(Warning: This story accommodates spoilers for Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance).
Within the ultimate scenes of The Substance, issues get messy.
Coralie Fargeat’s physique horror satire follows the descent of former A-lister Elisabeth Sparkle who, in a determined try to recapture her youth and keep related in sexist and ageist Hollywood, begins taking a mysterious chemical referred to as The Substance. Issues go very, very unsuitable.
Shortly after injecting the substance, Sparkle (Demi Moore, who simply picked up her first-ever Golden Globe for the function) is writhing on her lavatory ground. Her again splits down the backbone and Sue, a slimy, youthful model of herself (performed by Margaret Qualley) crawls out. Initially, the 2 clones comply with the plan, swapping out each seven days. The physique within the lavatory is saved alive with a feeding tube, whereas the opposite free is free stay their life.
However the siren of youth beacons, and shortly Sue is beginning to prolong her stays exterior, leaving the caged Elisabeth to wither away. In panic, Elizabeth ignores the one use warning on the substance instruction handbook and injects herself with some leftover serum, triggering a metamorphosis right into a “Elisasue” aka Monstro, a grotesque hunchbacked creature that’s half Quasimodo, half Edvard Munch’s The Scream. It bears a distorted model of Sue’s face with Elisabeth’s visage howling out of its again.
Fargeat used as few particular results as attainable in The Substance, leaning on old-school sensible results, make-up, prosthetics, and puppetry. However as soon as Monstro enters the scene, for the movie’s gooey, gaga finale, the on-set work required some VFX help.
“We spent plenty of time discussing the look Coralie needed for this, as a result of was very connected to that prosthetic look as a homage to the ‘80s, from David Cronenberg to John Carpenter, you realize The Factor (1982), The Fly (1986),” says French VFX coordinator Pierre Procoudine-Gorsky. His workforce at Parisian studio Noid labored with the movie’s VFX supervisor Bryan Jones on the digital designs of the 2 variations of Monstro: The lurching malformed monstrosity Eliasue and, within the movie’s ultimate scene, Elisabeth’s indifferent face, now an oozing blob, that slithers its approach onto Sparkle’s star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame, earlier than being scrubbed away.
“We referred to as the primary one the monster and the final one was the blob,” says Procoudine-Gorsky. “In each circumstances, we had been engaged on high of what Coralie was doing on set, with the prosthetic workforce and the make-up visible results, attempting to match that prosthetic look, not make it really feel too digital, too excellent.”
Procoudine-Gorsky, who accepted a European Movie Award for greatest VFX in December on behalf of The Substance workforce, has labored on creature options earlier than —his workforce helped design the werewolf for Sean Ellis’ 2021 interval horror The Cursed — and he’s racked up hours on VFX work on such French blockbusters as Asterix & Obelix: The Center Kingdom (2023).
“However there’s been nothing near The Substance, he says. “Recreating the face of a well-known actress and making it really feel like a bodily impact, so it blended completely with the puppet was in all probability probably the most difficult factor I’ve completed.”
‘The Substance’ VFX workforce constructed on the sensible results designed for the movie, together with the sculpture of Elisasue, often known as Monstro.
Courtsey of Mubi
The primary digital model of Elisabeth’s face, buried and wailing in Monstro’s again, was clearly recognizable as Moore, however one thing wasn’t working.
“It didn’t mix with the puppet, with the [dummy Moore head] the prosthetic workforce had designed,” he mentioned. “Simply earlier than taking pictures on set, the prosthetic guys would at all times spray a type of glycerine water over the face to make it look moist but in addition give it this thickness, this sort of latex look.”
It took weeks to recreate that look on the pc, “to imitate precisely this layered wetness, to recreate the exact properties of that glycerine.”
Procoudine-Gorsky and his workforce spent “six months, seven months” going backwards and forwards with Fargeat and Jones earlier than that they had a digital model that match.
The Elisabeth face blob posed a unique problem.
“We began with the identical process, scanning all the pieces that was being completed on set, getting a full 3-D scan of the puppet with make-up, and so forth.,” he says, “however with the blob, we would have liked extra fluidity in it motion. The puppet was cool nevertheless it didn’t have the flowing motion Coralie wanted.”
Ultimately, the blob was primarily designed within the pc, completed as a “very conventional key-frame animation” earlier than including the ultimate touches.
“We had the identical challenges as with the monster, needing to match the look on set, the blur, the texture of the latex, whereas nonetheless having the ability to acknowledge Demi’s face,” he says, “however she’s additionally doing plenty of facial efficiency, as she struggles to make it to the star. Within the ultimate shot, she’s really smiling. We determined we couldn’t do it simply in animation, we would have liked to scan Demi doing the efficiency.”
Time was working out. This was late in 2023. If The Substance had been to be prepared, as deliberate, for the Cannes movie pageant the next Might, the workforce at Noid needed to work quick. When the Display screen Actors Guild signed its new contract with the studios, ending their almost four-month walkout, Noid received a window to file Moore, remotely, from Clear Angle Studios, a 3D scanning specialist outfit in L.A.
“We did a volumetric scan of Demi, which is a really technical session, mainly taking pictures a number of cameras round her whereas she does her efficiency. Coralie was capable of direct her, over Zoom, which was new for us.”
Utilizing the uncooked information from that scan, Farget began to edit the movie’s ultimate scene, sending over her lower to Noid. “We’d must match precisely the CGI on the edit, which was difficult, engaged on high of this uncooked information,” says Procoudine-Gorsky, “however at the very least we knew precisely what she was going to make use of in order that our model with line up completely along with her edit.”
By now it was the spring of 2024, and Cannes was closing in quick.
“We received into Might, perhaps three to 4 days earlier than the pageant and we had been nonetheless grading the ultimate model of the shot,” he remembers. “It was type of loopy. We delivered the ultimate model two days earlier than the world premiere in Cannes.”
Fargeat’s sensible effects-first strategy on The Substance has reignited the bodily vs. digital debate amongst SFX obsessives. However for Procoudine-Gorsky, the movie is a testomony to how on-set and pc designs can seamlessly collaborate. “We had been by no means there to exchange one thing actual, however to match it or to assist out when there have been sensible limitations,” he says, “for me, there was no battle between sensible and VFX, between bodily and CGI. It was all teamwork.”