One of the joys of watching Skeleton Crew is Neel, the wide-eyed and open-hearted pal of Wim who each week is brought to life with skill and craft by the teams at Legacy Effects and ILMVFX. Here, StarWars.com takes a look at the work Legacy have done to make Neel as ‘real’ as possible, a concert of talent that is complimented by the onset performer Kacie Borrowman, actor Robert Timothy Smith and the work of ILM later in the process.
“We started exploring a whole bunch of different approaches. How much can Robert do? How much can he withstand as a performer, and how do we expose all of his face so that Jon [Watts] captures Robert’s facial performance and genuine reactions?” Scott says. “It ran the spectrum from let’s see all of Robert to let’s see all of Neel, and the in-between is where we worked together with every other department. It involved wardrobe, visual effects, and props. It was like, how do we create this so we’re building a suit that’s easy in and out, and unencumbering for Robert and eventually for [performance artist] Kacie Borrowman as well.”
Borrowman, who also lent her talents to Avatar: The Way of Water, stepped in to don the full animatronic head, designed with small perforations for her to be able to see the outside world. She studied Smith’s performances on set with a keen eye, and then the two worked closely together with a team of puppeteers to bring Neel to life.
