Seattle, WA, USA (July 17, 2013) -- What should you think about someone who is fixated on the main character, Jack Skelington, from A Nightmare Before Christmas? Someone who identifies deeply with the Phantom from The Phantom OF The Opera? A person who has made severed heads and hands, has boxes of all manner of body parts and creepy robot appendages and has created third degree burns produced by a Martian Heat Ray? You would be talking about the Special Effects artist Ultrakarl, a master of monsters and things that go bump in the night. Ultrakarl created the actual slimy, tentacled, slithery Martians for War Of The Worlds The True Story, now in DVD and On Demand here: http://www.waroftheworldsthetruestory.com/ondemand.html.
Ultrakarl is beyond obsessed with movie creature effects. He lives and breathes the stuff that our darkest imaginations give us cold sweat nightmares about, and the results bring white knuckled entertainment to the masses of moviegoers. For War Of The Worlds The True Story, an 85th Academy Award Oscar contender that played in theaters across the US and is receiving universal praise from fans and critics alike, Ultrakarl had his work cut out for him.
Director Timothy Hines says it this way, "Approaching the creation of the Martians in my Steampunk movie, WAR OF THE WORLDS THE TRUE STORY, now on DVD, was on one of the greatest challenges of the picture. They had to be believable and I've had some bad experiences with CGI in that it sometimes is beautiful and photo real but has an uncanny valley of disconnect from the viewer. There's nothing that can represent real as well as that which is real. So after much discussion with the FX team lead by the artist Ultrakarl, we opted to create the Martians as full scale animatronic creatures."
While the ten-story tall fighting machines were being created by FX artist, Ezra Hamill, the bringing to life of the actual Martians fell squarley on the shoulders of Ultrakarl.
"I felt a huge amount of anxiety, stress and pressure from myself, as artists sometimes tend to do," says Ultrakarl. "I had a mind-set of, 'this isn't my creation, but that of the father of science-fiction itself,' whose work is so well known and loved for so long that I had to be very aware of that -- a responsibility to H. G. Wells, the legions of fans and to myself.
"My first order of business was to break down and figure out what Wells was saying about the creature and what he wasn't saying. For example, my first sketches had the Martian with three sets of tentacles, thinking they would have based their walking machines after themselves, but no mention of this was in the book so I had to eliminate those features."
"Next was to sort out the biology based on the environment and the ideas of evolution and how they would adapt. Based on the book I concluded they were underground dwellers, this meant minimal light and thin atmosphere. Some of the biological choices I made included a kind of doubled pupil in each of the eyes, very thick short coarse hairs for detecting vibrations and sound to help with the "tympanic ear" membrane, and assisted oxygen intake. Thinking the mouth area was not adequate to breathe, I included some slit-like openings in the ribcage covered in longer finer hairs to breathe and protect them from debris and dust particles. My designs included all manner of anatomical drawings from the large brain all the way up to fatty deposits, muscle tissues and outer membranes to try and understand how these creatures lived and moved.
"Finally it was time to build the monster. Originally I wanted to make a large sculpture of clay and do the traditional thing of making huge molds and positives, but soon realized the nature of the creature wouldn't allow for this. Too much tight control, I thought, would prevent the Martian from growing, by this I mean that sometimes when I sculpt, I sit with the clay and ask it 'what do you want to be?' The same happened with the Martian, I got into my 'zone' and simply started cutting and shaping materials until the Martian told me what it wanted to be. The end result was a very organic, naturally growing and evolving process.
"A lot of work and sleepless nights, sometimes feeling I was in a trance and being more a conduit rather than a creator, I had been working on the Martian creature for weeks, having great doubts and fears, as artists tend to do. But then the day came when we went to the set and uncovered him. The crew had such a great response having not seen him or the process and the advantage of those fresh eyes relieved much of my anxiety. We all had so much fun making him come to life. Everything coalesced into a truly amazing experience; there is nothing quite like being on a movie set watching and being a part of that creative magic."
The end result was a terrifying, full scale monster that took 19 technicians to operate on film. A flautist and other woodwind musicians were employed to create the fluctuation of the tympanic ear at the top of the creature's head to replicate "listening," and the creature's ragged and labored breathing by blowing in a-rhythmical syncopation into tubing connected to sub-surface bladders buried in the monster's body. Each of the many tentacles had an individual operator to give directed energy to the appendages. There were actually two artists inside the creature controlling body movement, the quivering "v" shaped hungry mouth and the movement of the darting eyes. Hairs were punched into the skin and in groups or individually controlled. Glycerin was piped in through many pours to ooze out and indicate "sweating." The approach was spectacular and produced something that CGI could not replicate.
Did it work? The movie audiences and the critics say yes. Ain't It Cool News critic Ambush Bug raved, "The best film I had the privilege of seeing this week was WAR OF THE WORLDS: THE TRUE STORY." With glowing praise, he went on to say things such as, "Even the sci fi effects feel authentic. I especially loved watching the attacks of both the aliens and the giant machines which have a SKY CAPTAIN & THE WORLD OF TOMORROW look to them. Everything is treated with a serious and dire tone and there's even a touching love story in the middle of it all as well to add an extra bit of depth that, coming from the narrator's POV, will definitely make your heart swell." He then summed it up by saying, "WAR OF THE WORLDS: THE TRUE STORY is one of the coolest little films I've come across in quite a while. As if the Orson Welles radio broadcast wasn't mythic enough, along comes this mock-doc to add a whole new layer of intrigue to H.G. Wells' fascinating story. Highly recommended to those who love revisionist history, alien invasion films, and thrilling real life documentaries."
"Ever since the 1953 movie adaptation of War Of The Worlds there have been numerous other translations of Wells' novel, even a 1988 short lived TV series, but of all the ones I have seen the only two-yes, only two-I find worthy of repeated viewings is the '53 film and this new 2013 docudrama." said Shawn Francis, critic at You Won Cannes.
Steven Rose Jr. of the Sacramento Examiner gave the movie 5 out of 5 stars and said, "'The True Story' carries the suspense and drama of both the 1953 movie and Spielberg's 2005 version but in a more realistic manner through its documentary style."
"The aliens are unsettling, with bright, evil eyes and writhing tentacles. The designs of the tripods and the aliens are much truer to the book than other versions." Said Tristan Hiegler, critic at the PT Leader. The Hollywood Reporter said the movie is, "Impressive for its technical achievements." Critic Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times said, "'War of the Worlds The True Story' is clever like Wells. Hugely inventive and ambitious, a mock sci-fi docudrama packed with a truly impressive - and clever - mix of editing (a reported 3 1/2 years' worth), special effects, visual artistry and offbeat storytelling."
Ron Keedy, Marketing Director of the Georgetown Digital Cinemas 14 in Indianapolis said, "One of the tightest cut, best paced, smoothest flicks I've ever seen! I've watched 5000+ films over the last 45 years of my career. This is one of the finest films ever." "An excellent tribute to HG Wells' novel and I recommend it be seen when it comes to your town." said Jim Colvill of the Portland Science Fiction Society.
War Of The Worlds the True Story is available on DVD with extras exclusively through http://www.thewaroftheworldsmovie.net. You watch War Of The Worlds The True Story directly on the official website http://www.waroftheworldsthetruestory.com/ondemand.html through Distrify, the exclusive platform chosen by director Terry Gilliam, (Time Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas), to premiere his new award-winning film The Wholly Family. War Of The Worlds The True story is also available on internet streaming through Vimeo at: http://vimeo.com/ondemand/waroftheworldstrue. The movie will be coming to Amazon at the end of July.
Company Name:Pendragon PicturesContact Person: Susan Goforth
Email:news@pendragonpictures.com
Phone: 206-639-3198
Address:1700 7th Ave, Suite 116#170 Seattle, WA, 98101
City: Seattle
State: Washington
Country: United States
Website: http://www.pendragonpictures.com
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