The Five Nights at Freddy's movie brings the wildly popular series of mobile games into the live-action realm. Like many adaptations before it, the movie had to make a choice - should those iconically creepy animatronic monsters be practical or CG? The movie opts for the former approach.
IGN had the chance to speak with director Emma Tammi to learn more about the process of recreating those animatronics in real life. She explains why a practical approach was so necessary, and why production hit a small snag when those animatronics turned out to be flammable.
As Tammi explains, there was never really any question over whether to go the practical or CG route, though there were early discussions with creator Scott Cawthon and Blumhouse Productions about the best approach to take.
"Scott Cawthon and I talked about that a lot at the beginning of this process along with Blumhouse," Tammi tells IGN. "The film is set in the year 2000 and we're flashing back to '80s and '90s eras, and I think we wanted to, I particularly and Scott, wanted to pay homage to those time periods and the way that movies were made back then. And Jim Henson's company couldn't have been a better partner for that. And if you're going to work with Jim Henson's puppeteers and their animatronics, you're going to want to use as much practically as possible. So our whole VFX approach was framed in terms of supporting what we were doing practically versus replacing it."
Tammi also notes that when filming a horror movie, it's simply too useful having the actors on set and physically interacting with the monsters trying to murder their characters.
"It was a lot of hard work and it was so much fun. And those are the two things I'll say about it," Tammi says. "But the real highlight was that because we were doing it practically, the actors were able to be interacting with these animatronics in real time. And we had a whole team of puppeteers getting them up on their feet and having them come to life, and that was an incredible addition to the talent pool that we had in this film. And it gave the animatronics so much detail, care, and attention every step of the way, which I think the devil is in the detail. And I think it really shows."
Tammi also notes that special care was paid to reflecting the personalities of the various game characters and giving them unique behaviors and movements.
"Coming out of the game lore, there are certain characteristics that each of the animatronics have, so we took those into consideration," Tammi says. "And certainly, in terms of how they moved and what types of action they would be doing, we were making sure that it was authentic and true to the game. On top of that, they were coming to life in a whole new way in the movie, so we were also walking uncharted territory and really trying to figure out what was the best elements of each puppet once they were actually coming to life on their own."
Having practical animatronics does inevitably bring its own set of challenges, however. Tammi reveals that one of the animatronics actually caught fire during production, necessitating some quick clean-up and repairs.
"There was one day where we were rolling and I heard someone quietly and calmly say, 'Foxy's arm is on fire.'" Tammi says. "And I looked over and one of the servos had been going for quite some time and it overheated, which happens sometimes, but this was actually the only time it happened on set. And it just started smoking, and everyone calmly walked away. We put it out and switched out the arm. But yeah, it was... There were live robotic elements at play, and sometimes they only have a certain amount of time that they can operate."
Five Nights at Freddy's is in theaters now. For more on the film, check out IGN's Five Nights at Freddy's review and find out why there won't be an R-rated director's cut.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
