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• Series: Incredible Hulk, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Aaron Sims updates GORT for DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

Mania Exclusive Interview with DTESS designer Aaron Sims
© Mania.com

When Fox announced plans to update one of the greatest science fiction stories of all time, 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', one question came to the forefront of most fan conversations: What will Gort look like? The sleek, towering silver robot from the original is one of the all-time great movie icons. Will it look the same? Will it be made unrecognizable? Will it inspire thrills or scorn among the faithful?

The unenviable task of redesigning Gort for the 21^st century fell to Aaron Sims, the special effects guru who is among the first filling a new role in modern filmmaking: the character designer. Mania.com talked exclusively with Sims about redesigning Gort and some of the most recognizable characters in modern movies.

"For the longest time make up effects houses took the role of designing characters. Now that digital characters have become such a big part of the industry, they have to be built and they have to be designed," Sims told us, citing King Kong and Gollum as examples of recent virtual thespians.

Character designer Aaron Sims

© Aaron Sims

"So what I do is basically create what a creature's going to look like. After that, I work with some of the makeup and digital effects houses to help art direct them," Sims said. Since his work is ultimately done in a computer, he can design a character and then hand over completed 3D models that a digital effects house can utilize.

Sims told us he'll begin work during the scripting stages, and his visuals can actually feed back into the story development process. Such was the case with the early scripts for 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'.

"Originally when we were designing Gort, [director] Scot Derrickson had the idea for it to be more like a monument character. He was actually called 'the idol' so he was kind of this larger than life thing that almost looked like a sculpture," Sims told us.

Aaron Sims updated Gort for DTESS

© 20th Century Fox

He then went and created some designs around this monolithic idol concept. Seeing it realized in some form helped the director and studio refocus.

"After a while the studio and everyone else wanted to bring back the old Gort from the fifties and try to make him more contemporary looking," Sim said. "We had gone completely in a different direction. I thought was interesting. I certainly liked some of the earlier concepts. But it was a process that helped guide us to it by creating certain images that helped us answer a lot of questions."

The character designer often begins working with films in the early stages, but may continues to work on characters even during production and through post-production. One example is the work he did on the creatures from the recent 'I am Legend' movie.

An early HULK design, looking very Keown-esque

© Marvel Entertainment

"There was the idea that [the mode for the creature] was going to be a guy in a suit, so we were designing it in that kind of thinking and those terms early on," Sims said. "Ultimately, the action that the director really wanted, a guy just couldn't do in the suit. There were a lot of jumping stunts and with the speed he wanted them to be, just couldn't be done with a guy in a suit."

'I am Legend' director Francis Lawrence told Mania in a previous interview that he realized actors in prosthetics weren't going to work after the first day of shooting. They called in Sims with the mandate that the creature effects were going to be all digital.

With that in mind, the creatures were remade in the computer, while Lawrence continued filming on location. "They said, now that we're going all-digital lets elongate the body and the arms, and bring the waist in extremely thin. All these things they couldn't do with a guy in a suit. It was an interesting process because it was all evolving as the film was being completed."

Final Abomination design for INCREDIBLE HULK

© Marvel Entertainment

Sims and his team bring a kind of agility to the film making process that allows for such an evolutionary process. One famous example was his new design for 'The Incredible Hulk'. Sims told us that he and director Louis Leterrier, "revisited almost every possible Hulk and Abomination you can think of.

"We spent a lot of time on the color of his skin and the length of his hair. I think 100 designs were hair designs, from the really crew-cut military to the longer hair to where it was in his face," he continued. "To the color of his skin being completely gray to being green."

Dealing with iconic characters like Gort, Hulk and Abomination isn't always easy. Sims is well aware that these characters mean something to fans and tries to find the balance between serving the story as well as meeting expectations.

The Abomination, for example, underwent significant transformation in the journey to the big screen. Sims told us that it was to serve the story.

"It had to do with...how he was injected with the gamma rays into his spine, which caused the bones to grow outside his body. We wanted to make that very clear that it was just a kind of weird, spikey growth," Sim said. And creature designs that looked more like the comic version also created confusion. "We explored what the comic book looked like and it started looking like a sea creature."

Aaron Sims designed the diamond-mode Emma Frost for X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

© 20th Century Fox

Another Marvel character that he's worked on will be appearing on the big screen in lest than a month. Sims told us he created the diamond form of young Emma Frost, who will appear in 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'.

At the time of our interview, Sims was working hard on revisiting yet another set of iconic creatures. This time, he and Leterrier are walking in the footsteps of legendary monster-maker Ray Harryhausen to update the mythological beasts of 'Clash of the Titans'.

"I think it's good that we explore everything Harryhausen had done, as well as explore new things and try to figure out what would be the best for this movie with a contemporary audience," Sims said. "but completely, I'm a fan of all those films. Harryhausen films were always my favorites, 'Sinbad', 'Jason and the Argonuats', 'Clash of the Titans', all that stuff. So it's an honor to be a part of this."

Fans can check out Aaron Sims' work this week in 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', arriving on DVD and Blu-Ray April 7^th.