Welcome to Thanks, I Love It, our series highlighting something onscreen we’re obsessed with this week.
There’s magic to be found in movie monsters. Even when they’re grotesque, grimy, and gooey, they are an object of imagination and fascination. In Hatching, a young girl fosters a found egg that grows huge, then hatches into a hybrid bird-person that regards her as its mother…with bloody results!
Over the course of this sensational Sundance film, the Hatching creature transforms, terrorizes, and expresses tenderness. To do all this, you need a team of monster makers. And key among them for Hatching was animatronics designer Gustav Hoegen, who manifested a beast that was disturbing yet endearing.
Gustav Hoegen’s quest to make monsters
Hoegen’s journey to becoming an animatronics designer began with a galaxy far, far away. His father took him “at an early age…to see Return of the Jedi,” Hoegen recalled in a phone interview with Mashable. “From then on, I was mesmerized by practical effects.” His interests leaned toward fantasy, horror, and science-fiction movies. “I was very intrigued about the craft behind it,” he said. “This could be like, models, creatures, artwork, you name it.”
In his youth, Hoegen relished in the behind-the-scenes documentaries of Jim Henson films like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, which relied on a mix of puppetry and animatronics. As a teen, Hoegen began building his own creatures. “They didn’t look as good as they do now, obviously,” he admitted.
Gustav Hoegen and Hanna Bergholm on the set of “Hatching.”
Credit: IFC Midnight
However, the film industry in his native Holland seemed too small to foster dreams of making monsters for movies. So Hoegen moved to England, where film productions flourished. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve found my place. This is beyond belief that this is possible,'” he shared. “And what was even more incredible is that I actually managed to work in this industry doing something that I really love and always wanted to do.”
To Star Wars, Andor, and beyond
Hoegen’s dream job led to working on Star Wars productions, creating animatronics for The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Solo, The Rise of Skywalker, and the upcoming TV series Andor. On those productions, there were armies to create a galaxy of critters.
“Everything is under one roof,” Hoegen explained, “So when we did The Force Awakens, obviously they have a script, but they don’t have quite an idea of what kind of creatures or characters this world inhabits. To sort of feed the imagination, there would be a whole design team on hand. And they would just pump out design after design after design.” A wall of sketches would be arranged. Then [Force Awakens director] J.J. Abrams would come in and stick a Post-it note to the sketches he wanted to be produced for the film, and the team would build from there.
A peak at the “Hatching” monster, who hides under the bed for non-wicked reasons.
Credit: IFC Midnight
“On other occasions, we have the privilege of also designing ourselves,” Hoegen said, “Which actually really helps because the people that usually design the creatures are also very familiar with the technicalities of it, how it’s made. They will never design anything that’s impossible to build, the same as an architect knows how to build a house.”
“If I were to give you an average idea of what I’m presented with, it’s usually a description of what they want, what kind of creature, maybe a few reference pictures,” Hoegen explained. “If I’m lucky, artwork, and then later on a script — once I sign an NDA.” NDA means “nondisclosure agreement,” so no, Hoegen wouldn’t spill any secrets of Andor or its critters.
However, he was happy to share what it was like working with Hatching director Hanna Bergholm on her vision for her bird baby. “They had it all prepared beautifully,” Hoegen said of her production team. “They were really impressive. It was very good artwork they gave me.”
Cracking the creature of Hatching
It takes a village to make a movie monster marvelous.
Credit: IFC Midnight
The Hatching creature, in all its incarnations, had been thoroughly illustrated. Hoegen’s challenge was in building its earliest stage, which is most bird-like, most inhuman, and most in need of specific movements to ground its strangeness, emotions, and authenticity. Beyond concerns of budget and the required motions the animatronic would need to make, Hoegen had to consider how his contribution to this hero critter’s evolution would live onscreen.
“It’s got to look right, cosmetically. It’s got to move well,” he explained. “And then obviously comes the difficulty of making it believable on screen, which is always a huge challenge, because there is a very fine line from it looking like a puppet to something that is actually believable and is alive. The big challenge was that it was very prominent in many scenes. Usually, with creatures, they’re flashes (in a scene), so you can get away with a lot, but with this, it’s lingered on. So that was a big worry for me. And obviously, it had to interact with a girl. How do you do that believably with a big lump of rubber?”
He credits the professional puppeteers for bringing the creature to convincing life, something you can get a sense of even in Hatching‘s trailer:
How Hatching compares to Andor
In the end, the challenges of Hatching‘s hero creature gave Hoegen a satisfaction different from what he experienced working on Star Wars. Rather than the massive teams a Star Wars budget allowed, Hoegen’s Biomimic Studio was entrusted with all the animatronics. “The journey I went on doing Hatching was partly extremely stressful, but also much more rewarding because it was done under my studio from the very start to the very end,” he said, “So this will stay with me much longer than, say, Andor. And from a technical point of view, what I had to do for Hatching was far more complicated than I had to do for Andor workwise. I think that that is a big difference.”
“I have a lot stronger bond with [Hatching] and am much more excited to see this movie and read about it than the Andor series,” Hoegen continued, noting his personal pride in having such a stamp on its central monster. “I still love doing Star Wars,” he assured, “but after —God, how many have I done now? About seven? A bit of Star Wars fatigue creeps in.”
Don’t fret, Star Wars fans. Hoegen’s excitement over Hatching speaks to the new challenges and captivating critter he got to create, not any lack of imagination or excitement coming in Andor. One thing he did tease about the much anticipated Star Wars series: “People are going to love it, and it’s going to look fantastic.”
Having seen what he’s birthed for Hatching, we absolutely believe him.
Hatching opens in select theaters on April 29 and comes to VOD on May 17.
