“WE KNEW WE COULD DO THESE CHARACTERS JUSTICE” Masters of the Universe Movie Costume Designer Richard Sale talks RAM MAN, FISTO and TRAP JAW

Costume designer Richard Sale spoke to Entertainment Weekly recently about his costume work in the new “Masters of the Universe” Movie.

Dominating the topics Richard discussed was his approach to the costumes of Ram Man, Fisto and Trap Jaw.

Check it out:

Deciding to create the Ram Man, Fisto and Trap Jaw characters with practical effects:

“Through years of knowing what is and what isn’t achievable, we knew on the outset, with talking to our team and our costume prop team, we knew we could do these characters justice. That’s why we stuck with them. (Though) there were times [in] the process I was like, Oh my God, why did I say yes?”

“(Trap Jaw, Ram Man and Fisto) definitely felt like they were achievable within the costume department. And also with the story that they had to tell, Travis wanted that humanity there as well.”

The challenges these costumes present the actors:

(These three characters turned out to be) “the most challenging of all the costumes” (given that the actors had to be able to engage in the movie’s big fight scenes.)

“It’s always a fine line between creating these visually amazing looks, but then remembering that there’s going to have to be a human being inside of it wearing it on and off for 10, 12 hours a day. Alongside that, there’s going to be a stunt person being asked to do ridiculous things and has to do them. I mean, there’s no point in building or drawing something or designing something and then building it where it can’t be worn to the point that it affects performance. You need performance at the end of the day, otherwise it may as well be visual effects.”

The aesthetic they were aiming for:

“We wanted people to see these characters realized from the cartoons that they watched and the toys that they played with. We didn’t want it to be some new Marvel imagination, imagined version, or some super-duper slick version. The world that they occupy is this weird, medieval, futuristic thing. And we wanted to keep it grounded in that, but also for people to go, ‘I played with that character!'”

“These guys came onto set for the first time just to walk around and for people to have a look at them in their prototype faces. Everyone’s reaction was, ‘It’s a huge six-foot toy.’ I mean, seven-foot toy in some cases. Travis and I looked at each other. That’s the reaction you want. We can make them realistic and within the look of a film… But that’s the reaction you want. It’s the Masters of the Universe. It’s not a re-imagination. It’s a thoughtful nod.”

On Ram Man’s Costume:

“In theory, he wouldn’t be able to get his arms past a certain point… But we want our Ram Man to be fighting, punching, as well as doing all those kinds of great Ram Man things.”

“We made all of that armor soft. So everything that you see on camera is soft and spongy. It’s a soft urethane foam. So he’s able to bounce in it a bit. He’s able to move it, and the shoulder panels move inside the armor, so it gives him a little bit of movement with the arms.”

“To give him his springing, traditional fighting stance of his legs elongated – foam legs that looked like spring coils.”

On Fisto’s costume:

“The fist, however — which we actually built in the costume props department — there was a lot of conversation about whether it should be a visual effect, but we felt we could do it, some very clever person in costume props building every single piece of that and 3D printing it and designing it like a highly engineered piece of machinery.”

“-just a big solid fist, (but that wouldn’t have given Johannesson the ability to) articulate with it. He ended up swearing with it quite a lot, which was quite funny…. On one of the early camera tests, he developed this romantic gesture with it.”

On Trap Jaw’s costume:

“As soon as you try to extend the human body in a way that is not particularly natural, and this works for any kind of armor that stands off the body, it starts to clash with the body’s natural instinct to bend and crease in the way that it does. With normal suits of armor, that’s why there’s pivot points in the elbow and the shoulder, and you don’t really fight those points. (Actors need) to run in them, jump in them, do his action in them, and not fall down with the weight of them.”

“(Realizing actor Sam C. Wilson probably wouldn’t be able to run that fast because he would) be wearing basically a pair of calipers, (that gave the team a chance to think of Trap Jaw in a more mechanical way.) That was incorporated into the character that was brought to life as well. It’s a much more half-human, half-robot thing. And that’s great because we were able to then add an element of robotics to the cyborg mercenaries.”

Regarding Trap Jaw’s jaw:

“(Prosthetic makeup designer Barrie Gower and his team designed Trap Jaw’s helmet, which is “so integral to the jaw and to his head” (that it has to be a specially molded silicon prosthetic.) That whole thing that they did to the jaw to give him the range of motion with it and so he could deliver these amazing lines, it was a joy.”

Be sure to check out the entire article HERE.

The “Masters of the Universe” Movie explodes into theaters on June 5th.

We’ll see you next time.