What have you always wanted to see in a transformation scene

[MechanicalHyena]

I hadn't seen this brought up in prior threads, though I may have missed it, or someone posted it in another section of the forums. However! I shall ask anyway, and someone can point me to the right place if need be.

What have you always wanted to see in a werewolf transformation sequence in a movie?

For me, there's just a few things.

Teeth falling out to be replaced by the wolf teeth growing out underneath. Bloody, and perhaps a trigger for people with fear of the dentist, but I think it would be a pretty awesome effect.

Bloody nose, bleeding ears, crying blood. The change is painful, terrifying, and seems to involve cellular growth and rearrangement on a level that might be hard for human endurance to keep up with at the beginning. With your very skull shape and bones changing and cracking, I think the idea of mild damage from the change causing bleeding would be an interesting side effect.

Speaking of cellular growth at an incredible rate, the closest humans come to that fast growth changing your very body type is pregnancy or places in puberty. And what happens to a lot of us during that fast growth? Stretch marks! I've always wanted to see the appearance of stretch marks during transformation scenes involving fast growth, elongation of the limbs, or rapid body mass changes. It may be a small detail, but something I feel would make the sequence look more naturalistic since it's something many people experience. :hwlwnk:

And last but not least, shedding the skin and having the werewolf pelt underneath. I've always been intrigued by the visual of having the skin crack and peel and shed as the musculature underneath became too big to be contained. Having it rip and peel off like after a bad sunburn, revealing the slightly damp fur (or the equally traditional alternately colored skin with sparse hair)

So what things have you guys always wanted to see in a transformation sequence?

[Scott Gardener]

I prefer a more biologically sound approach, one that implies that the body can do this repreatedly, as opposed to ripping up the human form and getting rid of it, as cathartic as such might feel. The first shift should be rougher, and I can even see bleeding in places. The one shifting should have to worry about how one can ever get back into a human form, and whether or not that process will hurt as much. I can see teeth cracking and re-cementing their enamel. But falling out and re-growing new ones is biologically wasteful, and it over time leaves a trail of left-over body parts.

A seasoned shifter should shift smoothly, quickly, and painlessly. Their shift should be so natural in appearance that it takes one seeing it a moment to realize they saw something paranormal. It could thus be hypnotic.

[Uniform Two Six]

I agree. A painful first shift has its place, but the bloody, skin ripping apart transformation I think is best left to the pure horror werewolf movie. On that note, I think the transformations in Van Helsing pretty much hit that particular nail on the head. I really sort of liked the first transformation in the latest Wolfman movie (the one where Anthony Hopkins locks himself in the cage just as Del Toro starts to shift), although I'm not a fan of the werewolf's final form in that movie. Frighteningly enough, I liked the werewolf in Being Human (BBC's version) the best. It looked and moved like I've always thought a werewolf ought to.

But falling out and re-growing new ones is biologically wasteful, and it over time leaves a trail of left-over body parts.

Heh. A werewolf shifts back to human -- and his tail just falls off with an audible "thump".

[MechanicalHyena]

I agree. A painful first shift has its place, but the bloody, skin ripping apart transformation I think is best left to the pure horror werewolf movie.

Very true. Then again, i love the 'curse' aspect of werewolf origination than the genetics or virus origination, so I have a pretty strong bias. Then again, That's not much to judge on, since I love all interpretations of werewolves anyway...

But falling out and re-growing new ones is biologically wasteful, and it over time leaves a trail of left-over body parts.

Heh. A werewolf shifts back to human -- and his tail just falls off with an audible "thump".
[/quote]

Hah! Imagine having to collect and burn/bury/hide all your leftover body parts to hide your trail. What a pain that would be.

[Uniform Two Six]

Hah! Imagine having to collect and burn/bury/hide all your leftover body parts to hide your trail. What a pain that would be.

Remember the scene from The Fly when he opens the medicine cabinet to show off all of the stuff that's fallen off of him in the past few days?

[Trinity]

Hah! Imagine having to collect and burn/bury/hide all your leftover body parts to hide your trail. What a pain that would be.

Remember the scene from The Fly when he opens the medicine cabinet to show off all of the stuff that's fallen off of him in the past few days?

ARRGGHHHH!!! YEARS it took me YEARS to forget THAT scene!

*mentally dies*

Oh where is my mental bleach!!!!!!!!!!



Ahh.. that's better.


**On topic**

For me it depends on the movie type. The Transformation needs to fit the world that is created, and be coherent to the whole ideal of the world that it's been created for - and /stick/ to it.

I like Being Human's "explanation" as it fits what they've developed as "their" werewolf.

[Leonca~]

I wouldn’t mind seeing something that focuses more on anatomical accuracy. For example, the way that wolves have six incisor teeth and humans have four. I can’t think of a movie where the person had some kind of shifting or popping motion to make space in the skull and allow the extra teeth to grow in. Imagine your mouth stretching wider with a crack, leaving a space in the middle for a few moments, before two new teeth pop down. Sounds painful.

[Trinity]

I wouldn’t mind seeing something that focuses more on anatomical accuracy. For example, the way that wolves have six incisor teeth and humans have four. I can’t think of a movie where the person had some kind of shifting or popping motion to make space in the skull and allow the extra teeth to grow in. Imagine your mouth stretching wider with a crack, leaving a space in the middle for a few moments, before two new teeth pop down. Sounds painful.

Oh dude, way cool. ^.^

[MechanicalHyena]

I wouldn’t mind seeing something that focuses more on anatomical accuracy. For example, the way that wolves have six incisor teeth and humans have four. I can’t think of a movie where the person had some kind of shifting or popping motion to make space in the skull and allow the extra teeth to grow in. Imagine your mouth stretching wider with a crack, leaving a space in the middle for a few moments, before two new teeth pop down. Sounds painful.

I'd never thought about that before. Awesome idea!

[Scott Gardener]

American Werewolf in London to me remains the gold standard, even after thirty years. CGI can in theory make it look a lot smoother and more realistic, but no one yet has really topped Rick Baker, not even Rick Baker himself. Underworld and Van Helsing have good shifts, and the later even has good-looking werewolves, but they look like what they are--something out of a movie.

[Shadow Wulf]

The biggest hurdle with props costumes is that while they look incredible when not moving a lot but when in motion they tend to look stiff and unrealistic unless the suit is very flexible and the movie does a lot of camera tricks like constantly changing angles. This is where CG is needed, you can make characters do what props can't. We certainly have improved with the quality of CG, we just haven't seen it fully utilized to it's fullest potential with todays technology and talent because no werewolf film has a ridiculously big budget. Cursed transformation looked really good for the first half combining CG with real actors and it stands the test of time with today transformation. Bigger budget will also keep CG effects from looking outdated so quickly, Van Helsing still looks pretty good even though it's 8 years old. I believe Underworld series did the best thing by combining costume props with CG, close up shots you have the costumes and during intense actions that is too dangerous for actors or if they want a smooth shot they use CG.

[Meeper]

I prefer a more biologically sound approach, one that implies that the body can do this repreatedly, as opposed to ripping up the human form and getting rid of it, as cathartic as such might feel. The first shift should be rougher, and I can even see bleeding in places. The one shifting should have to worry about how one can ever get back into a human form, and whether or not that process will hurt as much. I can see teeth cracking and re-cementing their enamel. But falling out and re-growing new ones is biologically wasteful, and it over time leaves a trail of left-over body parts.

A seasoned shifter should shift smoothly, quickly, and painlessly. Their shift should be so natural in appearance that it takes one seeing it a moment to realize they saw something paranormal. It could thus be hypnotic.

Sorry for going off topic for a moment, but this seems to gel with some ideas from a biologically feasibility stand point. As I understand it, during a life time the human body goes though some fairly interesting processes that could be foundation of more extensive shape shifting abilities, the usual one mentioned is puberty, but that's dumb growth. A seemingly little known/considered fact is that at the moment of birth, the heart instantly seals off its chambers from each other, in order to function separately from its mother, flaws in this process, if I recall correctly, lead to the more commonly known condition of having a hole in the heart, a leaky, inefficient heart. There may be some potential in that, for soft tissues at the very least.

Claws bursting through fingernails: Why? I can appreciate the nail beds of predatory mammals may have concealed claw beds more closely anchored to the phalanges, but given the presumed hair growth, I don't see why that can't be worked out with pure nail growth, just thicken, lengthen, and rotate it into the appropriate orientation, voila, claws.

[Leonca~]

Hmm, maybe when I’ve had more animation practice I can try a really painful looking face-popping transformation focusing on teeth.

[Trinity]

Hey! Feel free to clue me in when you do, I'd love to help out!

[MechanicalHyena]

Hmm, maybe when I’ve had more animation practice I can try a really painful looking face-popping transformation focusing on teeth.

I would seriously love to see that!

[Trinity]

I prefer a more biologically sound approach, one that implies that the body can do this repreatedly, as opposed to ripping up the human form and getting rid of it, as cathartic as such might feel. The first shift should be rougher, and I can even see bleeding in places. The one shifting should have to worry about how one can ever get back into a human form, and whether or not that process will hurt as much. I can see teeth cracking and re-cementing their enamel. But falling out and re-growing new ones is biologically wasteful, and it over time leaves a trail of left-over body parts.

A seasoned shifter should shift smoothly, quickly, and painlessly. Their shift should be so natural in appearance that it takes one seeing it a moment to realize they saw something paranormal. It could thus be hypnotic.

Sorry for going off topic for a moment, but this seems to gel with some ideas from a biologically feasibility stand point. As I understand it, during a life time the human body goes though some fairly interesting processes that could be foundation of more extensive shape shifting abilities, the usual one mentioned is puberty, but that's dumb growth. A seemingly little known/considered fact is that at the moment of birth, the heart instantly seals off its chambers from each other, in order to function separately from its mother, flaws in this process, if I recall correctly, lead to the more commonly known condition of having a hole in the heart, a leaky, inefficient heart. There may be some potential in that, for soft tissues at the very least.

Claws bursting through fingernails: Why? I can appreciate the nail beds of predatory mammals may have concealed claw beds more closely anchored to the phalanges, but given the presumed hair growth, I don't see why that can't be worked out with pure nail growth, just thicken, lengthen, and rotate it into the appropriate orientation, voila, claws.

Side tangent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXsiLoQL ... AAAAAAAAAA

I saw this and thought of your post Meeper...

[Leonca~]

All I can do is string some sketches together to make a .gif file, not sure how impressive the final result will be. If I do it I’ll make sure to share.

[Meeper]

I prefer a more biologically sound approach, one that implies that the body can do this repreatedly, as opposed to ripping up the human form and getting rid of it, as cathartic as such might feel. The first shift should be rougher, and I can even see bleeding in places. The one shifting should have to worry about how one can ever get back into a human form, and whether or not that process will hurt as much. I can see teeth cracking and re-cementing their enamel. But falling out and re-growing new ones is biologically wasteful, and it over time leaves a trail of left-over body parts.

A seasoned shifter should shift smoothly, quickly, and painlessly. Their shift should be so natural in appearance that it takes one seeing it a moment to realize they saw something paranormal. It could thus be hypnotic.

Sorry for going off topic for a moment, but this seems to gel with some ideas from a biologically feasibility stand point. As I understand it, during a life time the human body goes though some fairly interesting processes that could be foundation of more extensive shape shifting abilities, the usual one mentioned is puberty, but that's dumb growth. A seemingly little known/considered fact is that at the moment of birth, the heart instantly seals off its chambers from each other, in order to function separately from its mother, flaws in this process, if I recall correctly, lead to the more commonly known condition of having a hole in the heart, a leaky, inefficient heart. There may be some potential in that, for soft tissues at the very least.

Claws bursting through fingernails: Why? I can appreciate the nail beds of predatory mammals may have concealed claw beds more closely anchored to the phalanges, but given the presumed hair growth, I don't see why that can't be worked out with pure nail growth, just thicken, lengthen, and rotate it into the appropriate orientation, voila, claws.

Side tangent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXsiLoQL ... AAAAAAAAAA

I saw this and thought of your post Meeper...

Oh yeah? just happened to be cruising YouTube for birth related medical phenomena huh?

[Shadow Wulf]

Trinity is weird that way.

[Terastas]

I prefer a more biologically sound approach, one that implies that the body can do this repreatedly, as opposed to ripping up the human form and getting rid of it, as cathartic as such might feel.

Same here. Though I balance it out a bit with the assumption that, while the body is conditioned to do this repeatedly, the brain. . . Hasn't been made aware of this, lets say, and still registers the shifting of the body as pain as if it were occurring to a normal human being.

Also, a wise man. . . Well, okay, the narrator of a GameTrailers countdown video, said that you should never forget that "surreal is anchored in the real." I agree with this. So what I'd really like to see is a shift during which some of the elements are familiar -- are things that we, the audience, may have experienced ourselves, and for that familiarity -- the real -- to serve as the anchor for the surreality of the shift.

Typically, shifts in the movies make it sound like the werewolf's bones are breaking. What I imagine instead is a lot of popping, cricking and gurgling -- more like the kind of sounds we hear from our bodies all the time. Even with the exaggerated shifts like the muzzle protruding or the tail extending, I imagine it making more of a pulling sound than cracking.

I agree that there would be blood, but only from sensitive parts of the body where bleeding is common enough anyway. The very first sign of an impending shift, I think, would be for the skin around the werewolf's fingernails to peel and start bleeding, followed shortly by the werewolf's nose, then the lips and gums, all of which are parts of the body from which bleeding can occur easily. These would be symptoms everyone here has had (maybe not on all ten fingers at once, but still, you get the idea). I don't particularly like the idea of werewolves bleeding everywhere though. The only other visual blood, I think, would be when the werewolf's muzzle starts to extend, during which I think it would be pretty common for them to start spitting or drooling blood, though the bleeding would still predominantly be from the gums.

Skin stretching and peeling is something I could envision too, though on account of the body stretching and distorting, not because of the pelt emerging out from under it. I already mentioned the lips and cuticles as areas where I think we'd see a lot of peeling, but anybody that's ever been out in the sun without sunblock for too long has seen themselves peel everywhere else too.

Familiarity increases believability, I believe, and believability in turn increases both the allure and the horror. I've said many times in the past that people scare each other better than any monster ever could -- that people fear what they think is real as opposed to what isn't. The challenge of a good director therefore shouldn't be to shock and horrify their audience, but to try to convince their audience that these things could be real.

[Meeper]

Typically, shifts in the movies make it sound like the werewolf's bones are breaking. What I imagine instead is a lot of popping, cricking and gurgling -- more like the kind of sounds we hear from our bodies all the time. Even with the exaggerated shifts like the muzzle protruding or the tail extending, I imagine it making more of a pulling sound than cracking.

Interesting you mention gurgling, I've been toying with the idea of having fluid build up in areas of structure formation, for example on the face, the upper lip and nose would become swollen and balloon out, materials would be deposited from the fluid, then the fluid would disperse and the skin allowed to lay back down against the newly grown and hardening snout, I think it'd be a neat looking effect seeing the skin get sucked in over the wolf facial features. Perhaps existing bones might go the same way, I mean some people knocked American Werewolf in Paris for the Saraphine(sp?) transformation, where the knees buckled backward, forming the wolf's hocks, and a new knee joint formed about mid way up the thigh bone, but considering bone is just calcified cartilage, if you somehow dissolved the calcium, grew a new joint in the soft cartilage, and did some rapid calcium deposition in fluid suspension in the new joint, it might not make any noise at all, the cartilage would act like any healthy joint, silently.

Skin stretching and peeling is something I could envision too, though on account of the body stretching and distorting, not because of the pelt emerging out from under it. I already mentioned the lips and cuticles as areas where I think we'd see a lot of peeling, but anybody that's ever been out in the sun without sunblock for too long has seen themselves peel everywhere else too.

heh, good call, I get skin peeling on my upper lip all the time, on the middle where the split lip is that most animals have, I've developed a nasty habit o nibbling it off with my teeth, disgusting I know,, but that sounds about right for a werewolf , I'd imagine that'd be a spot where a werewolf might get pretty messed up during a transformation.

The Meeper.

[Terastas]

Interesting you mention gurgling, I've been toying with the idea of having fluid build up in areas of structure formation, for example on the face, the upper lip and nose would become swollen and balloon out, materials would be deposited from the fluid, then the fluid would disperse and the skin allowed to lay back down against the newly grown and hardening snout, I think it'd be a neat looking effect seeing the skin get sucked in over the wolf facial features.

You know, I'm embarrassed I didn't think of that until now. It makes sense that any area of expanding would also have an increased blood flow.

Something else that might go hand in hand with that is an increased heart rate and a faster and/or heavier pulse. Which is, again, something that can happen in real life. I've heard stories about kids going into the emergency room after consuming too many energy drinks and the doctors being able to see their hearts beating inside their chests, and I'm sure I'm not the only person here who's ever heard his heart beating in his ears after a tense workout.

The more I think about it, the more I think what I'd really like to see is a first-person perspective of the shift. A lot of people would look at something in the movies and say "Pfft. Wimp!" but I don't think they would if the audio was dominated by a heavy pulse and the visuals started to blur.

[Meeper]

Interesting you mention gurgling, I've been toying with the idea of having fluid build up in areas of structure formation, for example on the face, the upper lip and nose would become swollen and balloon out, materials would be deposited from the fluid, then the fluid would disperse and the skin allowed to lay back down against the newly grown and hardening snout, I think it'd be a neat looking effect seeing the skin get sucked in over the wolf facial features.

You know, I'm embarrassed I didn't think of that until now. It makes sense that any area of expanding would also have an increased blood flow.

Something else that might go hand in hand with that is an increased heart rate and a faster and/or heavier pulse. Which is, again, something that can happen in real life. I've heard stories about kids going into the emergency room after consuming too many energy drinks and the doctors being able to see their hearts beating inside their chests, and I'm sure I'm not the only person here who's ever heard his heart beating in his ears after a tense workout.

The more I think about it, the more I think what I'd really like to see is a first-person perspective of the shift. A lot of people would look at something in the movies and say "Pfft. Wimp!" but I don't think they would if the audio was dominated by a heavy pulse and the visuals started to blur.

Oi. With the right speaker set up, sounds in movies can be made to seem like it's emanating from inside your head, with needlepoint precision, and bass speakers can be tuned to cause sensations in the body. That'd be trippy .

[Shadow Wulf]

Soundception?

Everything that Terestas and Meeper has mentioned is something I would love to see in a transformation, but I just want to throw one thing out there that kind of bugs me when I see some of these transformations. As they get bigger and expand their body I will see their shirt and pants ripping but I don't see them getting big enough to have a lot of their clothing just come off from the transformation. I would like to see a transformation where the muscles and overall size would get big enough to justify the clothes ripping into shreds, like Van Helsing.

[Uniform Two Six]

There were alot of things about the Van Helsing werewolves that I liked (alot I didn't like too), and the way the werewolves conveyed not only size but just -- solidness, I guess, was what made me think they're the best we've really seen so far. They didn't look like some gymnast wearing stilts (which is a problem one runs into with live action costumes). You hit the nail on the head. Noting that the uber-werewolf might not be the way to go with Freeborn, I agree that if they're going to have clothes ripping, they should have a sort of solid, meaty feel to them in their final form.