Interviews
‘Hatching’: How Animatronics Designer Gustav Hoegen Brought the Creature to Life [Interview]
The image of a seemingly perfect family shows its cracks in director Hanna Bergholm‘s Hatching.
The film follows Tinja (Siiri Solalinna), a 12-year-old aspiring gymnast desperate to maintain her Mother’s (Sophia Heikkilä) tireless demands of perfection and poise. The pressures morph into something otherworldly and dangerous when Tinja finds a strange egg in the woods and decides to nurture it at home. It hatches, giving birth to a monstrous thing that irrevocably shatters the picture of perfection.
To bring the creature to life, Bergholm sought out animatronics designer and creature FX artist Gustav Hoegen (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Prometheus).
Hoegen chatted with Bloody Disgusting about the conception and creation of Hatching’s birdlike monster.
It turns out that Bergholm had a strong vision of her movie monster before even reaching out to the creature FX supervisor. Hoegen explained, “When she first reached out, I have to say it was one of the most complete briefs accompanying her email. [Bergholm] gave a quick description of what she wanted to do; she had all the artwork prepared. She knew what she wanted from the crew in every scene. That alone and the whole concept, story, and the look of the creature; I didn’t hesitate.”
The creature develops throughout the film, changing according to Tinja’s mindset as the social and familial pressures mount.
Hoegen stated, “There were many stages of the metamorphosis; the very first creature you see that hatches from the egg, that was what I built. Then it starts to evolve and change into her doppelganger. But Conor O’Sullivan, who did prosthetics, took care of it when it started evolving from the creature that you first see hatching from the big egg I built. So, I believe that there were another four stages, going from very grotesque to more subtle. All of my focus was pretty much on the hatchling, the bird you see when it reveals itself.”
The creature’s design takes heavy cues from nature, in which baby birds have large, bulbous heads compared to their tiny, frail bodies. Hoegen’s answer elaborated on the puppet’s design and movement when asked whether that disproportion created any challenges.
“I’ll start from the very start, basically: you sculpt it, and if it’s not too out of bounds, you can make it work mechanically. What really helped us with this is that this puppet is not internally driven, meaning that motors move the arms or the neck. So, you have the freedom knowing that a puppeteer will support the body plus the head. That’s why you can make the head so ridiculously big with a tiny neck and a very spindly body. It’s good to know, on the day, that a well-trained puppeteer will be able to hold the weight and will later be digitally removed, so we had that to our advantage. Knowing that, within limits, we didn’t have that much constraint as to how disproportionate we could make the creature look, which you would have if you were talking about a person wearing a costume, for example, which we do a lot as well.
“You could never make it as thin; it always has to cover a person. Knowing that puppeteers would be digitally removed, we could go to town and really emphasize the skinny limbs and the sunken chest with the protruding ribcage, etc. We’d pull up reference pictures of people with anorexia; [Bergholm] would point out how she wanted the ribcage to look, how she wanted the skin to fall all over the bones. It starts to sag a bit when there’s hardly any fat there. It’s all of these references that we stuck to, so it was quite a liberating process knowing that we could express ourselves in that way because on the day, we knew that we could still bring it to life without many complications.”
Hoegen’s experience and expertise with animatronics became crucial during production. Especially with a critical moment between Tinja and her bird in the bathtub.
“Again, this is what’s so great about independent filmmaking is that you as a department also have a bit of a say in the shooting schedule; they’ll listen to you because you’ve done it before. [Bergholm] presented me with the script, where the bird hatches and then she puts it in a bath, and so I say, ‘Hold on, the best way to shoot this,’ I said, ‘Is to do all of the close-ups and everything with the girl when the bird is clean. Do that first and leave, say, the hatching and bathing scenes to the last.’ They’re all important scenes, but we got the scene where it emotes with the girl; we’ve got it in the can. Then we can really have fun and put loads of goo on it, make it break out of an egg, and put blood on it, and you know you won’t have to go back on certain things and clean the whole thing up.
“I would break it down in that way. Do the close-ups first, do the lighting and establishing emotional shots with the girl first, and leave all the goo and water till the last because, although there were no mechanics on the body, it was on the head, [water] can still creep in. On occasion, it did splash a bit on the electronics, and certain things happened. In that respect, they were very accommodating to our requests. I believe we shot the bathing scene last, which was really, really good because when the hand flooded, water got into the motors, and that was pretty much the end of the hand. But we got everything else, so it worked out well.”
The puppet’s design, right down to the intricately articulate face, required coordination among multiple members of Hoegen’s team.
“We had a team of five puppeteers – actually six if you include me. We had Damian Farrell, an incredible puppeteer; he’s not just a great performer, but he understands how shots are set up. He worked so closely with the director of photography, the riggers; you name it. He would throw ideas at it, ‘What about this? What about this?’ He wasn’t just there to hold the body and the head; that was his job. That’s the head, not the expressions. Then we had two puppeteers for the arm, each for one arm. Then one puppeteer on the legs made four, and then we also had a movement coordinator who was also very good. It’s good to have somebody that can direct the puppeteers, who can relay all the information and can also jump in on controlling the hand, for example. Then I performed the expressions, which are the eyes, the mouth, etc. So yeah, it took six people to bring it alive, plus Nikki [Belding], who did all the cosmetics. She would jump in between takes and make sure the puppet didn’t have its hair or needed a touch-up of paint, etc. You have a team of seven looking after that puppet throughout.”
See the creature in action when Hatching releases in theaters and on VOD on April 29, 2022.
Of all the places to find a coven of witches, the attic above a Christian youth camp is probably the last place you’d think to look. But that’s just what we find in Camp, a surrealist nightmare of feminist empowerment from Canadian filmmaker Avalon Fast.
Emily (Zola Grimmer) is still reckoning with her involvement in a horrific tragedy when she accidentally contributes to the death of her best friend, Charlie (Giselle Morison). Unable to move on, the traumatized teen takes a job at a rural summer camp, hoping to forget her own sorrows by looking after at-risk kids. She quickly connects with a counselor named Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and finds comfort in her close-knit group of female friends. But a mysterious whisper from deep in the woods warns that they may be leading her down a darker path.
Fast burst onto the scene in 2022 with Honeycomb, a psychological horror film that follows a burgeoning matriarchy. Known for their focus on “Girl Horror” stories, the talented young filmmaker tackles similar themes in Camp as Emily leaves the modern world behind to embrace a dark vision of self-discovery through magic.
Ahead of the film’s U.S. release on June 26, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Fast to chat about the nebulous nature of good vs. evil and the intoxicating power of female-driven horror.
Bloody Disgusting: What inspired this unique story? Did you go to religious summer camps when you were young?
Avalon Fast: I did. I went to lots of different summer camps, but all of them were primarily Bible camps. The memory I have of camp is kind of strange. I was very homesick as a kid, and I didn’t necessarily enjoy all my time there. I definitely remember meeting some interesting girls at camp and having that presence of religion hovering around the whole experience.
BD: I really love the film’s gorgeous natural setting. Camp is the kind of surrealist nightmare that you don’t just watch. You feel it too. How did you approach creating this world?
AF: Well, a huge part of it was working with my cinematographer Eily Sprungman, who’s a very close friend. We spent years prepping, shot listing, storyboarding, and mood boarding. She’d had a similar experience to mine. We grew up around the same place, and so we understood each other’s visions from the get-go. But there are so many other pieces that came together. The costuming, the art, and the animated sequences were done by Sofiya Iurkevych. One of our producers, Taylor Nodrick, was obsessed with shooting on Super 8 film. I’ve always wanted to as well, so all the memory sequences were shot on Super 8. It was just a lot of people with an understanding and a vision for what this project was. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
To the extent that you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your relationship to witchcraft, and what does Camp have to say about modern witches?
Well, that’s the question of Camp. It’s not that I don’t resonate with any of these things, but I specifically wanted Camp to be a little bit ambiguous around what witchcraft looks like. Is this witchcraft? Are these girls witches? Emily explicitly asks if that’s what’s happening here, and the answer isn’t yes. The film isn’t going to answer that question for you. My relationship to magic and witchcraft? It’s tough. I feel like there’s so much magic, connection, and spirituality that comes from these friendships, the closeness of these women, and what’s happening around them. A lot of what Camp is trying to say or show is just that magic can come out of friendship.
I loved watching these female friendships develop. And you’re right. No one ever says the word “coven,” but you can feel that connection, and you can see a change in Emily as those relationships grow. I’m also really fascinated with the way Camp plays with the idea of good and evil. At one point, Clara says, “Maybe God drew us to the devil,” which stopped me in my tracks. How do you view witchcraft or the magic these girls are experiencing in regard to good and evil?
That was such a huge part of the script’s construction. The story is really trying to keep a balance between those two things. I like asking people if they think these girls are good or bad, because I feel like a lot of people come out of the film thinking one or the other. They’ll say things like “thank God Emily found her people” or “God, I really wish she’d gone home.” I just don’t think there’s ever an answer. I wanted to explore the idea of going down the wrong path, especially coming out of grief. What makes you a bad person, and does healing mean you’re looking to become a better person? I don’t have an answer, but I do feel like that’s a huge part of what Camp is asking. What is good? What is bad? Why did God bring me to the devil?
Yes, because this is all happening at “God camp” in Emily’s words. So how can both of those things exist at the same time? Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by the voice Emily hears in the woods. Without spoiling too much, what is this voice asking, and what is required in return?
Emily comes to camp with a shout into the void, asking can anyone hear me? Does anyone want to? And it’s answered so clearly by these girls, specifically responding only with love, care, support, and trust. It’s like her prayers were answered. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be alright, but Emily is looking for peace. She’s looking for a moment where she feels pure good. And I think, even at its surface level, she does get that experience.
Personally, I don’t really think people are good or bad. I think we all exist somewhere in the middle. Camp centers traditionally villainized characters, but that’s where Emily seems to find her peace, however you choose to define it.
I also wanted to show the experience of having decided that you are a bad person, you’ve made mistakes, and you feel cursed. Then when you meet other people who have done things that you would consider worse, you can actually feel good in their presence. You feel like less of a bad person. I think that’s a huge part of the story as well. Emily’s finding her version of other fucked up people, and she feels less fucked up around them. I’ve found that in my own life. It’s a cool thing. I don’t think it’s bad.
I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s finding your home, your people. We meet Emily in the aftermath of unthinkable trauma. Is this a story about mental health and healing?
Witnessing it myself. witnessing other people experience tragedy and then move through grief, you hear a lot of talk about healing or coming out the other side. There’s so much conversation around what that looks like, with self-care and showing up for yourself. I always felt really averse to it. It annoyed me. I think the beginning of the film speaks to that. The therapeutic version of what getting help looks like is obviously very different from what Camp is showing. And again, I don’t have an answer for what you’re supposed to do. But I think that’s another question I was asking: how do you heal? Do you heal at all? Is that the end goal, or are we just trying to get better? It’s something I experienced in my own grief. And the answer, for me, at least now, is just that I’m not looking to get better. So I felt like I hadn’t. I found it hard to find people to have those conversations with. And I think that’s what I ultimately wanted to make a film about.
I love that unanswered question. In my own experience, I’ve had to reframe what healing actually looks like. There’s not really an endpoint. It’s just finding a way to keep going. There’s also an element of sacrifice in this story, particularly regarding another counselor named Jo (Sophie Bawks-Smith). What role does she play in Emily’s journey?
For me, Jo is this human embodiment of Charlie, Emily’s friend. As Jo, she had a life at this camp before meeting Emily, and then was kind of taken over by Charlie’s spirit. I think a lot of people view Emily’s final choice as horrendous and tragic. In a way it is, but for me, if Jo becomes her angel, it’s almost like a self-sacrifice. Jo knows that by sacrificing herself, she’ll be giving Emily power to move forward. In the original script, the girls were supposed to bring out another counselor, JB (Aidan Laudersmith), and burn his body. But I just thought, there’s no way sacrificing this guy could give the girls enough power. There’s just no way, right? Logically, that just didn’t line up for me.
I’m glad you mentioned JB, because he has his own tragic arc. How do men factor into the world of Camp?
The way men factor into my world is so bizarre. I have such little respect for them in my films, which is something I’ve been called on. I think I have to challenge myself in the future to make a movie about a boy because, these boys … It’s not that the men in my films aren’t redeemable, but there’s no depth to these characters. They’re just treated with such disrespect. I don’t know why I do that, actually. That’s something for me to look into. It was the same with Honeycomb. They’re just such peripheral characters. I’ve had people ask about Kayne (Henri Gillespi), the scary guy at the fire, what happens to him? I just think, I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point of the story.
Well, I can say after a lifetime of watching women on the periphery of the story, the course correction feels nice. In a similar vein, I’m in love with your homepage, avalonfast.com. There’s an image of girls on a film set and then a still from Honeycomb in which a blood-covered girl is screaming at the sky. And in the middle, it just says Girl Horror. It’s a really powerful statement that gives me chills. How do you define Girl Horror, and what draws you to these types of stories?
I was obsessed with the term when I started making my movies. It was something I’d come up with to kind of brand myself and describe what I was doing. Then I went through a period where I felt like it was a bit gender exclusive and didn’t interest me as much. But now I’ve come full circle on the term. I think it’s a bit of a commentary on youth and the horror of growing up female. But I think everybody can relate to that experience. I don’t want it to feel like this exclusive thing, that I make movies exclusively for girls, because I don’t think I do. I’m interested in exploring what Girl Horror means. Originally, it was just a title, something I came up with, and now it’s become something that resonates with people. You said it gave you chills. That’s cool for me to hear because there’s obviously some depth there.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes. I am actually making a movie about a boy. That’s the next thing.
That’s exciting! The more I think about feminism, the more I end up coming back to men and boys, because they have a place in the world of Girl Horror too.
Absolutely. It’s all just part of being human.
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