IGNFF: How big of a challenge has Silent Hill been so far?
TATOPOULOS: Silent Hill was a completely different deal… The challenge of Silent Hill was actually resolved pretty quickly because the director told me, 'Patrick, I want those guys to look like they are made of plastic,' which is exactly the opposite of what we do usually. We try to make them look like they are not plastic. There's a style to the videogame which is quite amazing. They all look like dolls – you know, surreal… That's the quality that the director likes.
So with Silent Hill, the cool thing is we take this world and create new designs that you haven't seen before. I won't tell you too much, but there are things you don't know from the videogame – much crazier stuff even. But like the rapiers, all those characters, are so cool. What we had to make work…when you do a videogame and you put a sword in the hand of a guy, the sword is like 500 pounds, like big as the guy almost. The helmet goes almost from the ceiling to the floor… So, the challenge of Silent Hill was 'How do you make this work?' We had to rethink completely the technology we use today. All the things we have used before, we barely used on that movie. We used a different type of fabric, we used rubber to create that different [look]. Initially, there will be a mix of CGI and practical, but we did deal pretty much in practical… That was a fantastic shoot.
IGNFF: I was on the set during one of the nurse scenes.
TATOPOULOS: Oh, you saw that! Well, the nurses have the faces that don't move… It's going to be dark all the way, which is I think the way it has to be.
