Glen Eytchison was deep in the planning stages of his next theatrical output when he got a phone call from Industrial Light & Magic . It was early 1989 , and employees at George Lucas ’s famed optic effect sign of the zodiac needed to create a picture of a 16th - century Carpathian warlord that could come to living for director Ivan Reitman’sGhostbusterssequel . They had to do it tight : The moving-picture show was due to come out in June . Could Eytchison help them ?
Living paintings were something Eytchison knew well . As director of the Laguna Beach , California , showPageant of the Masters , he had , at that point in time , been creatingtableaux vivants — three - dimensional set containing actors that were lit to see like flat painting and would , at the right instant , shockingly come to life — for more than a 10 . “ We ’re the honest at it , ” he narrate Mental Floss . “ No question about it . There ’s no one any better in the world . ” Eytchison was also aGhostbustersfan whose idol was ILM visual result executive program Dennis Muren — so , of trend , he said he ’d help .
What followed was a whirlwind month in which Eytchison and his squad created a house painting that would terrorize moviegoer , sewed together Vigo the Carpathian ’s costume , make a forcible set of the picture , and shot footage of Wilhelm von Homburg as Vigo — complete with warlord outfit and facial prosthetics — stepping out of that exercise set to struggle the Ghostbusters . Eytchison , his crew , and ILM had no idea that their creation would become an iconic moving picture villain … or that a lot of their living painting would n’t ever make it to the large screen .
When he flew up to meet with Muren at ILM ’s headquarters , then located in San Rafael , California , Eytchison intended to talk them out of using his services . “ When all is said and done , the Pageant is about Sir Henry Wood , unbleached muslin , key , and light , ” he says . “ It ’s not light — in fact , it ’s very difficult — but it ’s based on common good sense : Eliminate the shadow and the set will look flat . I did n’t want them to go , ‘ We ’re give this cat and that ’s all you have to do ? ’ ”
But Muren was n’t having it . “ There ’s no interrogation we could figure it out , but you already know how to do it , ” he told Eytchison . “ Why should we waste our time ? ”
So Eytchison officially signed on and need a look at the script , while Muren and the ILM team outlined what they need their aliveness house painting to do . “ They wanted him to be convincing as a monotonous picture in the former museum scenes where he ’s being mend , ” Eytchison says . “ Then they wanted him to come to life and start speaking his line , and they wanted that to be a really shocking moment . ”
Eytchison cognize he could pull that off , but first , he had to harness the most urgent issue : Creating the artwork on which he would base his livelihood picture . “ Some of ILM ’s best people had acquire some really brilliant and beautiful paintings , but they had all been rejected by Ivan Reitman , ” Eytchison say . “ They showed me a stack of paintings ; Ivan had said that they were ' too Conan . ' So our first undertaking was to create a composition that would form for Ivan , and also act upon for us technically . It also had to work for Wilhelm von Homburg , who had already been cast as Vigo . ’ ”
Eytchison knew they had to get start right away if they want to finish in clock time . So he asked ILM to send a matte painter down to his home in Southern California , where the Pageant ’s costume section came fain with book from their depository library . “ We expend the 24-hour interval doing enquiry to determine what a 16th - century Carpathian warlord would look like and what he would wear , ” Eytchison says . “ And while they were look at costumes , I was search through books of mountain lion from that time and in that geographic location so we could rival the face and find of the period . ”
After the squad had compile a number of sample , the next consistent dance step would have been to drop a twosome of days creating a painting to show to Reitman , but Eytchison decided to do something a little different . “ We become a blackboard and we painted a background on it , ” he says . “ Then we painted several reading of each element — skies , tree , the burning castle , the can of skulls — on freestanding layers of ethanoate . ”
ILM representatives came down to Burbank , whereGhostbusters IIwas flash , and go with Eytchison and executive producer Michael C. Gross to Reitman ’s trailer , where they award the painting . “ I specify it in front of him and said , ‘ This is what a 16th - century Carpathian warlord would wear in conflict , ’ ” Eytchison call in . “ And he said , ‘ I like it , but I do n’t like the tree diagram . ’ And so I took the tree cel out , and put a dissimilar one in . ” Reitman experimented for a while , test different compounding and elements , and changing the position of the acetate layer until he had a composition that he liked ; then , Eytchison solicit everything down . The group meeting had taken just 15 minutes .
Eytchison take that composition , along with the consultation material and photos of von Homburg , to a puma named Lou Police , who has created artistic production for everyone from Warner Bros. Television to Walt Disney Studios . “ We only ask one meeting with Lou , ” Eytchison says . “ He dialed in immediately to what we were die for . I was able to say , ‘ The sky on this picture Ivan really likes , the patina on the armor in this painting he really likes , and the skulls he really like in this house painting . ’ We gave the guy wire a plenty of reference material that we had take out of art Book and circle and pointed arrows and show at stuff , and he said , ‘ I roll in the hay exactly what you need . ’ ”
A few days later , Eytchison had the painting of Vigo the Carpathian in hired hand . He snap it and sent it to ILM and Reitman , who approve it at once . Things were off to a great starting signal . There was just one problem : Eytchison knew their original plan was n’t going to work .
There ’s a big differencebetween produce a last painting on stagecoach , where the near individual is 40 feet away , and creating one for a film , where the house painting is flub up across a huge film screen with the interview sitting directly beneath it . “ You ’re going to see every pore on his face — every imperfection , ” Eytchison says . Which is why he knew that Police ’s house painting , as good as it was , would never be an precise match for von Homburg ’s real look . They would never be able to credibly swop between the house painting and the circle for the shot where Vigo talk to Dr. Janosz Poha ( Peter MacNicol ) and ultimately stepped out of the painting .
luckily , Eytchison had a program : The source painting would be used as a reference , but he and his crew would make the bent , place von Homburg as Vigo in it , and snap the whole shebang . Then , they ’d blow up the pic to life - size and treat it in such a way that it would look like an oil picture , andthat’swhat would be used on the Burbank set . “ That way , when he get along to liveliness , all I had to match was what we had already done , ” Eytchison says , “ as defend to taking a house painting of a bozo and trying to match it exactly . ”
ILM jibe to the plan , and Eytchison and his Pageant of the Masters squad suffer to work . Rather than wing everyone up to San Rafael — which did n’t make fiscal sense — Eytchison opted to build the solidification in Southern California and ship it upstate .
Many thing had to happen very quickly . “ We require ILM to ship us the cast of von Homburg ’s body , which they did , in a handsome closet corner , ” Eytchison says . “ It come in three pieces , and we put them back together . ” While Skipper Skeoch and Marci O’Malley were building the costume using the mannikin , Richard Hill was project the set , then constructing it with the avail of John Clancy . Simultaneously , Judy Parker was creating the geomorphological element of the circle , like the skulls , which she grave from Styrofoam . Both the costume and the set were paint by David Rymar and Leslie Turnbull . “ You need to use a similar grain on the background knowledge and on the foreground component , and on the costume and the skin , because it ’s the grain that ’s going to make everything fuse together as one piece , ” Eytchison say . “ That ’s why the hardened painter are also the people who paint the foreground element and the costume . ” Diane Challis Davy leave additional supervision of the physical yield .
All of the elements took about two weeks to manufacture . Everything was shipped up to ILM , where the gang set it up in a loose collapsible shelter , which would aid to winnow out shadows . Using a stand - in for von Homburg , Eytchison spent hours tweaking the lighting and getting free of shadow to make the hardened look as two-dimensional as possible .
When von Homburg go far , ILM ’s Mike Smithson applied make up and prosthetics to his face ( which he had designed along with Tim Lawrence ) . Then , the actor was sneak in into the set , which was about 4 fundament inscrutable . They spend the next week necessitate the photo that would be blow up and turned into the rock oil house painting on solidification , and shooting tests of Wilhelm speaking , run , and stepping out of the painting .
Reitman wanted von Homburg to rescue his crease while stomach perfectly still , with only his mouth move . “ We used several techniques to help him , including build a simple armature behind him to give him reference distributor point and support , but he was having a tough sentence of it , ” Eytchison says . “ We were also dealing with the big reveal , where he stepped out of the set and onto the stage floor . It was an awkward move for Wilhelm , and he never pose it quite right . ”
Despite everything , Eytchison thought the results of their calendar month - long sprint to create the effect looked fantastic . “ I ’m usually the one who is most critical of our work , ” he tell . “ But when we see the dailies , I thought the impression was going to be really interesting , and with a few qualifying to the set , we could make Wilhelm more comfortable stepping in and out . ” But not everyone agreed .
Though Eytchison was very happy with the issue of the “ psychometric test ” shoot , something about it — Eytchison still is n’t sure exactly what — just did n’t make for for Reitman . “ Ivan switch the entire conclusion , ” Eytchison says . The manager decided to supersede the live depiction scenes with a visual upshot of Vigo ’s bodiless head float over a river of gook . At the end of the film , the baddie does n’t step out of the picture , but go away from it , then re-emerge in the aspect . Eytchison and his squad were n’t called back for the last shoot , which is why Vigo looks so different at the end of the film .
It was a shame but , Eytchison says , that is the nature of the picture industry — and he knew that going in . “ I wish we had a little more time with Wilhelm to work out the bug , but I realise that Dennis and ILM were dealing with hundred of issues , ” he order . “ There were a quite a little of people working on it — other people at other job in other department whose needs also had to be reckon . And when all is said and done , you have to trust that the director knows well . ” Eytchison , a theater director himself , understood that .
Still , Eytchison is proud of the work he and his squad did . “ The fact that we make do to get it up there at all — I was just so proud of and impressed that we were capable to exercise so quickly , ” he say . “ And Dennis Muren , Ned Gorman , and the residuum of the crew at ILM were incredible to work with . They made us experience like a part of the team from the minute we arrived , and it was much appreciated . ”
SinceGhostbusters II , Eytchison has createdtableaux vivantsfor more movies — including Taylor Hackford’sThe Devil ’s Advocate(1997 ) and Barry Sonnenfeld’sWild Wild West(1999 ) , as well as for Broadway shows likeHairsprayandThe Will Rogers Follies , and for television serial and commercials . But Vigo is still his most democratic macrocosm .
“ I get fan mail about Vigo , ” Eytchison says , who has been at his craft for more than 40 age . “ That ’s a long time , and Vigo is the one matter that just keeps coming back . I get more attending for Vigo than I get for almost anything else I ’ve done . ”
The two paintings of Vigo live . The pic done up as an oil colour paint glowers out over a hallway at the San Francisco offices of Lucasfilm and ILM . Lou Police ’s original hangs in Ivan Reitman ’s home .
A version of this story run in 2015 . It has been updated for 2021 .
