After 1988's GORILLAS IN THE MIST, creature designer Rick Baker (who has been involved in ape suit creation with projects that from SCHLOCK to 1976's KING KONG to THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) figured he had accomplished everything he wanted with ape suits.
"We had guys in gorilla costumes inter-cut with real animals and people didn't know they were there," says Baker. "I finally made the gorillas I always wanted to make and wanted to call it quits for apes in my career and move on."
Almost 10 years later, Baker got the call for the Disney remake of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, which he admits to have had a hard time saying "no" to.
"It was the other giant gorilla movie," says Baker. "I was involved with KING KONG, which I thought was a joke, so I was hoping I could show people I could make a giant gorilla right if they would allow me. So I did JOE."
Calling it quits again, Baker thought there would be no more reason to go back to the well with ape work. However, like clockwork the PLANET OF THE APES remake directed by Tim Burton fell into his lap.
"How can I turn that down," Baker says with a laugh.
How could anyone turn it down indeed, but Baker almost did. After doing both HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR 2 simultaneously where between the two shows he had around 125 make-ups a day going on, Baker was looking for some time off. His mother also passed away, which made for a very emotional time as well.
Rick Baker's ape applications require precision work
© 20th Century Fox
"I decided I was going to kick back, take some time off and connect with my family more and don't work for awhile," he admits. "Then Tim called me for PLANET OF THE APES and I went, 'I am going to have a hard time turning this down.' It was something I was born to do. I am the make-up guy and the ape guy. So I did it. I'm hoping this will spark a whole other generation of people who are interested in putting foam rubber on people's faces."
The 1968 original definitely had an impact on moviegoers and many of today's most famous make-up effects artists were inspired by John Chambers' amazing ape-like prosthetics. Re-imagining the APE story for a new generation, however, wasn't an easy task. After several filmmakers were attached to the project (James Cameron and Oliver Stone most notably), SLEEPY HOLLOW's Tim Burton was given the unenviable task of bringing a new century spin on the tale.
The basics remain an astronaut, Leo (Mark Wahlberg), crash-lands on a planet inhabited by anthropomorphic apes that treat human beings as the lesser of the species. After being taken prisoner, Wahlberg leads a revolt to free his fellow humans against the ape oppressors.
As for Baker's make-ups, while there are nods to the original Chambers creations, Baker has put his own spin on the creatures.
"They are talking apes, so they're going to look more like real apes than they did in the first film," says Baker. "They're also a lot more expressive and are able to talk a lot better and do a lot more than what those guys did."
Rick Baker "straightens up" an aged orangutan for his scene in PLANET OF THE APES
© 20th Century Fox
There are three different kinds of apes in the film the gorillas, the chimpanzees and the orangutans each having their own distinct look and body types. Initially, the gorillas were going to be played by body builders and wrestlers, but that notion soon fell by the wayside.
"I'm usually against that because I feel you need to have good actors, but these Apes mostly all they do are battle," says Baker. "That's why I thought we should get huge, big body builder guys to play the gorillas. The gorillas are all 6'5" and weigh 300 pounds. They're all muscle. Unfortunately we lost a lot of them. They said, 'This is too hard.'"
While Baker is tight-lipped with specific plot details, he does note that the battle sequences will be the highlight of the film. In fact, like the GRINCH, which required Baker's team to supply prosthetics on all the inhabitants of Whoville at any given moment, his team on APES had to provide an army of around 500 apes for the film's large-scale battle sequences.
"This is huge as far as make-ups go," Baker admits. "In the original script there were three huge battles and it was going to be like BRAVEHEART. It was all big, battle scenes and I thought it was going to be a nightmare. Now it's just one battle."
As the make-up effects industry continues to look for new materials to create realistic skin, silicone has come to the forefront and has made many appliances look ultra-realistic because of its translucency. Still, Baker prefers foam rubber to silicone and that ended up being the material he used for APES.
Rick Baker shows off a specially made ape mask for use in the PLANET OF THE APES remake
© 20th Century Fox
"Foam rubber seemed the way to go," says Baker who notes that it's much cheaper plus it stays glued to an actor better than silicone, especially when the actor is sweating. "We got foam latex to a level where I don't think it's ever been before. It's still not so much the material as the artistry that makes the difference."
Though Baker did try to make the prosthetics and teeth work for the actors so they could speak without having to loop the dialogue later, he notes that eating has proven to be a problem with the ape-folk.
"There was this dinner party scene and one of these guys was trying to eat but couldn't with these big dentures," says Baker. "He thought it better to eat without his dentures, so they did one of the last takes of the day where he took a bite of a big piece of fruit and ended up biting his fake lip off. He took a big chunk out of it."
And considering the 50-year old artist couldn't resist the urge to put himself in Ape-make-up, audience members could very well find him in the background of one of the scenes if they look carefully.
"In the script it said, 'A group of older apes' and I thought, 'Hey, that's me,'" laughs Baker. "So I'm like this old ape playing some kind of game and smoking a hookah. We'll see if the scene ends up in the movie."
Getting to work on dream projects is certainly a luxury Baker has earned over his long, extensive career a career that began in 1971 with the horror film OCTAMAN.
Rick Baker poses next to his finished ape "product"
© 20th Century Fox
"It was a pretty crappy movie, but the suit was the best thing in the movie," says Baker. "I was always concerned with my work being as good as I could make it."
His salary was around $500, but he didn't make anything off the film since most of the money was put into supplies. Soon, though, Baker moved up the ranks working for legendary make-up artist Dick Smith on THE EXORCIST.
Throughout the '70s, Baker honed his make-up and puppetry craft until AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON made him a solo star. The werewolf transformation in that 1981 film directed by John Landis afforded him his first Academy Award and the first Oscar ever given for "Best Make-Up Design." In the interim, he's won a total of six Academy Awards for Best Make-Up and has the distinction of being nominated in the Best Make-Up category every year since 1997.
Other Baker highlights include HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS (which he considers one of his favorite creations to date) and Michael Jackson's THRILLER. In fact, over time Baker's prosthetic character make-ups are now considered some of the best in the business. Transforming Eddie Murphy into the overweight Sherman Klump for the NUTTY PROFESSOR remake (and its sequel) has been one of his most flawless designs aided even more so by Murphy's tireless and convincing performance under mounds of latex.
Still, for Baker it's the ape suits that he never can quite shake. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG in particular allowed him to right the wrongs inherent in the ill-fated KING KONG remake.
"I was very disappointed in KING KONG," admits Baker. "I wanted to make the suit I made for JOE, but I wasn't allowed to because they wanted a Hollywood gorilla a biped, human-acting gorilla. At the time, though, that was going to my only opportunity to make a gorilla. It was a $20 million dollar movie and I thought, 'How many times are they going to ask me to do a title character in a movie that is a gorilla on this big of scale?'"
Working on KING KONG is also of note for Baker since, at the end of the day, he ended up playing KING KONG.
In between takes, Rick Baker touches up a soldier's ape makeup
© 20th Century Fox
"I first heard about the KING KONG remake from John Landis and I said, 'Oh man, they are probably going to get some idiot and put him in the gorilla suit and ruin this movie,'" recalls Baker. "And then they finally called me up and I ended up being the idiot. A lot of people said, 'How is it you ended up being in the suit?' And I always say, 'Because they couldn't find anyone else stupid enough to put it on.'"
As computer technology takes over most big-budget effects films, Baker feels fortunate that he's keeping busy in the business especially with the extensive use of prosthetics used in both the GRINCH and now APES.
"I have a love/hate relationship with the digital realm," says Baker. "My feeling is I've seen some really incredible work and I've see some really terrible work with a computer. It's a just a tool. It's only as good as the artist behind it."
And because major films are more effects driven nowadays and not character driven, Baker feels ultimately something has been lost in the process.
"Special effects is a thriving industry and a lot of films are driven by and made because of that, but it never used to be that way," concludes Baker who cites Ray Harryhausen's stop motion work as some of the most flawless creature work ever committed to the big screen. "Ray's movies were done with Ray in a dark room pushing a puppet. And now you have places like Industrial Light and Magic that have hundreds of people on staff doing stuff on a computer that he used to do all by himself. He inspired all of us. He's a god to all of us."
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