CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Men in Suits, A Documentary on the History & Art of Monster Suit Acting

laughingsquid.com: Men in Suits is an in-depth documentary directed by Frank H. Woodward of Wyrd Studios which takes a look at the hard work behind ‘monster suit acting’ in films and television.

2 comments:

seangroves71 said...

this looks like a really interesting documentary, Ive worked with doug jones on a couple of short films and I can say he is one of the nicest actors I have ever worked with. I remember him telling stories about pans labyrinth and how long it took them to get him in the suit. being put in a full prosthetic suit is notorious for being the most claustrophobic experiences. I have worn full face and head pieces and those didnt necessarily bother me but it still took 30-45 minutes just to apply a head piece. For Hellboy to get Ron pearlman into his prosthetic it took close to 3 hours every morning. talk about compensating for lead time in scheduling for a filming.

Camille Rohrlich said...

While this was only the trailer and not the whole documentary, I still find the topic very engaging. I've actually always wondered about what goes into acting in a big monster suit; is it still really acting? It appears that the answer is yes, listening to the points that the interviewed "men in suits" make about the movement work that goes into turning a suit or a puppet from an inert object to a living creature. I really do want to learn more about this, and might just end up buying the documentary. It is interesting that it is such a non-conventional form of acting, yet we are used to see it in many movie so we don't dwell upon it as much as we might other unconventional acting experiences.