Mike Elizalde is the monster-enthusiast who founded Spectral Motion, the studio that spawned the fantastic creatures seen in Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Stranger Things, and Netflix’s revival of Lost in Space.
I spoke with Mike about the creative process behind memorable creature design, prosthetics vs. CGI, and sexually suggestive robots.
How would you describe what Spectral Motion does?
We’re a multitiered creative studio. When we first started, our primary focus was prosthetic makeup and creature effects, but that has grown into other areas, like theme park animatronics and fine art installation. It’s an artistic science studio, let’s say.
How did you get into this industry?
I’ve always been fascinated by movie monsters. I served in the US Navy for eight years, and during that time I was reading about special effects, teaching myself the techniques needed to do that kind of work.
So when my time in the Navy came to a close, I sent pictures of my work to special effect studios in L.A. and found a studio that was hiring new talent pretty quickly. That was how my career began, and I’ve been working in the industry now for just over thirty years.
What’s it like for people entering the industry these days?
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. It’s easier to reach out to companies with the advent of the internet, and there’s a lot more interest in the kind of work we do. But it’s become tougher, because there are so many more people who want to get into it, compared to when I first started.
We’re also seeing a bit of a streamline mentality. I think there’s been a kind of backlash effect from shows like Face Off, that present prosthetic makeup processes as something that can be done in three days. It’s really not like that. You have to spend time developing, learning about the character that you’re creating, and that takes time.
What is it about monsters that you find appealing?
One of the first films I ever saw was Frankenstein, the 1931 version by James Whale. It’s a beautiful film. The monster in that story is very misunderstood, he’s kind of the victim, but is perceived as the fiend in the film. And as a child, that really spoke to me. It was a very powerful experience – I felt sorry for the creature. It’s been the key inspiration for me pursuing a career creating movie monsters.
I love the sympathetic aspect of what a monster is. Not necessarily the creature in Alien, where it’s a malicious animal trying to kill people, but a multifaceted personality that tells a beautiful story. That’s what’s always fascinated me about monsters in films.
Do you prefer working on films where the monster has a personality, as opposed to just being a vicious force?
Actually, no. As I’ve developed in the industry, the fun comes from creating the thing, building it and watching it come to life. The narrative is all over the map. But when we do happen to work on a movie where the audience is supposed to empathize with the creature, then that can be really special. Like Hellboy, to us, was a very special project.
Hellboy is the monster, but he is also the hero. He has heart, soul, a reason to exist. That’s very powerful.
What did you think of The Shape of Water?
I thought it was beautiful. It was a very interesting film that broke a lot of rules, very bold and courageous for Guillermo [Del Toro] to make some of the choices that he did. When it won the Academy Award for Best Picture – to me that was a really important milestone for all of us in this industry, because the story was driven by the relationship between the girl and the monster. If we can see more films that have that kind of heart and soul inside the genre, I think the genre can be elevated across the board. Instead of being relegated to B-movies, now we’re looking at world-class monster movies that have great stories.
What’s the general process behind creating a monster?
First, we break down the script, we look at all the pages that contain a description of the monster. Then we start building visuals based on those descriptions – illustrations, 3D designs on the computer, sculptures, and then the final approval comes from the sculpture. Then, we build the character around the actor. And that’s a very important aspect of what we do. The actors who perform in these creature suits are very impressive people. Not only do they have to act, emote and sell the narrative, but they’re also working under very challenging conditions – they’re essentially wearing a giant wetsuit with a hood under their head. Their senses are deprived and yet they manage to deliver these compelling presentations of the character.
And the performer’s ability to move, to act, to strike poses, is a very important part of the design process. We have several fittings leading up to principal photography, where we ask the actors to strike extreme poses, to make sure they’re not inhibited, and that they’re as comfortable as possible. That’s a big part of the engineering process.
What kind of background do the Spectral Motion employees usually come from?
Our employees are all over the map. With any variety of creative discipline, we have typically tapped into somebody who is an expert in those skills. So we hire illustrators, sculptors, painters, fabric designers, tailors, and seamstresses. So many great minds come together in this place and create special things.
Is there a certain style that Spectral Motion adheres to? Would somebody be able to recognize your monsters specifically?
The look of the monsters really depends on the director and the team – it’s a very collaborative process. I would say that Spectral Motion’s signature is movement. We have a very talented mechanical design team led by Mark Setrakian, who has quite a unique mind.
Mark approaches design from the movement aspect first, so that the performance is what drives the design. He has an ability to make things appear organic and fluid – that’s something that sets us apart from everybody else.
Even if a creature has an anatomy that is unrecognizable, it still has to have elements within that anatomy that ring true. It has to have a skeletal system, a muscular system, sensory systems. It’s all part of creating the illusion of life. All of these subconscious ideas we have of what makes something look real has to be in our design, otherwise we’re not going to succeed in convincing the audience that they are looking at something alive.
The key to creating a design that will be remembered, I think, is to come up with something that comes from deep recesses of the mind, where others are afraid to look. H.R. Giger [designer of the Xenomorph] is one of those courageous people who really took the deepest nightmares he had, and made them real. The Xenomorph will always be the pinnacle of what a design can be, and for us, it’s always a great inspiration.
Tell me about your work on Stranger Things.
We worked closely with one of my colleagues, Aaron Sims, who came up with the design of the Demogorgon prior to our involvement. Once we became involved, our job was to dial in the plausibility of putting this onto an actor. Initially, the creature was designed to be purely CGI, and it evolved into a practical effect, thanks largely to the Duffer Brothers. So in the series, you’ll see the Demogorgon as a digitally enhanced physical performance.
Aaron [Sims] designs a lot of his creatures without a face, without eyes. Which to him is a deeply frightening thing, because there’s no way to relate to it. You can’t communicate or reason with it – it’s simply there to kill you.
Is the use of animatronics and makeup rising, or is CGI the preferred medium?
We’ve finally got to a place where they are complementing each other very well. We did experience somewhat of a beat where filmmakers were kind of ignoring the practical aspects of special effects and relying very heavily on CGI. I think they learned that that wasn’t really a good formula, because audiences can dissect something pretty quickly if they see it too often.
Now, we’ve seen a rise in the demand for practical effects. Every time we have a meeting with a new director, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, “I want to do this as practically as possible, with CGI enhancements where they’re needed.” And that’s become the new formula.
We had a very successful outing with the new Netflix show Lost in Space – we created the robot for that series. And most of what you see there is practical – there are some CGI versions of the robot, but I think 80-85% of it is practical.
But the suit does have CGI enhancements – you can see right through the robot in some areas. They’re deleting parts of the actor, to fool your mind into believing you are seeing an actual machine.
Some people seem to find the Lost in Space robot physically attractive – was that intentional?
[Laughs]. I think that was a byproduct of the synergy that exists between the performer, Brian Steele, a very tall, handsome guy, and the design of the robot, which is anthropomorphic, and had some very appealing elements to it.
In particular, the back end of the robot was a hot topic of discussion. I don’t know if we intended to make it sexy, exactly, but it sure came out that way.
Where do your artists get their inspiration from?
The old saying, “standing on the shoulders of giants,” is very true here. We get inspiration from contemporary artists, all the way back to the Renaissance. Like the fifteenth century painter Hieronymus Bosch – no one had ever seen anything like his paintings, during his time. And those paintings are still a source of inspiration for us, especially with Guillermo Del Toro’s films.
We have a long list of artists that we go back to reference, but it depends on the project, depends on the monster. Nature is always a great source of inspiration – I must have at least twelve books in my library of deep-sea life. Of course, now we just go to the internet to find our reference material. Nature is very inspirational, not just marine life but all of nature.
Which creature design are you most proud of?
Our work on the first and second Hellboy movies. Those characters are our children, they’re so close to our hearts. Hellboy, in particular, was a really special character for us. It was originally executed for Guillermo by Rick Baker, our mentor. Many of the members of my team hailed from Rick Baker’s company, so Hellboy was something our mentor created and handed off to us, to continue the legacy of that character.
Personally, I really liked Mr. Wink from Hellboy 2. He’s a huge ogre with a mechanical hand with a chain on it – he was a really fun character to build, I loved the way he turned out. And the Angel of Death – that one was an elegant, poetic monster. A beautiful rendering, taken from the mind of the great Del Toro and executed by my team. We’re very proud of it.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
