In 1997 HBO Pictures asked JK Potter to design a movie monster. As often happens in Hollywood, the work was done and the designs paid for, but the film was never made due to script problems. Some of the images eventually found their way onto book and CD covers, but the entire series of designs have remained unpublished until now.
Longtime collaborator Robert Ricci modeled for the monster in a New York photo session that was as grueling as it was memorable. Ricci was completely painted with clown white and slides of cracked mud and sand textures were projected on his body using an old slide projector. Ricci's inspired performance greatly exceeded Potter's expectations. Much of the sand imagery was photographed in extremely windy conditions at Horseneck beach on the southern coast of Massachusetts. JK drew some of his inspiration from early black and white monster movies and injected a strong element of humor into his concepts. Writer/director Manny Coto along with art impresario and H.R. Giger agent Les Barany supervised the project. JK's original proposal written to go with the images is printed below.
The Design Proposal
The most important thing to keep in mind while viewing the Monstrosity photos is that the sand creature has been designed in such a way that he can be partially created using latex appliances and an actor in an articulated suit. CGI effects can then be used to treat the filmed action of the actor. I have no objection to the monster being created from the ground up using CGI, but I feel the combined approach to be more aesthetically desirable. I would prefer that a real actor is used and that he has a Karloff-like presence. It is important that he be able to project extreme anger and intensity in his expressions. I do not want the monster to look like a muscle-bound super hero, however, he should at least look as fit as a Greek statue. The creature is a cream or light grey color, which often looks darker in harsh noir side lighting. Sand flows in ripples down his shoulders and back, creating moving stripes of shadow as he flexes his muscles or raises his arms. It is crucial that CGI be used to create a weird sense of elasticity, and a warped sense of movement should be maintained at all times.
The monster is a shapeshifter whose nightmarish forms become increasingly more intense as the film progresses. When he is first glimpsed, he is somewhat ephemeral; a blurry figure of loosely atomized sand particles that render him semi-transparent. At this stage he is very much like a ghost, with soft edges and vibrating sand-grains creating an impressionistic effect. He then begins to coalesce into a state where lace-like cracks criss-cross his body and clumps of sand form in between the interstices. These thin, jagged fissures are initially in constant flux and appear to crawl across the contours of his frame. As he acquires additional substance, the details of his features become more defined. Even as he appears more solid, the cracks can still have a certain transparency and he dissolves easily back into a ghost-like blur.
With each subsequent appearance the monster gains in strength and density. Feeding on the growing fear he inspires, he is able to assume forms that appear increasingly organized. In the next stage of development the cracks fuse together to be replaced with textures which look like damp flowing beach sand. However, even when he is solid looking enough to resemble a sandstone statue come to life, he is still able to regress to previous forms in a smooth morphing fashion, collapsing in a heap, melting like a sand castle, cracking up, or blowing away in an abrasive cloud. Even at his most solid he still exhibits instability with particles flowing off of his body. Clumps and small jets of sand fall from his face at the slightest facial expression, revealing a rough skull-like substructure (which usually appears on only one side of his face).
Bullets impact his flesh much like they would strike wet concrete and pass right through. Body parts that are smashed or sliced in two simply reform. The dense mass of his body with it's crushing strength can spread into a smothering blanket, or disintegrate into long thin weaving tornadoes of sand which can blast the flesh off of a person leaving a dry and pitted skeleton eroding in it's wake.
As the monster forms and deforms, his basic humanoid structure is wildly distorted. there is a strong element of the humorously absurd to the creature, designed to contrast his horrific nature. His head sometimes appears as if it is inflating and deflating like a balloon. His face divides in two as his features flow apart in the attenuated waves of loose material.
Escalating terror fuels the creature's powers and drives him into his most hallucinatory stages of development, which include the final manifestation of a giant sand scorpion eating it's way out of the top of his head. (This should have a tie-in early in the script)
All extraneous body features, including the scorpion, can dissolve into streams of loose material when the monster needs to regain a sleeker more mobile form.
The nightmare logic of the monster frees him from the laws of physics and allows him to assume virtually any form in the realm of the surreal.
Longtime collaborator Robert Ricci modeled for the monster in a New York photo session that was as grueling as it was memorable. Ricci was completely painted with clown white and slides of cracked mud and sand textures were projected on his body using an old slide projector. Ricci's inspired performance greatly exceeded Potter's expectations. Much of the sand imagery was photographed in extremely windy conditions at Horseneck beach on the southern coast of Massachusetts. JK drew some of his inspiration from early black and white monster movies and injected a strong element of humor into his concepts. Writer/director Manny Coto along with art impresario and H.R. Giger agent Les Barany supervised the project. JK's original proposal written to go with the images is printed below.
The Design Proposal
The most important thing to keep in mind while viewing the Monstrosity photos is that the sand creature has been designed in such a way that he can be partially created using latex appliances and an actor in an articulated suit. CGI effects can then be used to treat the filmed action of the actor. I have no objection to the monster being created from the ground up using CGI, but I feel the combined approach to be more aesthetically desirable. I would prefer that a real actor is used and that he has a Karloff-like presence. It is important that he be able to project extreme anger and intensity in his expressions. I do not want the monster to look like a muscle-bound super hero, however, he should at least look as fit as a Greek statue. The creature is a cream or light grey color, which often looks darker in harsh noir side lighting. Sand flows in ripples down his shoulders and back, creating moving stripes of shadow as he flexes his muscles or raises his arms. It is crucial that CGI be used to create a weird sense of elasticity, and a warped sense of movement should be maintained at all times.
The monster is a shapeshifter whose nightmarish forms become increasingly more intense as the film progresses. When he is first glimpsed, he is somewhat ephemeral; a blurry figure of loosely atomized sand particles that render him semi-transparent. At this stage he is very much like a ghost, with soft edges and vibrating sand-grains creating an impressionistic effect. He then begins to coalesce into a state where lace-like cracks criss-cross his body and clumps of sand form in between the interstices. These thin, jagged fissures are initially in constant flux and appear to crawl across the contours of his frame. As he acquires additional substance, the details of his features become more defined. Even as he appears more solid, the cracks can still have a certain transparency and he dissolves easily back into a ghost-like blur.
With each subsequent appearance the monster gains in strength and density. Feeding on the growing fear he inspires, he is able to assume forms that appear increasingly organized. In the next stage of development the cracks fuse together to be replaced with textures which look like damp flowing beach sand. However, even when he is solid looking enough to resemble a sandstone statue come to life, he is still able to regress to previous forms in a smooth morphing fashion, collapsing in a heap, melting like a sand castle, cracking up, or blowing away in an abrasive cloud. Even at his most solid he still exhibits instability with particles flowing off of his body. Clumps and small jets of sand fall from his face at the slightest facial expression, revealing a rough skull-like substructure (which usually appears on only one side of his face).
Bullets impact his flesh much like they would strike wet concrete and pass right through. Body parts that are smashed or sliced in two simply reform. The dense mass of his body with it's crushing strength can spread into a smothering blanket, or disintegrate into long thin weaving tornadoes of sand which can blast the flesh off of a person leaving a dry and pitted skeleton eroding in it's wake.
As the monster forms and deforms, his basic humanoid structure is wildly distorted. there is a strong element of the humorously absurd to the creature, designed to contrast his horrific nature. His head sometimes appears as if it is inflating and deflating like a balloon. His face divides in two as his features flow apart in the attenuated waves of loose material.
Escalating terror fuels the creature's powers and drives him into his most hallucinatory stages of development, which include the final manifestation of a giant sand scorpion eating it's way out of the top of his head. (This should have a tie-in early in the script)
All extraneous body features, including the scorpion, can dissolve into streams of loose material when the monster needs to regain a sleeker more mobile form.
The nightmare logic of the monster frees him from the laws of physics and allows him to assume virtually any form in the realm of the surreal.