Creature Suit Analysis - Part 2 - Under the Fur

[Bill]

Drew:

It's been a long time since I had anything to do with commercial wigs, but as I recall, Dynel was one of the better synthetics that had an opacity and sheen closer to real hair and thus produced a more "natural" looking wig.

If it's a suit in the PG film, and artificial fur was used, that artificial fur could very well have been dynel. I believe that was used about that time, for some of the higher grade artificial furs, for the guard hair (the outer long hair, not the shorter more fuzzy base fur).

But I personally wouldn't put a lot of emphasis on the sheen of any hairpiece as compared to the sheen of the fur in the PG film, because both real fur (whether pelts on a suit or the real fur of a live creature) and good synthetics were around then.

The factor of sun angle, plus any potential moisture on the fur/hair would impact on the apparent sheen in the PG film.

Does this answer your question?

Bill

[Drew]

Does this answer your question?

Bill

Yes,

To follow up with a different question. As a special FX/Costume guy, Would the extreme magnification of the subject, needed to get a good look at it, in the film make potential flaws more pronounced or less pronounced? I want to ask because if a director gives you a shot list, and some of the scenes are farther away than others, would the same level detail in preperation be needed for the farther shots?

[Bill]

Drew:

Keep in mind when you're first hired to build the suit, it's weeks, ideally months, before any filming, so the director may not yet have a shot list as such.

Generally we just classify a suit as being one of the following:

a hero suit - great for closeups, obviously the one we invest the most time in.

An extra suit - a relatively cheaper suit for background characters, not intented for closeup inspection, so less detail and less cost.

a stunt suit - specifically intended for a stunt person to wear for a specific "gag" (a stunt), such as a fire burn, a high fall, etc. Some special considerations may cause us to redesign the suit to avoid potentially unsafe elements. Example, a high fall suit shouldn't have any metal in it (no arm extension mechanics, fiberglass substructure shells, nothing that could pierce or stab the stunt player on impact after falling, or in one rare case of my work, an animal trainer/stunt player working with a real lion (and made up with face mask to resemple a principle actor) insisted he would not wear the mask unless I glued it with absolute security to his face, because he could not risk his head turning around inside the mask and losing his vision, because his control over the lion was based on watching it every second. Any body gestures of a vision impared helpless person would potentially prompt the lion to turn on him and take control, possibly attacking him.

A specialty suit - designed to do some specialized thing, be seen in some specific shot from some specific camera angle, etc.

Aside from the intended use, above, there is the consideration of degree of support on set, especially with a fur suit, to groom it. I wouldn't do a design that's high quality and high maintainance on set if I wasn't assured my crew and I could have constant close acces to provide that high maintainance. Kind of pointless.

All of these considerations do factor into how a suit is built. But a designer who values his reputation as an artist generally pushes for highest quality (and budget for same) because if you build it on the cheap, with the producer's assurance "it's just for this one shot, real far away, running away from us. No big deal" and you build it cheap and undetailed, somebody later might still see a closeup of it, and start saying "well I saw what he did in that film, and it wasn't very good".

Everyone of us have likely been bitten in the proverbial ass by a producer assuring us "it doesn't have to be great so help me out here money-wise" and then when it's filmed extensively in close up and looks poor, you get blamed for delivering shoddy work. And trying to tell people "but the producer only wanted. . ." doesn't do much to correct the perception that you're not very talented, because your suit wasn't that good.

Some of the underlying dynamics we consider when taking on a job.

Bill

[Drew]

Bill-

Do you think the distance of the subject from the camera, creates an illusion of a 'great' suit, do you think that the perfect suit is partially a product of the extreme magnification of the subject? In other words, could there be identifiers on the suit that just don't show up because of the distance and the lens used to film it?

Edited January 14, 2008 by Drew

[Bill]

Drew:

Image resolution and clarity when increased or decreased is a double edge sword, from my experience. Using a higher resolution film, and finer grain, and more stable camera mount, to get a better picture, can result in seeing a higher degree of quality or realism, or result in seeing a higher degree of flaws and clutter. I've been a photographer for about 45 years and a photoshop user for 10, and I constantly enlarge and reduce images, and examine them at varying degrees of resolution. As resolution is increased, some images get "better", some "worse". Same for shrinking an image. Some get better (in their compositional impact) and others lose their charm.

So to speculate on what we might see if Patterson had a 35mm camera, on a tripod, instead of a 16mm hand held, can be either "more proof of realism" or "more flaws in the suit". The higher resolution would surely tell us something, but I can't say it would tell us more real truth or more false exposure. I think we'd have more hi res photographic data to settle the issue, but I can't predict which way the settled issue would go.

So, yes, I suppose, if it were a suit, the lower res filming would hide some indicators of a suit. But In my photoshop work, I have occasionally tried to retouch a photo to remove something (a cage wire mesh for a photo of a bird, so it looked uncaged, as one example) and even when I had 90 percent of the cage wire lines removed, there were enough artifacts lft to suggest a wire pattern.

So I look at Patty's back, and try to see any zipper seam, and even at the lower film resolution of the PG film, I don't see any artifact in the image suggesting there's anything down that back but a spine and musculature.

Bill

[Guest]

Drew:

Image resolution and clarity when increased or decreased is a double edge sword, from my experience. Using a higher resolution film, and finer grain, and more stable camera mount, to get a better picture, can result in seeing a higher degree of quality or realism, or result in seeing a higher degree of flaws and clutter. I've been a photographer for about 45 years and a photoshop user for 10, and I constantly enlarge and reduce images, and examine them at varying degrees of resolution. As resolution is increased, some images get "better", some "worse". Same for shrinking an image. Some get better (in their compositional impact) and others lose their charm.

So to speculate on what we might see if Patterson had a 35mm camera, on a tripod, instead of a 16mm hand held, can be either "more proof of realism" or "more flaws in the suit". The higher resolution would surely tell us something, but I can't say it would tell us more real truth or more false exposure. I think we'd have more hi res photographic data to settle the issue, but I can't predict which way the settled issue would go.

So, yes, I suppose, if it were a suit, the lower res filming would hide some indicators of a suit. But In my photoshop work, I have occasionally tried to retouch a photo to remove something (a cage wire mesh for a photo of a bird, so it looked uncaged, as one example) and even when I had 90 percent of the cage wire lines removed, there were enough artifacts lft to suggest a wire pattern.

So I look at Patty's back, and try to see any zipper seam, and even at the lower film resolution of the PG film, I don't see any artifact in the image suggesting there's anything down that back but a spine and musculature.

Bill

Hi Bill,

Good stuff again. You mentioned the line down Patty's back looking like spine and muscle as opposed to a zipper. But have you put the zipper down the back on your past creations and or is that where the zipper would normally be placed on more advanced suits aka movie suits?

Thanx again

KTB

[Bill]

KTB

The zipper down the back is a general "default" position, on the assumption the suit will generally be photographed from the front or side, moreso than from the back.

We can in fact put zippers on the side or front, but I personally have never had such a request in my work, and don't know of any other suits ordered that way, except for the front-seamed version of Gort the Robot in Day The Earth Stood Still (for shots where Gort is walking away from camera).

So if Patty's a suit and the seams were put somewhere other than the back, I would think it points to a highly profesional endeavor with specific plans on how it would be filmed. And then that brings up the question of the breasts, and why you'd put them on a suit designed well to look good only from the back?

Bill

[Guest]

KTB

The zipper down the back is a general "default" position, on the assumption the suit will generally be photographed from the front or side, moreso than from the back.

We can in fact put zippers on the side or front, but I personally have never had such a request in my work, and don't know of any other suits ordered that way, except for the front-seamed version of Gort the Robot in Day The Earth Stood Still (for shots where Gort is walking away from camera).

So if Patty's a suit and the seams were put somewhere other than the back, I would think it points to a highly profesional endeavor with specific plans on how it would be filmed. And then that brings up the question of the breasts, and why you'd put them on a suit designed well to look good only from the back?

Bill

Thanx for the reply Bill. Exactly my thoughts as I was reading your previous post.

Unless of course the seem is positioned on the back and then hidden in such a way to look like a spine and the padding in the "suit" positioned to make the inner lat muscles look like they're meeting at the spine. Thus hiding the seem under fake muscle and fur. But I'm sure this thought has been brought to the table before. And I'm guessing again that this would take some advanced knowledge that the film makers P and G just didnt have.

Which brings me to my next point. Its been brought out many times that the muscle on Patty seemingly moves fluidly when in motion. In fact its been pointed out in some frames her outer quads actually seem to flex. I'd have to say even today most know little about the human anatomy let alone the forethought to incorporate that kind of musculature into a suit. So if in fact this were a suit and I use a big "if", then someone with a good or at least relative understanding of muscle tone and flexion had to have had a hand in this. Again I say this in the context of "if in fact it were a suit".

KTB

[Guest rams]

Re the Roe sketch. It was done by Roe's daughter and given to John Green.

In a thread way back when, someone confirmed with John Green that the sketch was kept in a file and not published until after the PGF film was taken, and that Patterson could not have seen it prior to the film. (perhaps someone with better search skills could find that thread).

That being said, there was a well known drawing done in Field and Stream I believe prior to the PGF showing a breasted sasquatch. The drawing was published in Sanderson's ABSM book in the early 60's.

Edited January 16, 2008 by rams

[Guest yetifan]

rams wrote:

That being said, there was a well known drawing done in Field and Stream I believe prior to the PGF showing a breasted sasquatch. The drawing was published in Sanderson's ABSM book in the early 60's.

The year before the PGF was shot, in his book "Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?" on pg. 91, Patterson just basically copied that drawing (the one shown directly above). Looking at them here at home, there are enough differences to rule out a direct tracing....left arm angle variation, background differences. Anyone here have a photocopy of it to show? I don't have a scanner.

Edited January 16, 2008 by Yetifan

[Guest MANGLER]

Yeti,

m

[Guest rams]

A drawing from Patterson's book-So the sequence is The Sanderson Book illustration in my first post, the original Kunstler drawing in Mangler's, and finally one of Patterson's 1966 drawings . (not sure if this is the one yetifan is referring to)

Edited January 16, 2008 by rams

[Guest]

Mort Kunstler, the illustrator from which RP had the copy made is a surprisingly influential illustrator, working until just a few years ago. I wish we could have asked him his feelings on what appears to be a bit of the old plagarism;

If interested, here's his bio from his website.

http://www.mortkunstler.net/biography.htm

[Guest yetifan]

So, directly below, you can see Kunstler's drawing from Sanderson's 1961 book.

Below that is Patterson's drawing from his 1966 book. (thanks to Mangler)

Clearly not a direct tracing...some variations, but very similar.

Edited January 16, 2008 by Yetifan

[Guest JohnWS]

He missed a pine tree .

-------------------------

There are perhaps some interesting similar details in the sketch & the frame posted. I particularly like the little flap of skin second from top (circle). A cursory glance through my artists' anatomy book & a few art & nature books don't seem to show that.....

Edit to remove stray word.

Edited January 16, 2008 by JohnWS