna be diggingup a hell of a lot of stiffs.
Herman Webster Mudgett?
- Wasn't that H.H. Holmes'real name? - The term "multi-murderer". they coined it to describe holmes.
He was america's first serial killer.
Cut.
What’s great about these urban legends is they’re all designed
to have these shocking twists at the end.
The escaped psychotic with the hook for a hand, I just love that.
You know where the boyfriend disappears and the girls in the car, and she hears the scratching
on the roof of the car, and she’s all freaked out and then she finally escapes
the car and turns around and the boyfriend’s hanging
upside down dead scratching against the car.
And we actually turned that into an episode which I was really happy about, it’s a classic.
Bloody Mary for me like always scared the crap out of me.
You’d go in the bathroom and turn out the lights and say Bloody Mary in the mirror
and she claws your eyes out.
For my money that episode was really scary. It’s like a gross joke basically,
it’s the same pattern, set up and then punch line.
And that really lends itself dramatically, you know, to a really satisfying show because you get to have
these fun little twists that are like gross, shocking
or scary or disturbing and it really works out well.
I'd say we've officially crossed over into weird.
And action.
We’re telling episodes this season that are philosophical, wildly structured,
and we’re telling episodes that are just going to be straight comedies.
Awesome.
You know one episode can be angsty the next can be scary as hell,
the other one can be funny, the other one can be a romance and you can just keep
hop-skotching in genres and form.
- Los Angeles, California. - What's in L.A.?
A young girl's been kidnapped by an evil cult.
Yeah?
- The girl got a name? - Katie Holmes.
Once we sort of settle on what the monster is or the creature or the spirit.
I think I know
what we're dealing with here.
It's the stay-puftmarshmallow man.
- Beyond that what’s the story about? - Right.
And what is the personal story about and how does this spirit, creature, monster
effect our boys?
So we always try to make the stories a little deeper.
- I'm one of them. - No, you're not.
Dean, the demon said he had plans for me and children like me.
- Yeah? - Maybe this is his plan.
Maybe we're all a bunch of psychic freaks. Maybe we're all supposed to be...
- What? Killers ? - Yeah.
So the demon wants you out there, killing with your minds? Is that it?
Give me a break. You're not a murderer, Sam!
- You don't have it in your bones. - No?
- Last I checked, I kill all kinds of things. - Those things were asking for it.
There's a difference.
We have a show that’s about like good and evil, and faith
and destiny, and life and death and it’s like the real big issues.
The shows core is through the emotion of the brothers
and you know what we always say in the writer’s room is you know everything is family.
Whenever we’re in a dead end or we can’t figure out we’re like:
"Ok well it’s a family show, what’s the
family version of this? And how to make that work".
Before dad died, he...
he told me something.
- Something about you. - What?
Dean, what did he tell you?
He said that he...
Wanted me to watch out for you...
Take care of you.
- He told you that a million times. - Well, this time was different.
He said that I had to...
Save you.
- Save me from what? - He just said that I had to save you and nothing else mattered.
And that if I couldn't, I'd...
You'd what,dean?
I'd have to kill you.
Most hour shows have a seven day prep but this show
can’t handle a seven day prep
if they’re not prepping before seven days we’re in trouble
because of all the visual effects and special effects.
We’re building new sets every week, we don’t have any permanent sets.
So they at least have to get the story way, way in advance.
So I mean we lock in every big move and every creature and every stunt and all the things you know,
that we need to get rolling on, because each one’s like
a new deal every time.
- Cut - And that’s hard. I mean because that takes like
you know research and development from the effects guys and what’s it going to look like and how
are they going to make that work and you know everyone just, you know, just busts their ass
just trying to get that done every week.
Get down!
I do sometimes read the fans stuff,
and when people say “oh that was so scary or that clown was terrifying.”
I get a kick out of it, it’s great, it’s exciting to, you know,
leave people with images that stick with them.
It’s a way to have a roller coaster ride and survive it.
That’s how things roll around here at Supernatural.
- Our lives are weird, man. - You're telling me?
My name is Christopher Cooper, I`m a props master for the Supernatural.
The property master and the props to department deal with everything
the actors hold, touch, or accessorize by.
Whether they’re drinking, firing guns, playing with knives, or fighting evil,
all the toys, really.
Supernatural totally rules.
That's holy water, you, demonic son of a bitch!
Stuff we get to do, stuff we get to create, killing vampires
and zombies, and shapeshifters,
we’ve got all sorts of cool toys.
Supernatural research.
The urban tales all go back for hundreds of years
and all that mythology definitely has its rules
and, you know, we develop our own rules as we go along, to deal with our vampires or shapeshifters.
Creating the signature style.
There`s the aesthetic element of course and then there`s practical
form follows function element to make it work
and of course it has to look cool. That`s one of the most important parts.
You always wanna do something new. You want, whatever
it is that you create, to be new and unique. But at the same time
it has to fit into the lore, you know,
it has to make sense to whoever is watching, that yeah, that`s gonna work,
that`s a shapeshifter you gotta have silver knife for that.
Props for huntung.
This is Dean Winchester`s favorite gun, this is the colt 1911.
Here we have Sam Winchester`s favorite gun,
this is the Tourist PT 99. They specifically shoot blank,
they can`t shoot real bullets, of course.
For firing the guns we always have a couple of them on hand,
incase a gun jams or something like that
and then we have rubber versions, for if there`s a fight, guys are getting banged
around, might as well be use rubber guns. We do a lot
of retractable versions of knives and spears. Stab your
zombie
and away you go.
We do a lot of blood knives where there`s a reservoir in the actor`s hand
and as they draw the knife across the arm the blood come out, so it looks like
the knife is cutting.
Every good hunter needs an EMF detector. Electro magnetic frequency detector.
We`ve also got the alien probe here.
And i just leave that one alone.
Loving Supernatural.
Jensen and Jared are phenomenal guys to work with. And they’re into doing
absolutely everything. The producers, the director, the production
designer, art department is absolutely
amazing what they can do and what they create
because they help design these things and then, you know,
I make them come to life.