MastersFX Evolves Digital Make-up Effects in Fallen Skies

LOS ANGELES, CA and VANCOUVER, BC - Character effects company MastersFX unveiled its dMFX (Digital Make-Up) Division in conjunction with Season Four of the Amblin Television/TNT series Falling Skies, which premiered in late June.

MastersFX, the shows producer of practical creature FX since the series launch in 2011, has evolved the company's skill set for this series. For Falling Skies, MastersFX has implemented a new digital enhancement process, dMFX - one that mixes on-set special FX creature work with the company's proprietary digital tools, ultimately creating unique alien beings prominently featured in Season Four.

Starting with the Emmy-nominated pilot for Falling Skies, MastersFX has created for the series armies of practical monsters, from small parasites, to the 12-foot-tall spindly Overlords and car-sized Skitters.

A lot of the fun of this show is the creative force behind the stories, says Todd Masters, president/founder/chief monster maker for the company. Every week, when we receive the new scripts, we salivate - like the shows fans - because we are excited to see what the writers have conjured up next. And we also enjoy challenging ourselves to see if we can fulfill those challenges.

As they perfected their practical creature FX work over the first three seasons of the series, MastersFX, working from studios based in both LA and Vancouver, was already developing techniques to better integrate their work along with modern digital visual effects. During Season Three of Falling Skies, MastersFX began to add its unique digital process to the series with the company's creation of the Volm alien race.

During Season Four, the facility is expanding use of its dMFX process to include other alien characters as well. Said Masters, Even the most unruly critters were somehow engineered to believably arrive on set; the 12-foot-tall alien Overlord characters were created at actual size and lensed in-situ, in motion, as portrayed by real actors on leg extensions. Later, to depict the creature's demeanor, we integrated expressive alien eyes and emotive facial features by using our dMFX process during postproduction.

By incorporating the company's unique dMFX process, MastersFX can mix their decades of on-set know-how with the flexibility and control of several digital techniques. We like to think of ourselves as representing the next era of monster-making, Masters states. Our dMFX process allows us to integrate more traditional creature and character FX techniques with high-end tracking, photo processing and performance transfer, to solve monster problems for our clients, in a highly efficient way. Achieving great characters for commercials or producing interesting new creatures for film and television is no longer just for big budgeted projects.

Andr Bustanoby, visual effects supervisor within the dMFX Division, adds, As artists, working in both make-up and visual effects, we prefer to embrace any tool or technique appropriate when helping our clients tell compelling stories. In Falling Skies for example, the alien characters are a unique amalgam of techniques, built by our studio between our make-up and digital divisions, thus sharing the same artistic direction and goals. One mind, one monster. With too many cooks in the kitchen, the effective depiction of unique characters can get easily out of control or lose design cohesion. At the end of the day, helping create an organic, relatable character, in service to the story is paramount.

We have the ability to take advantage of all the artistry of the sculptors, lighters, cameraman, and actors on-set, and then extend their capabilities, says Johnathan Banta, senior visual Effects supervisor within the dMFX Division.

The most popular new alien character from Falling Skies is Cochise, introduced to the series at the beginning of Season Three. Cochise is a warrior of the Volm alien race, portrayed by actor Doug Jones. Jones - known for his portrayal of Hellboys Abe Sapien, and Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four films, as well as the character Faun in Guillermo del Toros multi-Oscar-winning fantasy/horror project Pans Labyrinth - has also performed as several other members of the Volm species, even playing his own father in last seasons finale.

By integrating the company's dMFX process, MastersFX prides itself on helping to embellish Jones performance - actually allowing him to drive the digital enhancements of his Volm characters. The dMFX system analyzes the actors original performance - tracking the precise on-set movements of Jones --and then super-sizes it with proprietary methods. The MastersFX team then blends together the on-set prosthetics, Jones performance, and the digital enhancements crafted in post.

Regarding this digital makeup FX process, Jones says, The character of Cochise, which I portray in Falling Skies,' is a combo platter of both practical and digital techniques, all under the MastersFX umbrella. I always prefer to wear prosthetic make-ups on-set when I'm playing other-worldly characters - this allows for normal interaction with the other actors in each scene, since they are able to talk with this alien character during a scene. Over the years, I've also noticed that wearing prosthetic make-ups actually affects my posture and gestures, and makes me move and react differently.

MastersFX delivers Jones character to the physical set in all of its camera-ready alien glory, with fully detailed practical prosthetics - created fresh every morning by the company's Vancouver team, led by Creature Art Director Werner Pretorius and on-set Makeup Artists Felix Fox and Maiko Gomyo. Even though the practical version of Cochise is limited in movement, Jones character appears perfect on-set in every detail. This is done so that other actors can better rel

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