Five Nights at Freddy’s Interview: Henson Creature Shop Collab
They did it, they really did it. The Freddy Fazbear Pizza Volume of Five nights at Freddy’s was made true, and of course Blumhouse got it Jim Henson Creature Shop to do it.
io9 sat down with me Five nights at Freddy’s Director Emma Tammi and project manager and lead designer Robert Bennett to discuss the collaboration that has fans excited to bring the beloved video game characters to life. “We have a great team at the Creature Shop,” said Bennett, who also worked on it The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. “Initially we started receiving the designs from ourselves [FNAF creator Scott Cawthon] And then we sat down with Emma and tried to figure out what these things need to do – because that’s a big part of character building, what they need to do.”
Tammi jumped in. “Absolutely! So [the] Different ranges of motion, different types of feelings that we also wanted to evoke: fear and terror versus quirky lovability, if you will,” she explained of her vision for the characters to present the fun and friendly façade of the animatronics. but then they can become threatening during their lifetime.
It may have looked seamless on screen, but it took a number of Henson puppeteers to make the magic happen. “Foxy is a great example where puppeteers perform digitally, like off stage, and then the puppeteers would be directly on the puppet to make it move,” Bennett explained. By digital he meant a modern set of animatronic tools controlled by remote controls that give puppeteers support for all different types of scenes. Bennett spoke about his favorite, which gets a special moment in the trailer: “Honestly, there’s a scene with Chica in the kitchen. I saw the footage in the trailer, but even on set, visually, this was one of my favorite sets to see it on. It was moody [and] There is a lot going on.”
Tammi continued. “We did it all practically and then sweetened some things up a bit in post. That was, I say, as much as we really managed. The whole approach of this film, and especially the animatronics, was to make everything practical. In the end, you can still achieve fantastic collaboration with VFX artists, be it on cleanup or enhancements. And all of our conversations with the VFX teams were also about how to make it look practical. We all really agreed that it was an exciting collaboration.”
Regard Five nights at Freddy’s in theaters and on Peacock on October 27th.
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