Monster Man
KNB Effect Group’s Howard Berger explains the process of the Grindl’s development from conception to actualisation. Interview by Kate Barker.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 15
Very often, a look into the reality behind the guest villains on Xena can prove extremely interesting, informative and sometimes downright strange. In the case of the Norse Ring trilogy in Xena’s sixth season this is even more true. The 10-foot mother Grindl and its seven-foot “baby” are played by stunt man Roger Morrissey, several puppeteer and a whole lot of wonderfully disguised PVC, foam and moulded clay. These are not creatures you would want to meet in a dark alley - or in Xena’s case, a dark, snow-capped forest - in the middle of the night.
Producer Rob Tapert’s initial vision of the Grindls (taken from the Norse tales of Beowulf, who also appears in the trilogy) is far removed from the creatures that were eventually created for Xena. “When we started designing and prepping things, the Grindls were big, giant, hairy beasts,” Howard Berger explains of the pre-production plans for the creatures. “We started working things out and found that the initial design wasn’t very practical to build. So we went ahead with more ideas and finally designed the Grindls as big, giant, tree-demons instead.”
Creating the Grindls was no small task and, as usual, the team at KNB’s Los Angeles base (where most of the larger effects pieces are made) had only a short time to bring them to life. “On these shows,” explains Berger, “we never really have a lot of time to prep things; most times it’s only a matter of weeks. For the Ring episodes, we had two weeks to build the creatures in Los Angeles, and it took another week to ship them to the set in New Zealand.”
“In order to build the Grindls very quickly and cost-effectively, we decided to do them as suits around two stunt performers. One stuntie is from New Zealand and is the ‘baby’ Grindl, which is about seven foot tall. The other is Roger Morrissey, a guy that we use in the States. Roger is seven foot four, so with him in the suit, that brings the mother Grindl up to about nine-and-a-half feet.”
Two stunt performers roaming the Xena studios wearing monster suits. It may not sound that hard - until we hear about the complex structures that make up the two outfits. “Basically,” says Berger, “each creature is a two-piece suit. It’s full-body spandex - arms, sides, body and legs - and the stunt man slides this on, so that it covers him from the lower torso and arms down. Then we put on the other piece, which covers the rest of the body, over the top of him. The monsters’ upper torsos are built elevated to make them appear a lot larger.”
Not only that, but attached to its torso piece, each Grindl has its own similar yet distinctive head. “For the baby Grindl there’s a skull cap that’s built in,” Berger continues. “This means that whenever the actor moves his head - side to side or up and down - it automatically moves the creature’s head. For the mother Grindl, we built a mechanical, radio-controlled head. This can be operated externally by two puppeteers, and has movement in the brow, jaw, upper and lower lip.
“The upper part of each monster suit also has giant arms which are big, twig-like things. The actors are able to put their own arms through the forearms of the creatures, and operate them from the inside.”
Although the head of the big Grindl is able to make larger-than-life expressions, it must be pretty hard to maneouvre in there, especially when grabbing for the monster’s potential victims. Never fear; KNB have thought of that too. “We built a set of big, giant gloves,” says Berger, “that a puppeteer can put on and do things like moving the fingers, which are posable. These are for close-up shots where the Grindls get to grab things and people and all that fun stuff.”
The other fun stuff is looking at what has actually gone into the structure of these creatures. They might look like simple tree-demons, but there’s a great deal more to them than that. “They’re actually built around PVC frames,” Berger reveals. “On top of that, they’re constructed with sheets of foam that are glued onto the frame and made to look like flesh and bone. The heads are sculpted out of clay, then moulded; we’re using the head and face style for the mother and the baby, although they’re different sizes, both to save money and to tie the two together.”
Even if you’re a stunt man, surely all this equipment can’t be easy to get yourself into? But then, it’s easier if you’re already wearing half the costume. “While everyone’s setting up and blocking the scene,” points out Berger, “Roger Morrissey as the big Grindl is already wearing the spandex suit with the monster’s lower half. Once they’re ready to rehearse and shoot, we put on the upper torso; we just flip it over his head and he’s ready to go. The whole thing takes about five minutes.”
Sometimes it can take a little longer than five minutes to deal with the consequences of working with two big tree-monsters made to wreak havoc in a carefully constructed snow-capped forest. After all, the Grindls aren’t really supposed to take any damage unless they’re being filmed! “We sometimes have a little trouble,” Berger admits, “because of wear and tear, and because the set is kind of small for these creatures. Plus they like to run into trees and rip off bits of the shrubbery…”
Talking of shrubbery, when Berger first made his comment describing the Grindls’ eventual design as “tree-demons,” he wasn’t fibbing. “The outer layers of the Grindls are all twigs and branches to fit in with the forest theme,” he says. “I guess you could compare it to the alien queen in the Aliens movies, as far as the looks and concept go; in Aliens, it was all very much bio-mechanical and organic sets, and that mirrored the design of the creatures. Once we got onto the set here and discussed things with the directors, we said, ‘What we need to do is utilise the design of these creatures with the setting, like Aliens did.’
“I was talking about hiding the big Grindl in the set and it stirring a little. We’d see Xena in front of the trees, and the audience would say, ‘Oh - look at that - there’s something in there; what the heck is that?’ And then all of a sudden this arm moves… So that was the idea, and I think it’s worked out really well.”
Considering the Grindls we see on the screen are almost all physical entity and very little computer graphics, they definitely are very impressive creations. During the filming of the trilogy’s first episode, The Rheingold, Berger admitted that a little post-editing might be needed to remove any rod movement from the Grindls’ puppeteers, and perhaps a nifty effect when one of the guest characters actually transforms into the big, bad, mother Grindl herself. But this can only add to the spectacular effect of witnessing the creatures on screen.
The rest of the Xena crew were certainly impressed when KNB’s Grindls first arrived on the scene. “From the first day of shooting on Main Unit with the mother Grindl,” says Berger, “people were saying, ‘This is the best monster we’ve ever had!’ I personally like the baby Grindl a little more though.”
Now why would that be? Berger smiles as he answers. “It’s smaller, it has more mobility, and it can really tear the place up!”