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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for visiting with me today.
Speaker 2: Our pleasure.
Speaker 1: This is just an astounding thing to witness, and I wanted to
start with you. Now seeing you in the suit earlier, and knowing
the work that you had to do, how do you keep yourself calm and
relaxed through that whole thing, because I would be going batty
on the hours that you must put in inside that thing?
Speaker 2: How do you go to the happy place?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it is a happy place. Well, I always say I'm a
fan boy at heart, so the adage that pain is temporary and film
is forever constantly goes into your mind, at some points it can
be uncomfortable, or actually painful, but you think about that
final outcome, that this could be something really amazing. So I
guess if you're talking about like bleeding for your art, that
actually happens.
Speaker 2: And your first approach for a project like this, the director
obviously has a vision; you come back with your ideas. On this
particular film with Hansel and Gretel, you know, how much
leeway did you have to kind of create the designs, like the
character that this man here has valued?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tommy and Kevin; Tommy [Recollar] our director obviously,
and Kevin Messick, producer on the film, were very, really great
at allowing us, the artists, to fill in a lot of the blanks, and
they gave us a lot of artistic license, a lot of freedom. Tommy
had a very clear idea of what he wanted, but at the same time he
allowed us to explore artistically, which is you know, the
perfect kind of job; when you have a director who knows what
they want and they allow you to express it artistically with
your team, and come up with something wonderful, you know, and
that's the result.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, and it shows on every frame.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And it's so clear that you absolutely love what you do.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: How did you find your way into this business and where did you
start?
Speaker 1: It's a very long process that began when I was very young. I
loved monster films as a kid, like all of us did, you know. And
it sort of gradually became apparent to me that it was something
that I could do for a living, that I could figure out a way to
find a career in this field. So just step by step, and really
just learning on my own, and reading books, and recruiting my
friends to being my guinea pigs, though I feel sorry. But that's
how it happened.
Speaker 2: And Eric, I know you're a big fan of the genre and sci-fi and
all these kinds of things. What does it actually mean to you
personally as a fan to be a part of some of these movies that
are a part of the fabric that many consider a great golden era
of this kind of genre we're in right now?
Speaker 1: It's mind boggling in a sense, because I'm the guy at home like
everybody else who's on the Internet and like reading, who got
cast in what, and oh, they're going to make a sequel to a film
that I love. And it's bizarre to be able to transform and join
and hop into that screen, like for example, with Dead Snow,
Tommy Workholder's [SP] film before Hansel and Gretel. I watched
it, loved it, and thought, oh, I would love like to hang out and
work with these guys someday. Three months later I'm in Berlin
shooting with them and I felt, how surreal is this? It's very
bizarre.
Speaker 2: And you did shoot in Berlin.
Speaker 1: We did.
Speaker 2: And that's obviously where the story emanates from, the German
folklore. How much did that add to it, rather than being on a
sound stage out here in Burbank or something?
Speaker 1: It's a good point; especially if I had to deal with a wide
exterior shot, to give the tone of the film, like when we went
to the forest. I forget the actual forest name. Do you remember?
Speaker 2: I don't remember. But just like we walk in and getting lost,
and like helping like figure out the environment that the film
takes place in. It helped me kind of sink in and like settle
into the character.