Behind the Scenes

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POLICIES AND PROCEDURES MANUAL

"Can someone direct me to the Mutilation Chamber?"

Once a demon has been made and goes over to set, I wondered what happened from that point forward. In what ways is Robert involved once his creations leave the studio? "I'm fortunate to where I got to work with Dayne Johnson [Make-up Supervisor for Angel] a lot last year, and apply a lot of those make-ups, and I've been able to continue that this year. Dayne has some specific characters that he has to do; David [Boreanaz] obviously, all his vamp stuff. And The Host [Andy Hallett] is great make-up and very important make-up. We met last year when I was doing Landok's makeup on season 2."At this point, I would also like to point out Rob's comments on Andy Hallett, "Honestly, I'm not just saying this to be one of those interviewy things, 'Everyone's so great, blah, blah, blah', Andy Hallett is one of the nicest guys I've ever met in my life!" professes Rob. I have to agree with Rob's assessment, having met Andy myself at the San Diego Comic-Con this past summer, which made it even cooler when Rob let me pose for a picture in the studio holding the severed Host's head prop from Angel's Season 2 Pylea story arc. That's where he first met Andy, while doing the makeup for the character, Landok.

While Dayne is tied up with the daily time-consuming make-ups applications Rob is, "able to go in and apply certain hero characters in almost every episode, which has been wonderful," he confesses. "We have a neat relationship like that where we basically plan and map out who's going to do what. It's a very unique situation that I have, being a union make-up artist and creating all the prosthetics, so I get to do a little bit of both (building and applying) which is the ultimate." He happily reflects, "Obviously that's what I grew up wanting to do."

What is your favorite monster so far, of those you have created? It seemed like such a simple question. The answer however, was much more complex, a three-part answer, one monster, one character, and one demon (not to be confused with one Bourbon, one Scotch, and one Beer). "The Bug Creature from [the episode] Fredless, because it was really elaborate," Rob began. "It's something you don't get to do a lot of in the day with CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). I think if this had been a feature film, the whole thing would have been done in CGI. But I felt like a kid again, in 1986, reading Fangoria. We were able to put together a whole creature and do it 'old school' style, within a week - a ridiculous schedule," he laughs. "But we welcomed it because we really wanted to do something fun like that. That's my favorite creature," Rob admits but went on to confess that, "Skip (That Vision Thing) is probably my favorite character we've done. And the Old Codger demon from episode one (Heartthrob) that you ended up not seeing much was my personal favorite make-up that I had done just because of the way it moved and photographed."

Bug Creature from Fredless , old school style - a fav of Robs

Rob works on actor Bob Finiani, the Old Codger in Heartthrob

Hell's Guardian, Skip from the episode That Vision Thing

The Codger was one of the first pieces I had seen when Rob brought me into the studio. I remembered it from the episode, but only barely. It was a very realistic looking piece, thanks mostly to the use of silicone in the construction. "To my knowledge, I'm the first person to use silicone on Buffy or Angel. I'd been doing a lot of that in some of the lower budget movies that I worked on.

"In fact, I go [online] after every episode and look at the message boards to see if people are talking about the creatures..."

That's more what I'm used to, working with translucent materials." Rob recalls, "I know the first time we were filming that, Joss [Whedon] happened to be there, and I saw him walk out and look at the Codger on the set. He looked at it and pointed and said, 'Now that's great make-up'. Partly, it was because it was somebody different, it wasn't some opaque green guy or an opaque blue guy. It was mushy, and it was real. I was just standing in the corner when I heard Joss say that, and I realized I was onto something. So, I'm trying to incorporate that kind of stuff. "Obviously, everything has its practical purposes," Rob continues, "and you don't want to get into a rut. And that's one of my main, main things, how I push myself everyday so that we don't get into a rut. I always have new sculptors and new designers and basically I translate my ideas to the new guys, and we all sit down and have a little conference about the best way to do it. I always want a fresh look. I think every single character on the show has looked totally different, and that's really important to me, because I think they felt in the Buffy-verse everything was kind of blending together. That's not to negate anything anyone else did on the show," Rob is quick to add,"I think they did some really cool stuff at times, but I think everything was blending together, and they were looking for some fresh stuff. That's, more than anything, why we kick ourselves in the ass every week to try and do something that's different," he finished with a wry smile.

As evidenced by the reaction at the San Diego Comic-Con, people are beginning to notice Rob's work.

Rob signs autographs
at the International
San Diego Comic-Con

It was interesting to hear what he thought of the experience and of his newfound recognition. "The Comic Con was my first, sort of an inauguration. Andy sort of surprised me and announced that I was the new make-up and effects designer to everyone and then I kind of got bombarded." Rob modestly reflects, "I was kind of shy about it. It's tough, it's different, of course I like it. I like to be appreciated. I mean, I've got bags under my eyes from trying to make cool monsters for the show, so of course I like the appreciation. It's cool. I would like a chance now that people have seen some of the work, I'd like to have more of an interaction and talk to the people. In fact, I go on after every episode and look at the message boards on all the sites I can find to see if people are talking about the creatures and what they like and don't like.I'm looking forward to maybe doing a Con myself, or something like Nocturnal where I could interact." Rob will get his chance when he attends the Annual Buffy Posting Board Party in Los Angeles during February along with his buddy Matthew James.

As I closed up my meeting with Rob, I decided to see if he was willing to give us any hints about what the future may hold for our favorite Dark Avenger. "Let's see... Angel is going to face a lot of very evil, evil types." We both laugh hard with the self-evidence of that statement but Rob did offer this little tidbit, "There's a lot of adversity coming, inner turmoil and in forms of physical bad-ass manifestations. In terms of demons, there's going to be some very, very, very cool demons coming up for him to fight." Okay, so probably Wanda at E! Online doesn't have to worry about me as competition. But I'm betting she doesn't pose Rob much of a threat in the monster department either, so we'll call that one a draw. Week in, and week out, Almost Human consistently provides realistic and exciting demons for our entertainment. The quality of villains is one of the major contributing factors to the success of both Angel and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Whether it be scary, gory, or just outrageous, as long as Rob Hall's on the job, I'd say the future holds some very cool demons indeed.

CityofAngel.com would like to Specially Thank Robert Hall for taking the time out of a very busy schedule for this interview.

Drop in on Rob at his Web site at Almost Human for all the latest Ghouls and Demons at: AlmostHuman.net

All Demon photos used by Expressed Permission of Almost Human and Robert Hall.

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