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10 - Monsters mugging for the cameras

Look at me, look at me!

It’s monster time folks, and this one’s really scary, but we can’t just bring on a scary monster into the scene and let it get on with stomping and scaring. Nope, first, every CGI gribbly has to be introduced in order to allow the audience to bask in its magnificence. The preferred method to do this is a melodramatic ten-second routine where it jumps out of its cage, where the CGI creepy flails its hairy arms about like David Bellamy after 20 espressos with a lobster up his bum, before snapping straight to the camera lens, usually with a ‘rarghhl’ noise.

While every other actor is being paid to act their character naturally and not play up to the camera, the CGI effects team is apparently allowed to make their monsters look as if they have the acting ability of a spaniel dressed as Groucho Marx.

I have a theory about this, which is that the CGI effects team have to produce a kind of audition reel for their monsters, which shows off them off in their full glory, a bit like the routine that you get from an end-of-level boss in The Legend of Zelda. They then show this to the director and he says something like ‘wow, guys that’s great, we’ll just keep it as it is.’



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