Ghostbusters – Behind The Scenes

Ghostbusters

One of the movies that defined the eighties, Ghostbusters wasn’t just a hit, some would argue it became a phenomenon. This film had everything a movie-goer could want. It had action, it had comedy of both high-brow and low-brow varieties, it even had excellent effects for the time and an all-star cast and crew. Critics loved it, audiences loved it, so it went down in history as one of the most legendary comedies in history.

Today we celebrate this milestone movie by taking a look not at the screen, but slightly behind or beside it. We are going to view some of the sights of the creation of this absolute marvel. Grab your proton packs and be careful not to cross the streams as we go behind the scenes of the timeless classic, Ghostbusters.

The Man in the Marshmallow.

 

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man has perhaps become just as iconic as the movie itself because of its absolute lunacy, but the man who actually inhabited the costume for this enormous sugary baddie remains unsurprisingly unknown to a majority of fans. Well, the actor responsible for having to play this unorthodox part is named Bill Bryan.

Bill was a man who worked for Hollywood for quite a while playing roles in body suits like this one, however many of his appearances happen to be uncredited. He is a special effects designer who is responsible for fabricating and occasionally performing with practical effects to capture a scene for a film.

Bryan was hired onto Ghostbusters to aid with ghost designs and worked closely with Dan Aykroyd to conceptualize new and unique creatures to appear. The evil Zuul dog was also their handiwork in the final movie. They decided having the climactic final monster be the most harmless thing you could imagine, a friendly marshmallow sailor, would be worth a considerable number of laughs from audiences.

So after he designed it, Bill put on the suit and would act out the scenes on the sets to make their idea come to life. Bryan has also worked as a special effects designer in the new Ghostbusters movie as well as Army of Darkness.

Creation of Zuul and Vinz.

Now we take a look at some spooks that are a bit more practical in terms of size. The horrifying harbingers of Gozer, Zuul the Gatekeeper and Vinz Clortho the Key Master. Although they each came from a human host body, these monsters are far from humanity now. Both are canine in shape, complete with claws and haunting red eyes.

It isn’t difficult to see that the inspiration for these guardians of Gozer came from the legendary demonic hellhounds. The previously mentioned Bill Bryan also came up with the vision for the physical forms of these spirits after Aykroyd told him what he wanted them to be like.

Construction for the actual models that were needed for the movie began and was finished quickly thanks to techniques that Bryan and his team had employed constantly throughout their careers. The true composition of this large creation was actually similar to the original construction of Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. They both were wooden skeletons with the true design sculpted around them, leaving enough room for mechanisms to make them move.

Although this mechanism let Zuul and Vinz perform simple motions such as shaking their heads, it didn’t allow them to run at full speed, so computer generation was employed for this purpose. It was also necessary to craft much larger models as you see in the picture to actually house Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis in the final scene.

The Lady in the Library

 

There are few better ways to begin a movie than Ghostbusters did. It established the tone for the run time as it shows a spooky atmosphere and sets up a conflict that would need the team to assemble in order to solve.

To top it all off, we were introduced to one of the most humorously frightening ghosts in the series, the Grey Lady/Librarian Ghost. While she may appear to be just a spirit of your everyday librarian, on the drop of a hat, she becomes a horrifying specter.

It is rather appropriate that the woman they actually got to play this part was a scholar. Ruth Hale Oliver was her name and she was an Astrologer. She wrote two books on the subject of Astrology. She played the role when she was 78 years of age. Heavy use of makeup and effects was needed to make her look so ghastly, and there was even the need to create an entire puppet to act as her horrifying form.

Stories report that there was an original unused puppet that was much more decayed and grotesque, however, this one was ultimately scrapped for the fear that it would be too frightening for younger audiences.

Reitman at Work

This picture gives us a nice look at the man behind the scenes as he stands in a prominent spot. This is Ivan Reitman, the director of the film and also a Hollywood legend. Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia and immigrated to the United States as a refugee with his family.

After receiving a Bachelor Degree in the field of music from McMaster University, Reitman began to direct and produce various films, mostly comedies. He achieved massive success when given the chance to produce Animal House and made it a breakout hit. From here he began getting more and more excellent movies to direct, including Meatballs and Stripes where he met Bill Murray.

Reitman would go on to craft Ghostbusters into the movie it is today out of the original script by Dan Aykroyd. It is reported that he had to severely tone the film’s content down because he wanted it to be enjoyable for both children and adults. After constantly fighting about the script, Aykroyd and Reitman came to thoroughly respect each other and became good friends even after the movie was done.

The two would even make the sequel together. Reitman would go on making a slew of other hit films that would carve him out a place as one of the most influential directors of comedy.

Miniatures and Marshmallows

While you already know this far into the article about Bill Bryan and his donning of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man suit, now we turn to how they made him appear gargantuan in a city as large as New York.

Like many other films from the eighties, Ghostbusters utilized miniatures in the form of small sets to give the illusion that there was truly a hundred and fifty foot sugary abomination that was destroying the city. Cameras at both high and low altitudes were set up in order to provide multiple angles and give a greater sense of scale.

The sets needed to be detailed enough to make it truly seem like New York, but still generic enough to stop inconsistencies from occurring. That is why they used a few NYC landmarks during the miniature filming, to show that he is truly terrorizing the city. There were some notable inconsistencies with the Marshmallow Man himself, however, as you can see in the film there are random instances where he will no longer be wearing his ascot, but in the next scene he will be again.

For the final confrontation with the Ghostbusters themselves, the crew made sure to make the suit flammable on the outside and fireproof on the inside so they could actually burn it.

Slime Time

Another one of the Ghostbusters’ most famous villains, here we have the floating, oozing apparition himself, Slimer. This rather mischievous spook has appeared in every single film in the series, even the recent reboot. He is often sighted as being the most humorous of all the opponents they have to go against because of his immature ways and idiotic mental state. All he does is eat and slime. Slimer was actually described by Dan Aykroyd, his creator, as being the ghost of John Belushi.

Belushi was a friend of Aykroyd’s who had recently passed, and he had a reputation for being an unmannered slob with little impulse control. This was more or less a joke about Belushi’s impulsive and sporadic behavior while he was alive, and it was also meant to be a loving homage.

Slimer was also created as a latex suit with a puppet mechanism in him to help with sophisticated movements. The name of the man who had to dress up here was Mark Wilson, one of the special effects men helping with the movie. Wilson wore pants of a very dark color so they could be and he could appear to be flying. A slew of larger sets and props were also employed so that Slimer would look slightly smaller in comparison to the humans. The physical design of the costume was modeled after a floating green potato.

Dana’s Abduction

Here we see one of the more humorous secrets behind a special effects scene. This is the part of the first movie in which Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) is captured against her will by the forces of Gozer to begin turning her into the vessel of Zuul’s spirit.

Many different frightening hands seized her at this part, but what if I told you those hands were merely crew members ducking out of frame with embarrassed looks on their faces? You’d probably believe me, I haven’t lead you astray yet, have I? Well, as you have probably guessed by now, that is exactly what happened in the filming of this event.

The three young men conscripted into this duty were just simple film crew members who reportedly didn’t really want to do this because they didn’t want to be filmed grabbing a woman brusquely. Eventually when they found out they would be wearing those big latex gloves over their hands, they came around. While their exact identities are not known, it is believed they were specifically with the special effects department, however they were not any of the higher-ups. The scene would go on though, and one of the simpler and funnier effects sources was born.

The Original Trio

 

What better way is there to celebrate the original in one final image than a presentation of the posing of the three original busters in front of their iconic car? This was a picture that the three main cast members insisted on having taken during the last few days of shooting.

Going from left to right we have Bill Murray, (Peter Venkman) Dan Aykroyd, (Ray Stantz) and Harold Ramis.  (Egon Spangler) Murray wasn’t even supposed to be in the movie originally. His role was meant to be played by John Belushi, but his tragic passing forced them to find a different actor, and Murray was selected to fill this void because of his success as an SNL alum. This decision paid off quickly as he jelled fluidly with the rest of the cast and became many people’s favorite part of the movie.

Aykroyd and Ramis actually wrote the screenplay together, needing the director, Ivan Reitman, to edit it to create the final film. Aykroyd was an SNL alum like Murray who went on to write and perform in many different comedies. Ramis’ career would be similar, working for National Lampoon and moving on to mostly write comedies, only appearing in a few himself.

These three all would constantly cite this film as their favorite movie they ever worked on. It seems the love for the craft that the actors, crew, and especially the fans have for this movie is really what still makes it so special to this day, and one of the contenders for the most legendary comedy of all time.