Huge miniatures were used to create the climactic fire at the end of the film. © 2005 Warner Bros. Ent. Inc. — U.S., Canada, Bahamas and Bermuda; © 2005 Village Roadshow Films (BVI) Ltd. — All other territories. Photo credit: Clau

For most cinephiles, the title House of Wax (opening May 6) immediately conjures up images of the 1953 film starring Vincent Price as the murderous curator of a wax museum, where the figure bases were actually made out of the bodies of his victims. Not many are aware that the cheesy, creepy classic was itself a remake of the 1933 film, Mystery of the Wax Museum. While it may have taken more than 50 years, House of Wax is again getting remodeled for a new generation, with a new youth skewing story, a hot cast (including Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton), and more splatter and gore than either original film ever deigned to consider back in the day. Matter of fact, the only elements linking all three films is the killer making wax figures from corpses and, of course, the wax. Produced by Joel Silver under his Dark Castle Ent. banner and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, an acclaimed commercial director helming his first Hollywood film, the pair is hoping that their version of House of Wax will become a new classic that future generations remember like its predecessors.

Bringing House of Wax in the new millennium also meant raising the visual stakes. Silver knew the quaint looking wax-covered bodies of yesteryear were definitely not going to cut it with today’s moviegoers. With that in mind, he went to the independent Australia-based vfx company, Photon VFX. Together Photon’s John Breslin, the visual effects supervisor on Wax, and Dale Duguid, the creative director, worked to coordinate their variety of departments together to create the intricate visual effects needed in the film. “We had done a number of projects with producer Joel Silver previously and of most relevance to the Dark Castle horror genre productions, we had done Ghost Ship,” Duguid explains about how they were hired for Wax. “That was the basis for the introduction to the producer and director of the project.”

Director Jaume Collet-Serra had faith that all the department heads would deliver results. His focus was to give the film an original, stunning look. Photo credit: Vince Valitutti.

With the largely tactile use of wax in the film, many would assume that the dominate effects utilized would be more vfx oriented, but Duguid explains the film is actually more of a balance. “I guess, if it had been a faithful reproduction of the original film, then it would have been much more special effects centric, but because of the storyline and requirements of story, both in terms of the horror elements and the ultimate demise of the house of wax, there was certainly going to be a visual effects solution heavily involved in that. As always, it’s a balance between practical special effects and post-production visual effects. The challenge was not deciding which one, it was pretty evident from the outset it would require both, but how to interface the two.”

With that in mind, Breslin and Photon worked closely with special effects coordinator, Bruce Bright (Peter Pan) to hammer out the logistical demands of what director Collet-Serra wanted. “There is always a collaborative approach, however in this instance it was clear that the onset demands of what appeared to be melting wax and fire and things like that, were going to be extremely demanding,” Duguid details. “In that instance, the visual effects took a pause and let special effects set the visual precedent for what melting wax should look like and it was a lot of chemical experimentation by that department to try and find a look. Once that was implemented, that set the visual precedent and the role of visual effects then became one of taking that look and simply adding volume, and jeopardy and proximity to actors, which would be in some cases impossible to do with special effects.” Duguid adds that Collet-Serra was very helpful in letting their departments do what they needed to find that right mix. “My impression was that the director had faith. He believed that the specialists around him would deliver the results. His focus was aesthetic. He just wanted to give the film his original stunning look, which I think he was very successful in doing. I guess a lot of his monitoring of the process was about reinforcing his requirements that the look be special.”

As to the variety of visual effects Photon had to create for the film, Duguid says they ran the gamut. “It was a fairly even mix of anything from the simplest rig-removals, right through the very sophisticated and complex composites involving miniatures, 3D particle elements, 3D elements and 2D elements. It was the full spectrum and it’s the kind of work Photon is noticed for in its niche because it’s a holistic vfx company that does all the bids and unifies them in the post-production process.