Relive the magic with a newly restored, 2-disc anniversary edition of the classic Jim Henson/Lucasfilm collobaration, Labyrinth. In stores today, this DVD release contains an all-new commentary and bonus features that are guaranteed to captivate as never before. David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly invite you into a magical universe where nothing is what it seems! Babysitting infant stepbrother Toby on a weekend night isn't young Sarah's (Connelly) idea of fun. Frustrated by his crying, she secretly imagines the Goblins from her favorite book, Labyrinth, carrying Toby away. When her fantasy comes true, a distraught Sarah must enter a maze of illusion to bring Toby back from a kingdom inhabited by mystical creatures and governed by the wicked Goblin King (Bowie).
To commemorate this release, we've delved into our Hyperspace archives to reprint one of the original articles that accompanied the production of Labyrinth. From the pages of the classic Bantha Tracks Fan Club newsletter #30 (published in 1985) comes these article:
More than making a Movie: Creating a New Reality
Muppets, puppets, creatures and costumes. What's the difference? According to Labyrinth Director, Jim Henson, there is no difference of any importance. During a break in the filming at the cavernous Elstree Studios near London, Henson met with your editor to talk about his work and his newest film, Labyrinth. The Henson Associates, Inc/Lucasfilm Ltd. production stars David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly; George Lucas is Executive Producer. Firstly, Henson says he enjoys creating something that cannot exist in reality -- the reality of this world and of this time frame.
"I enjoy all of the stuff we're doing. And, I enjoy what puppetry is capable of, and I enjoy exploring and pushing beyond the things that we've done before and trying new things. I enjoy mixing the art of motion pictures with the art of puppetry. And, basically creating something on film that doesn't exist even in reality. A lot of the scenes we play with the characters, you cannot perform in a straight run. But, by using different ways of performing a character and properly editing it together you create that performance on film as its own reality," Henson explained.
"Most of our work is like that going back to the The Muppet Show which was a half hour and took place in a theater. Now that half hour never existed. It never existed in reality. We created that reality. It was shot over about three days. The theater wasn't there. The audience wasn't in front of the performance. I mean the whole thing never existed. And yet, by the art of television and the art of editing and the art of puppetry, we created something that doesn't even exist. And, that to me is very exciting. Most of our movies are the same way. They're things that cannot exist except in our final form?"
One of the things Henson has strong feelings about is the use of the word "puppet." In Labyrinth, Henson and crew are not working with puppets; but rather, with creatures which are much more complicated.
"All puppets are creatures. But, not all creatures are puppets. Virtually, everything that we do is technically a puppet. Basically, in reality, everything that's a manipulated figure is a puppet. One of the technical definitions is any articulated figure is a puppet. For our own purposes, we use the word "creatures." Creatures is more accurate. The characters we've created for Labyrinth are highly sophisticated mechanisms operated by teams of people working together. The mechanism and the team become a creature when performed. It goes back to creating a new reality. In this new reality the mechanism and the team of operators become something that cannot exist outside this reality; a creature." Labyrinth is populated by many of these creatures. Like a maze with walls, the Labyrinth is a complicated series of tests and trials, pitfalls and challenges through which Jennifer Connelly must pass to save her baby brother. The maze and the goblins that live there come together to create a whole new, fantastic reality.
All films create their own reality, even documentaries which in the process of recording something alters it. Jim Henson seems to stretch that process out a bit further by populating films with characters that cannot exist outside the film, set in situations that likewise can't exist any other way. For Labyrinth Henson teamed up with Executive Producer, George Lucas also a master of creating realities and universes. As the summer of 1986 release date approaches, we'll tell you more about this remarkable collaboration.
The Reasons They're So Real
Bantha Tracks visited the creature shop set up at EMI Elstree Studios to build the complicated mechanisms that play most of the roles in the new Henson Associates, Inc./Lucasfilm Ltd. production, Labyrinth. What we saw was foam, fiberglass, aluminum, cables, levers and pulleys all working together to create creatures so lifelike one expects them to get up and walk on their own.
One of the lead roles is that of Hoggle who makes his way through the maze with the heroine, Sarah. In action, Hoggle looks like a walking talking living being. But, he is really four people operating radio-remote controls for the face, and a little person inside to walk it about.
Hoggle and his co-stars, Ludo and Sir Didymus, are the latest generation of super-creatures that began with mechanisms like Yoda and Jabba the Hutt --creatures with many movement possibilities mimicking human muscles.
Supervising animatronics designer, Tony Dunsterville, told us how it's done. Firstly, the conceptual artists on the picture decide what the creature will look like. In Labyrinth this is Brian Froud and Jim Henson. They approve final sketches that the creature shop sculpts in clay. After the clay sculpture has been approved, a mold is then made around it and foam casts of the head are made. Tony says this long process is only the beginning of building a creature.
A fiberglass skeleton is made to support the head and the creature's body. Things like arms and hands all have to move as if this were a real creature. The head, hands and skeleton then have their animatronics added. That's the name for all the devices that make the creature move.
"We look at the script and decide the kinds of expressions this creature should be able to make. Then we look at the operator inside the creature and measure the space that's left over and figure out how to get everything mechanized with the room we have inside it. With Hoggle we had only an inch around the operator to get in all the mechanics for 16 different facial expressions. Things like smiles, sneers, talking, eye movement, eye brow motion, eye lids."
The skin of the creature is made from a fine, flexible, pliant latex foam so that it can be stretched the way we stretch our own skin every time we move our facial muscles. Unlike us, these creatures don't have muscles on the inside, they have cables and levers pushing and pulling the foam from that one-inch clearance on the inside. Tony says the crew figures how to make creature faces by making faces of their own.
"We make faces with each other. Mug around, seeing what's moving, what pulling, what's pushing and try to emulate that on the foam. We look at each other a lot; move each other's faces into expressions. And then, we actually construct a mechanism that pushes and pulls like our own faces."
Because of the tight one-inch clearance inside Hoggle's head it's difficult to put in all of the machinery necessary for a full range of facial expressions. To go from a frown to a smile involves a lot of movement. So, sometimes there are what Tony calls, different sculpts -- a head that is in a sad expression, a smiling face and a neutral one. The different sculpts then have their own animatronics added.
After the animatronics have been approved, the creature goes to make-up and wardrobe where its skin is meticulously painted by hand to look like real skin. Hair is added, and the creature is clothed. It's now ready to go before the cameras and, according to Tony, that's when the creature shop will finally learn if all their work paid off. Until the creature is performed by a team of operators, it's only a very complex machine. It designed properly, and performed well by the team, that machine becomes a creature.
The motors and solinoids that control the faces are activated by radio signals. Tony told us, with of electrical cables running out, the actors inside would trip and fall. And the cables would have to be hidden from the cameras, so radio control wins out.
On the other end of the remote controls are teams of operators, each looking at a video monitor. Video cameras follow the creature's face giving each operator a real time look at what's happening on the other end of the remote control. With their eyes glued to those monitors and their hands on the controls, the control team and the person inside the creature act as one entity, together. It takes a lot of rehearsal and actually thinking and moving together.
Sometimes the process can be watched on the faces of the control team. If a character is grimacing, it's a sure bet the operators will all have that same expression on their faces, too. It's pretty wild to look at these people making faces in unison while they all look at video monitors concentrating on their creature seemingly unaware of their own facial expressions.
Hoggle is just one of dozens of creatures all working together to create a magical film. As the release date for Labyrinth approaches we'll tell you more about its creatures and their operators; as well as about the intricate sets, and the film's stars, Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie.
