Article by Estelle Shay

It took more than 400 gallons of fake blood and hundreds of severed limb and decapitation gags to supply the grist for Quentin Tarantino's stylish revenge tale Kill Bill Vol. 1 and its sequel Kill Bill Vol. 2. KNB EFX Group, frequent contributors to Tarantino's films, accepted the grisly assignment with enthusiasm and delight.

Though six months separated the releases of the original Kill Bill and its sequel, both movies were shot simultaneously -- Tarantino having initially envisioned them as one before deciding, in the eleventh hour, to split the story into two parts. For KNB, that translated into a monumental effort, begun in June 2002 after just a few weeks of prep, when KNB supervisor and co-founder Howard Berger, along with Chris Nelson and Jake McKinnon, joined the production in Beijing, China. The five-week location shoot soon turned into fourteen, followed by six months of filming on soundstages in Los Angeles, during which time Berger found himself on set nearly every day. "We handled all of the gore and body chops in the first film, which involved hundreds and hundreds of gags -- and none of them were digital," Berger recalled. "Quentin said: 'I don't want to do any computer animation stuff. I want it all to be live, in-camera.' That was a huge task for us. We'd walk on the set, and the stunt team, the actors and Quentin would run through the action for that morning. We'd watch it, and from that learn what we had to do. 'OK, this guy gets his arm cut off, these five guys get their legs cut off, and there's a decapitation.' Then we would have to chop-chop and put together whatever we could."

Electromagnet technology, adapted by Berger, proved especially useful whenever the action called for limbs and heads to be severed during the bloody swordfights. Berger and his crew made fiberglass cup sections that attached to the actors. These held magnets that were hooked to a power source, with a battery and trigger switch. They then fashioned fake limbs containing metal pieces that would bond to the magnets when the electricity was turned on. When the crew killed the power, the limbs would fall off. "We did a lot of those gags," recalled Berger. "Everything was a magnet -- legs, arms, head, torso. We even did some full standing bodies with electromagnets -- we'd hit the button, and the thing would collapse realistically."

Tarantino insisted on a practical approach even in instances where CG seemed the logical choice. For a sequence in Vol. 1, where Viper assassin O-Ren Ishi (Lucy Liu) loses the top of her head to Uma Thurman's saber-wielding Bride, Berger and his crew took a casting of Liu's head, then sculpted an appliance that took advantage of forced perspective. "It was tapered from the front, almost like a pyramid, then fanned out as it went farther back on her head," explained Berger. "It was a very slim piece, because we didn't want to make it look like Lucy had a Frankenstein head." KNB rigged the appliance with blood and applied it to the actress' head. Specific camera angles on the appliance further sold the illusion.

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While Kill Bill Vol. 1 was all gore and gruesome battle scenes, Kill Bill Vol. 2 -- different in tone and style -- offered a variety of makeup design challenges for KNB. "There's a sequence in the second film," Berger explained, "where the Bride gets buried alive and takes on a look we called 'dirt girl.' She had to look beautiful, yet filthy. Quentin kept going back to the green dancing girl from the Star Trek TV show, saying: 'She was green, but still sexy. That's what I want -- something that's sci-fi, but real.'" After numerous tests, KNB finally hit upon a look that involved a combination of creams to protect Thurman's skin, mixed with fuller's earth and chocolate Rice Krispies, painted on with tattoo colors to heighten certain areas. The makeup was applied initially by Berger, then later by Thurman's makeup artist, Ilona Herman.

KNB also designed makeups for Gordon Liu as kung fu master Pai Mei, and for Michael Parks, who switches roles in the second film to play an 80-year-old whorehouse pimp. For Michael Madsen -- whose character, Budd, is bitten in the face by a deadly black mamba -- KNB built and puppeteered several mechanical snakes on set, then devised three stages of makeup for the actor, depicting the grisly effects of the venom.

For Vol. 2's action centerpiece -- an all-out catfight between the Bride and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) -- KNB had to do some quick thinking when Tarantino decided to alter the sequence just before it was due to be shot. "Originally," said Berger, "there was going to be this whole big swordfight outside a trailer, sort of Samurai Lone Wolf fashion. One of the two characters gets sliced in the neck, and you see the blood spraying out, almost like you were holding down a can of red spray paint. Then the camera pulls back, and we see that it's Daryl.

"We were prepped and ready to shoot; but then, Quentin came in the next day and said: 'I had a dream last night, and I want to change the whole sequence. Daryl's not going to get it that way.' When you're working with Quentin, you have to be on point the whole time. It makes you work that much harder."

Despite the occasional surprises, Berger wouldn't have traded the experience for anything. "This was one of the most fun projects I've ever been on," Berger concluded. "Working with Quentin is really an amazing experience because he pushes and pushes you. It's not out of ego, or not knowing what he wants. He pushes you because he wants you to do your best -- to do as good a job as he's doing."





 

Compiled by Joe Fordham

  • The Polar Express: Variety states that producer Steve Bing has made "one of the boldest moves ever taken by an independent producer" and personally invested $80 million -- reportedly half of the film's production budget -- in Robert Zemeckis' upcoming children's fantasy film. Adapted from Christian Van Allsburg's Caldecott Medal-winning storybook about a boy who is whisked away on a magical steam engine to meet with Santa Claus at the North Pole, the film is being computer generated by Sony Pictures Imageworks from motion-captured performances of Tom Hanks and others, as illustrated in the teaser trailer here. The film will be arriving in theaters, from Warner Brothers and Castle Rock, November 19.

  • The Lovely Bones: Variety reports Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are in talks to adapt this 2002 debut novel by Alice Sebold after their current project, King Kong, is completed. The story is narrated from the afterlife by 14-year-old Susie Salmon, victim of a violent rape and murder, who keeps watch over her bereaved family, the serial killer who brought about her death and the detective investigating her case. Film rights to Sebold's book are reportedly controlled by British production company FilmFour and producer Aimée Peyronnet. There is no word yet of a distributor, and the deal with Peter Jackson and partners is not final.

  • Fox Visual Effects: Twentieth Century Fox is forming its own in-house visual effects department, according to the studio's president of physical production, Joe Hartwick. In an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Hartwick is quoted as saying: "Most of the films have some visual effects component. Such a major part of the business is getting ahead of the marketing of movies, that now we're also helping in the early coordination so we can make sure the elements necessary to deliver early are properly addressed and done." Fox's original special photographic effects department, under Fred Sersen and L.B. Abbott, provided miniature and optical effects for 40 years, for such films as The Day the Earth Stood Still, Cleopatra, Tora! Tora! Tora! and The Poseidon Adventure. In 1997, Fox rekindled its interest in visual effects, acquiring VIFX and Blue Sky Studios. Blue Sky remains part of Fox Filmed Entertainment as a digital animation studio.

  • The Village: Click here for an Apple.com presentation of an extremely atmospheric, and, thankfully, not too revealing, teaser trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming Touchstone Pictures release, about strange goings-on in the woods of rural Pennsylvania in 1897. All will be revealed July 30.

  • Watchmen: AICN reports that screenwriter David Hayter will not be directing his adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel, but will hand over the reins to Darren Aronofsky, who plans to tackle the project after completing his science fiction epic The Fountain.

  • The Lord of the Rings: Click here if you wish to add another boxed set of Middle-earth fare to your creaking DVD shelf -- this time with the complete Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, available May 25. Sauron only knows how they will package the three extended editions -- in a commemorative wheelbarrow, perhaps?

  • Spielberg Projects: Variety reports Steven Spielberg is courting Ben Kingsley to star in a feature based on the terrorist standoff at the 1972 Olympic Games. The screenplay by Eric Roth is, as yet, untitled, but Spielbergfilms.com indicates it is based on the 1985 nonfiction book by author George Jonas, Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team. Spielberg is reportedly scouting European locations for a June start date. Variety also states that the filmmaker has tentatively lined up his next two projects after this one -- tackling Robin Swicord's screenplay The Rivals, about a feud between 19th-century stage actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse, for Dreamworks, and then David Koepp's adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise, for Paramount and Dreamworks.

  • Flash Gordon: IGN and Cinescape report director Stephen Sommers will next be turning his attention to Alex Raymond's pulpy science fiction space rocketeer, Flash Gordon. The report indicates that Universal Pictures -- which produced three Flash Gordon serials, starring Buster Crabbe, between 1936 and 1940 -- is behind the project, and Ronald Shusett is developing the screenplay.

  • Henson/MGM: VFXWorld reports that The Jim Henson Company and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have signed a two-year deal to produce live-action films. This follows the successful Henson/MGM collaboration on the 2003 comedy release Good Boy!, about a boy who discovers his dog is an extra-terrestrial spaceship pilot, despite the canine's lack of opposable thumbs. For more details, click here.

  • Alien vs. Predator: Click here for glimpses of filming and a tour of Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated, in the company of creature effects creators Tom Woodruff and Alex Gillis. Armies of xenomorphs and alien attackers, some new derivations and hydraulic puppets, will be slugging it out this August in director Paul W. Anderson's franchise mix-'em-up for Twentieth Century Fox.

  • The Incredibles: Click here for the first glimpse of Walt Disney Pictures' and Pixar Animation Studio's upcoming CG comedy, directed by Brad Bird -- displaying a new use for a superhero utility belt.

  • Delgo: Digital animation facility Fathom Studios has announced that Freddie Prinze, Jr. will provide the voice of the title character in this CG-animated fantasy adventure about a young boy in a peaceful race of reptilian creatures which is threatened by its war-like neighbors. Directed by Marc Adler and Jason Maurer, produced by Fathom and Electric Eye Corporation, the film also includes the voices of Jennifer Love Hewitt, Anne Bancroft, Val Kilmer, Michael Clarke Duncan, Chris Kattan, Kelly Ripa, Eric Idle, Burt Reynolds, Malcolm McDowell and Louis Gossett, Jr. Fathom has indicated that a distributor for the film will be determined in the next few months. Click here to access the trailer and view work in progress at the studio.





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