Editor’s note: To uncover the FX secrets of TRUE BLOOD, Fangoria.com engaged legendary FX artist Steve Johnson (GHOSTBUSTERS, SPECIES, THE ABYSS, etc.), who spoke with his friends at MastersFX, the studio he also serves as a consultant for.

It’s an early evening in the studio where HBO’s popular supernatural series TRUE BLOOD is being shot, when an ear-piercing scream interrupts the quiet summer tranquility. Contrary to the usual reaction one would expect to such a sound, no one blinks an eye. It’s pretty much business as usual on a series in which staking, decapitation, full-body immolation and numerous other forms of graphic violence are all in a day’s work.

Most of the aforementioned mayhem (as noted in the exclusive pics here) is engineered by the team at MastersFX, whose ground-breaking makeup work have been seen in such series as TALES FROM THE CRYPT, SIX FEET UNDER and FRINGE. On this particular evening, we’ve managed to corral four key members of that team—including MastersFX owner Todd Masters; TRUE BLOOD FX producer Dan Rebert; MastersFX visual FX supervisor Andre Bustanoby; and coordinator Mark Vinniello—for a rare interview about their contributions to TRUE BLOOD, which enters its fourth season this summer. Punctuated by the occasional unexplained scream of course…

STEVE JOHNSON: Is there such a thing as too gory?

DAN REBERT: A lot of times, in production meetings we toss ideas around. The writers and creators of the show lean on us for input, asking what we can do with a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time. And I’m often told that what I’m pitching is too gory. The producers laugh it off and joke around, tell me I’m sick. But one of our biggest effects on the show was when Bill [Stephen Moyer] is having sex with Lorena [Maria Klaveno]. In the middle of it all, he reaches forward, grabs her head, twists her neck and snaps it. He twists her head all the way around backward and continues having sex with her. That’s probably one of the most graphic, horrific things that I’ve ever been asked to create—and they wrote it! And these writers and producers tell me I’m sick?

JOHNSON: Todd, this show is quite reminiscent of DARK SHADOWS. It’s Gothic, it’s melodramatic; you’ve got forbidden desires, werewolves and vampires. But if you were directing or producing, what would you add to it?

TODD MASTERS: I’d like to see them push the envelope even further. The stuff that Dan and the shop are doing is just amazing and it seems to be a big of interest to the fans. There are lots of water cooler moments in this show, regardless of the effects; it’s just the kind of show that you want people to talk about. But moments like Lorena’s head twisting, that to me is the fun and games of the show.

JOHNSON: With film vs. television, how do you meet those schedules, on what has to be a tighter budget?

MARK VINNIELLO: Dan has often said that working on TRUE BLOOD is like doing a film every two weeks, and the expectation for such a quality show is to maintain that level of quality. One of the things that has helped us out is that a lot of the materials available now weren’t available 10 or even five years ago.

JOHNSON: Vampires in a box.

VINNIELLO: A lot of it is just Dan and I working together and having open lines of communication with production. We’re now in season four of TRUE BLOOD, and over the course of three seasons, we’ve all been trained to know when the big effects are going to happen and how to plan for it best within the schedule. So that helps too.

JOHNSON: To me (and maybe some of the more sophisticated audience members), it’s obvious that there’s a lot of digital/practical overlap. How do you approach designing the effects that way?

ANDRE BUSTANOBY: We work with and in tandem with visual effects supervisor Jon Massey and Zoic, who creates the visual effects, taking what’s on set, thru compositing and postproduction. What’s unique and very fun for all of us is that we’re involved early enough, reading the scripts, engaging the writers and talking to [creator] Alan Ball and the directors not just about shot design, but also how to sell the effect as a story point and what techniques to use. We’re not saying, “Is it best done physically or digitally?” Often it’s together, so you leverage the best of both. As the viewer, you don’t know which technique is being used, but you don’t care; it just looks great. To prove many of these ideas, we often shoot full tests with our team, here in the shop.

JOHNSON: How did you come up with your design for the vampire teeth?

REBERT: I can give you the exact answer for that. What had happened was way before we even did the pilot, like two months before, Alan called and asked Todd and I to go down to his office to discuss the look of the vampires. He wanted to talk to us first and foremost, because Alan’s not an UNDERWORLD guy. He doesn’t really get that stuff. A lot of things that makeup effects guys think look cool, he just thinks it’s downright silly. He wanted to make sure that we were starting off with the feel of what he wanted. And he actually told us a model movie to watch. He said, “How I want TRUE BLOOD to come off in terms of feel is a movie called JUNEBUG.” I hadn’t heard of JUNEBUG, so I watched and was like, “What the hell is this? I don’t see vampires in this at all!” But I understood where he was going with it. He wanted to tune everything down.

What Todd and I did, was put together a book of different ideas: teeth designs, we showed them designs with veins; with lenses; all that stuff. And Alan responded to what he wanted. He wanted a really minimalist approach. What he really did like, and one of the producers who called me up and asked me to come down to this meeting, said, “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to give you a little precursor. What Alan really wants to see is a new teeth design.” The first thing that came into my head was, I’d never seen vampire teeth like a rattlesnake teeth. You know, like teeth that basically unfold from the inside of the mouth. And we brought down tons of pictures of different teeth designs, and I did a Photoshop on [MastersFX artist] Sam Polin down there of the teeth folding out like switchblades. The great thing about the eyeteeth is a false front that actually folds into the gum. And it’s a really cool look.

JOHNSON: That is actually the most unique vampire idea I’ve heard in a long time.

REBERT: I designed that on Polin’s eyeteeth, because that’s just where they visually fit best for him. My idea initially was to put the teeth on the canines, depending on the actor’s mouth. But Alan Ball saw the Photoshop and said, “This is what I want; I’m on board with the whole snake idea!” And that’s what we went with out of that meeting. We want something really neat and original for the teeth, and everything else is pretty much human.

TO BE CONTINUED

---

MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features