How the 'Wednesday' Effects Team Brought Christopher Lloyd's Severed Head to Life Jazz TangcaySeptember 7, 2025 at 12:22 AM 0 SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Part 2 of "Wednesday," now streaming on Netflix.
- - How the 'Wednesday' Effects Team Brought Christopher Lloyd's Severed Head to Life
Jazz TangcaySeptember 7, 2025 at 12:22 AM
0
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Part 2 of "Wednesday," now streaming on Netflix.
Christopher Lloyd is no stranger to the world of the kooky Addams Family. The actor played Uncle Fester in both the 1991 film "The Addams Family" and its sequel "Addams Family Values." He's back on Netflix's "Wednesday" as Professor Orloff, one of Nevermore Academy's longest-serving teachers.
More from Variety
'Wednesday' Creators Unpack the Season 2 Finale: Gomez's Tragic Backstory, Thing's Origins and What Wednesday Thinks of Tyler Now
Gwendoline Christie on Her Spectral Return in 'Wednesday' Season 2: 'God, I Always Wanted to Play a Ghost'
'Wednesday' Season 2 Finale Creates Six Burning Question for Season 3: What Happens With Enid, Tyler and Hester?
However, he's no ordinary teacher. Professor Orloff is a severed head that floats in a jar.
The effect was achieved through volume capture technology. Visual effects supervisor Tom Turnbull explains, "We used volume capture where we literally capture every frame of his performance to an incredibly high resolution, and we use that data to recreate him as a CG version."
That replica was a perfect image of the actor. Turnbull says, "He is technically CG in the jar, but it is very much Christopher Lloyd driving it."
Typically, effects like this are a combination of practical and computer-generated, but as Turnbull explains, "The practical is not prosthetic; the practical is the actual actor."
Striking the right balance was key to making Lloyd look as realistic as possible, but when they saw the first effects, it looked too real, and "you don't believe he's in water." Turnbull navigated that challenge by "embracing the distortions of the glass and the refraction of the water." He continues, "We added bubbles, bits of grime and stuff floating in there so it goes from pristine to looking what we ended up with, which felt more believable."
Elsewhere in the series, Turnbull worked closely with prosthetics head Tristan Versluis, particularly for the Willow Hill patients. Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) discovers a sinister secret operation happening in the basement. As it turns out, Judi Spannegel (Heather Matarazzo) has been keeping outcasts as prisoners and conducting tests on them. As Wednesday and Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) attempt to liberate them, they stumble across a range of characters, including a zombie and a half-human/half-feline character. Even though some of them appear for mere seconds, Versluis spent hours on the details. For those characters, Tim Burton provided the team with very good references. "There were some images of monsters and makeups from his childhood. But they were our springboard to make designs."
One character that Versluis was particularly proud of was a young Frankenstein-inspired creation that was prosthetics-driven. He says, "The makeup itself was a three-hour process with multiple pieces on the neck, top of the head and chin. Each piece was glued on, and the edges blended." Versluis used scars, staples and twisted skin with hair coming out of it. He added teeth and contact lenses to bring it all to life. For a Burton production, no small detail was spared. Versluis says, "It was weeks of prep, sculpting it, casting, and pre-painting."
Best of Variety
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts?
Samsung, Sonos, Criterion Collection Among Top Brands on Sale for Labor Day - See Running List Here
Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Astro Blog
Read More >> Full Article on Source: Astro Blog
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities