Rick Baker one of the well known artists in the makeup industry! As well as working within Michael Jacksons ‘Thriller’ music video as result of him seeing American Werewolf in London!

Within the interview with Rick Baker he states that this was gory and you can see the expression of the actor Griffin, when applying the pieces to him that he looked depressed, Rick then asked him what was wrong and he replied with it’s gruesome. Griffin stated that he got a strong sense of what he would look like dead! People were avoiding him on set because of how gruesome the makeup was. (Singer, 2011). The application of each prosthetic piece took roughly 7 hours and was created with foam latex!

A bit about foam latex;

Firstly a cast is made of the model. Then a sculpture is created out of clay, a mould is then made of this sculpture, pulled apart and cleaned. Whipped foam latex is then injected in to the mould and baked for three to four hours. The pieces then comes out of the mould, flashed, washed, dried – ready to then be applied to the models face and coloured. These pieces are re-useable with the correct care and removal. (The Scream Team | Film Quality Foam Latex Appliances, n.d.).

It wasn’t like it is today where I have to do 2,000 Photoshop’s. No, it was just “Make a four-legged hound from hell.” So I sculpted it, made a mold, and made it.(Singer, 2011)

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, Rick Baker, left, applies makeup to Griffin Dunne, on-set, 1981, ©Universal/courtesy Everett Collection

Each time you see Griffin throughout the film it is a series of different makeups, in some scenes he was more decomposed so Rick Baker had to re-sculpt and make new pieces . Rick explains that he did a life cast of Griffin for the scenes where he is decomposing and created a puppet! This way he could create hollows in the cheeks and to other areas to create a lifelike image of a decomposing person (Rick Baker on “An American Werewolf in London”, 2016). If Rick hadn’t done this he would of had to build onto Griffins Cheekbones and hollowed the pieces out, but this makes the face appear bigger than it is therefore not giving the best effect possible.

For the transformation in to a werewolf, Rick Baker used a process called change-o-heads change-o-backs and change-o-hands, these were props for the head, hands and back what Rick had sculpted, these had a mechanism inside that would distort and stretch the limb or body part (Rick Baker on “An American Werewolf in London”, 2016). Rick explained that the foam latex that usually is used for prosthetic pieces wouldn’t stretch enough when being distorted.

For the hair growth on Griffins chest and back, Rick applied hair to the actors body and with each stage of transformation trimmed the hair, added hair on and got rid of some hair where appropriate. this was the easiest and quickest way with the best effect for on screen!

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