Hello
Thing
.
We had the actual actor, Victor, on set at all times.
Actual filming process was,
it's just like working with another actor.
You're reacting and he's speaking.
He's signing.
Thing is a classic character in the Addams Family canon.
The first phone call I had with Tim,
he wanted Thing to be derived from an actor, a performer.
So we set out to find us an actor who could do the part.
Somebody who had the right look to the hands,
who had nimble fingers, was able to do all of these moves.
Also, they had to be young enough
and supple enough to fit in very awkward situations.
Victor's a magician by trade.
That's what he does.
That's how he makes his living.
He's never been an actor.
So we brought him in and we started
doing rehearsals with him to see what he could do
and to show him what worked with a walk
and what didn't work with a walk.
And that first scene he kinda really nailed.
It's pretty hard to create from start to end.
Even the way he talks, it's pretty hard
to find movements that can express feelings.
I'm not above breaking a few fingers.
For example, in love or angry.
Everything is pretty hard when you do it with a real actor.
Yes, and serial killers.
With Jenna, she accepted it really quickly
that she's talking to a hand.
I know I'm stubborn, single minded and obsessive.
It honestly wasn't difficult at all.
It was more so difficult where if I had to interact with him
and I had to pretend he was there and hold nothing.
Did you really think my highly trained olfactory sense
wouldn't pick up on the faint whiff
of Neroli and Bergamot in your favorite hand lotion?
I could do this all day.
On set you have to prepare with the VFX guys.
They have to see what angle do they use,
how is Thing positioning, find ways to hide Thing.
For example, under the bed.
"Hey, I can't fit under the bed,
let's make a hole in the floor."
"Hey, I can't fit under the floor,
let's raise the whole building in the air,
so put him under the floor."
We would need to do the CG thing as well.
But only when pretty much everything else failed.
I think the tedious part about it
was they had to use a ball and chart for special effects.
So every single setup we did
someone would have to come in with a gray ball,
silver ball, chip chart with all these colors.
And that is when we would kinda slow down
in our days a bit.
We're going to see Galpin.
I'm not stop...
Well you've got a hand on set and he's acting.
And normally, when you talk about a paint out
in visual effects, "Oh yeah, a paint out is easy."
But we're painting out 90% of the human being
that's dominating the shot,
and keeping the 10% that's the hand.
It's actually very hard to do.
It's slow for the crew, 'cause they have to light it
in such a way that Victor's not casting shadows.
So there's a lot that goes into doing it.
This isn't weird at all.
The VFX guys, me,
we all tried to make a teamwork for Thing
and what it ended up looking like, it's awesome.
0.5x - Slower
0.75x - Slow
1.0x - Normal
You might also like these videos
If you enjoy using our custom video player, why not join thousands of subscribers who have signed up to our free weekly lessons?