Mad Men’s special effects foreman never saw the infamous 4K version

Everyone had a good laugh on HBO Max this week when the new one was released 4K mad men The remaster debuted with a number of glaring bugs They were supposed to be captured before the show was uploaded to the streaming device’s servers. The episodes were broadcast live with incorrect titles, and in one case you can still see members of the show’s production crew who were not supposed to appear on camera. The errors were reportedly a result of Lionsgate TV – mad menOriginal production company — Sending an incorrect set of exported files.

It’s strange to think that no one at HBO noticed that the remastered “Red in the Face” episode still included a clear shot of mad men Special effects foreman Shannon Thompson. When I recently spoke with Thompson — whose previous credits include The mask, From dusk until dawn, American History X, Sand Dunes: Part OneAnd the new Matlock Reboot – He told me he didn’t have time to check out the HBO remake. But he still remembers filming that episode mad men Clearly, it’s a powerful example of how invisible special effects can make ordinary television seem real.

How did you get into special effects?

I’ve always known that I like doing creative mechanical things like fireworks and things like that, so, I started working in props, and sometimes there’s a crossover with that and special effects. I ended up meeting these two influential men and got along with them immediately. They pulled me in, and I’ve been doing this for 33 years.

Looking at your IMDb, you’ve worked on a lot of big sci-fi and fantasy projects, what kind of special effects did you do? mad men?

To display like mad menIt’s a lot of weather influences. Anytime there’s something like snow, steam, or rain — anything that’s moving on camera, but not moved by the actor — those are special effects. Basically, every elevator door you see on this show is fake, and I think the majority of my job on that show was the elevator doors. I’m literally hiding in the walls, waiting for a signal, and figuring out the trick to making these mundane things It seems normal.

What goes into making juicy vomit that seems plausible rather than ridiculous?

(Laughs) Honestly, you spend a lot of time studying and looking for the real thing. I had to watch a lot of videos of people vomiting, but then there was the process of testing how to create this effect in practice. We have this thing called a pressure vessel that we fill with whatever liquid they want the vomit to look like in the final shot. You are studying how this fluid naturally exits the hose. But sometimes you have to manipulate the opening of the hose to make it look like the liquid is actually coming out of someone’s mouth.

If you have a straight tube, it will look like it is coming out of a tube, so you need to change it and look at what is in the person’s mouth naturally such as the teeth and uvula that make a believable shape for the vomit. And then the manager will tell you what consistency they want, and you have to ask things like, “Okay, what were they eating? Why are they sick? Is it because they’re drunk or because they have a virus?”

In “Red in the Face,” do you remember the kinds of conversations you had about the consistency of vomit?

That’s why they actually wanted Roger Sterling to eat clams, and (producer) Matt Weiner was like, “It’s got to be clam chowder.” So…I ended up using clam chowder, and figuring out how to make it cum everywhere.

What do you think went wrong in the remastering process that left you with the shot that everyone has now seen?

I guess I don’t know what the future holds, you know? Every time we did an effect, we needed to be as close as possible while out of frame.

When you were originally filming this, was the assumption that you would be cropped?

Yes. Back then, we always tried to camouflage ourselves as much as possible, but these days they tend to just say “we’ll erase it in the mail.” Only this time, it seems they didn’t wipe us out.