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The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance022 | WWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UK
going wrong. And I suddenly realised what they were doing was tidying my drawings up, and I
said to [them] ‘just for one minute imagine I mean what I draw,’ and that sorted it out. Because it
is actually very organic, it flows, it’s symmetrical. Once they understood that it just started really
coming together.”
Set decorator Richard Roberts was one of the people who had to work closely with Froud, and tells
us that he found the process incredibly helpful: “He hasn’t been interfering and slowing stuff down,
which he could have if he wanted to, he could have been a real pain in the bum, but he’s been very
helpful and very constructive.” Roberts adds that Froud’s reputation amongst the creatives working
on the show certainly helped: “All the guys making stuff for us, all the prop manufacturing people,
they all grew up with The Dark Crystal. When [Froud] came in and met them they all pulled out their
‘making of’ books and he was signing them, it was fantastic. It was like meeting a god for them.”
That very same ‘making of’ book, The World Of The Dark Crystal, was a crucial touchstone for
Age Of Resistance, and when we visited the creature workshop a well-thumbed copy of the book was
laying on a table alongside the disembodied head of a Mystic. But when it came to creating the look
of the series, it wasn’t a case of simply just copying or reusing things from the original film – not least
because none of the original puppets were in a fit state to be reused, so even returning characters,
like the Skeksis Chamberlain, had to be recreated from scratch. The Henson Company had archived
photos from the original, which proved useful on Age Of Resistance, and Roberts tells us that they
came across some Skeksis candelabra from the film in a prop rental house, which they rented in
again “just for us, really”. But that was one of the very few number of things that they were able to
rent or buy for the series – Roberts tells us that “99%” of the things used in the show had to be made
especially for it.
Even Thra had to be more or less designed from scratch, something production designer Gavin
Boquet was responsible for. “In the film you never really saw Thra particularly, it was very castle-
orientated. And the technology these days, with digital enhancement, you’ve got a chance to show
what a lot of the rest of this world is. I think the story obviously demanded that because they go to lots
of different places, whereas in the film, apart from going through the forest or going to the Mystics’
lair, there wasn’t a lot of movement. So we had a lot of freedom.” Boquet says that “most of [Froud’s]
illustration work is characters and forest, it’s not a lot of architecture,” so he had to figure out what
Gelfling civilisations, like the grand city of Ha’Rar and the more rustic Stone-In-The-Wood, would look
like, drawing inspiration from everything, from nature to the curving lines of modernist architecture,
while also ensuring that his team’s work lined up with the work being done in the creature
department, so that the look of the city of Ha’Rar and the citizens of Ha’Rar match.
“This is probably the heaviest make, to create this world,” Roberts explains, “because everything
has to look specifically non-Earthly, and it’s got to work for puppets, and it’s got to be lightweight,
and [it’s got to be] the right scale as well.” You certainly can’t have two-foot-high Podlings sitting on
human-sized furniture. And apart from the scale, each item of furniture used in the show needs to be
adapted to make room for the puppeteer, so “they’ll come apart, or have a hole underneath that’s
covered with a cushion,” Roberts explains. “It’s got to work for the puppeteers, otherwise it doesn’t
work, basically. But because we make everything, there’s always a way of cutting a hole in it.”
“The question has never been ‘can a puppet make you cry?’ The question is ‘can a puppet pick up
a fork?’” writer Grillo-Marxuach says, laughing,
but this is a genuine concern when working with
puppets. Something as simple as a character
picking something up and handing it to another
character becomes a special effect when it’s
done with puppets rather than people. Puppets
may be designed to have opposable thumbs, but
those thumbs don’t actually work. It’s something
everyone needs to take into consideration, from
the writers and director – who need to really
consider how essential it is to the story every
time they need a puppet to interact with a
prop – to the props and set departments, to the
creature shop creatives themselves.
“There’s a thing called ‘puppetweight’ which
we found out about from other people who
have done puppet jobs,” explains prop master
Ty Teiger, when it comes to designing props for
puppets to use. “They’re heavy enough that they
can be attached to a stick which can then be
operated at a distance. Normally the hand of
the puppet is attached to the prop rather than
the other way round.”
“I kept saying at the beginning ‘puppets do
nothing’ and they thought I was joking,” Froud
chuckles, “they just laughed at me, they kept
laughing. Then two weeks in I had the director
and the cameraman come up to me and say
‘you were right, they don’t do anything, do
they?’” This might sound like a no-brainer, but
until you’ve worked with puppets it’s impossible
to understand the challenges. “Puppets don’t do
very much, but you’ve got to create the illusion
that they do everything,” Froud elaborates. “...
puppets are not actors in costumes, they’re not
people, they are an artifice, they’re all artificial,
so you’ve got to create the illusion that they’re
alive. Their aliveness comes from some of the
mechanics in their heads, but a lot of it comes
from the information you’re getting from the
costumes, and the textures.”
Leterrier was new to the world of puppets
when he came on board, as were the writers,
but even the experienced puppeteers and
creature workshop designers were working
at a level none of them had before. A fully
puppet-led live action drama series has simply
never been made before. Everyone knows that
puppets work brilliantly in comedy, but the big
question was: could they sustain a drama?
“I need to have real close-ups, extreme
close-ups of puppets emoting, crying, laughing,
falling in love,” Leterrier says. “That’s truth, and
it’s hard enough to capture with a real actor,
true emotion. With a puppet it’s impossible.
It’s just a sponge that in the morning is laying
in a box or on its stand, then two hours later
you’re like ‘now fall in love with this person’, or
‘the person you love the most has just died in
your arms’.” Leterrier admits that he was tough
on his puppeteers, pushing them to go further
than they were used to. “My challenge was
working with puppets, but their challenge was
working with Louis Leterrier,” he chuckles. “I was
non-compromising, ‘this will not look like your
grandfather’s puppet show, and this will look likeWe’ll see more of the
world than ever before.