Fans get up close with sci-fi creatures at London exhibition

Aug 20, 2015 Recently in London, Monsters and creatures of all shapes and sizes were on display at the first ever ‘Creaturegeddon’ event.

The event, which was held at the Renaissance Hotel in London, had in attendance movie fans and students from all around the United Kingdom. Participants were given a once-in-a-lifetime treat with the display of some real suits that have been used on the big screen, while the artists who created them were on standby to talk about their creatures.

Prosthetic make-up designer, Kristyan Mallett was on hand to turn fellow make-up artist Jack Coakley into an alien, similar to the ones he and his team created for the TV show “Sexy Beasts”.

”Basically we are turning him into an alien – just talk about so people can see the process – which is normally for TV or film. Jack is wearing foam latex pieces, he is only wearing two pieces – he is wearing a large head piece that sits on top and he is just wearing a small facial piece,” Mallett said.

Mallett, who has worked in the make-up department on numerous movies productions including ‘The Theory of Everything’, ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ and as a special make-up effects artist on ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, went on to say:

“Obviously when you do concepts you try take things from, things that are currently in our animal kingdom or in the deepest of our oceans because there are some really strange stuff there anyway and if you sort of pick out some of those elements and put them in to some of the creatures we design then there’s a sense of realism to it them, there’s a sense of – you can believe that would work,”

Also on display was the original masks from the 2005 fantasy film “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” and an original mutated creature from horror film ‘Feast’.

Barney Trattels, one of the participants from Hove on the south coast of England, expressed his wish to study alongside Mallett:

“I love what he has done, I love, I am a long term fan of horror and sci-fi so to see a real sci-fi monster prosthetic piece of work is great, I love the fact that it’s almost like a tie in, homage to the old 50’s b-movie monsters, with the kind of elongated dome head with a modern spin on it – so a really interesting piece.”

12-year old Valentin Rezard, who attended the event with his father, freelance sculptor Martin Rezard, opted to be made into a zombie. The transformation took about an hour and a half and the youngster was impressed with the outcome:

“Wow I didn’t think I looked like that – that’s really really cool,” he said as he was allowed to see his new face for the first time.

The event also had veteran actor and creature suit performer Paul Warren, who was invited to talk about his work.

Warre, who has worked on several blockbuster films including ‘Clash of the Titans’, ‘Thor: The Dark World’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, spoke on the coexistence of CGI effects and practical effects in the film industry.

“Well I think it’s going back to practical because when CGI sort of has come around and it kind of took over the creature, now it’s being used with the creature and you’re seeing increasing movies that are starting to use it. And I think within the next year – you’re gonna see – especially with the Star Wars movies – you are going to see a return back to animatronic practical creature suits, you know puppets – all the stuff that people love in movies is coming back in a big way – hopefully they will use the both together like they have been doing but a lot more,” said Warren.