{"id":8097,"date":"2014-07-15T23:03:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T03:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.puppeteers.org\/?p=8097"},"modified":"2014-07-16T21:22:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T01:22:32","slug":"blog-3-does-this-suit-make-my-hips-look-wide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/2014\/07\/15\/blog-3-does-this-suit-make-my-hips-look-wide\/","title":{"rendered":"Does this suit make my hips look wide?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Camilla Henneman modeling the Nunzio fat suit
Photo by Tim Lawrence<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said, \u201cThere is nothing sexier than a guy in a suit\u201d<\/p>\n

I am focusing on Ghostbusters for a few blogs because there is an upcoming documentary Cleaning Up The Town, Remembering Ghostbusters<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, and also the planned\u00a0re-release of the films next month for the 25th and 30th anniversaries. This week I want to introduce you to two characters from Ghostbusters 2<\/em><\/strong>, the Scoleri Brothers. In Ghostbusters 2<\/em><\/strong>, Tony and Nunzio Scoleri were ghosts of prisoners executed by the same judge who is hearing the Ghostbusters case.<\/p>\n

The concept of the Scoleri Brothers was inspired by a pair of brothers who had once robbed a store owned by the father of the late actor\/ writer , Harold Ramis. Visual designer\u00a0Henry Mayo based his original designs for the characters\u00a0\u00a0on\u00a0\u00a0the comic characters\u00a0Cousin Eerie and Uncle Creepy<\/strong>.\u00a0Producer, Michael Gross worked closely with Mayo on the character designs.\u00a0 As they evolved, Nunzio got fatter and fatter.\u00a0\u00a0According to Henry, \u201cOnce Michael Gross saw my drawings, he insisted the fat one be a lot heavier than I’d done. Most of my early work before arriving at ILM was finding the size Michael wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Scoleri Brothers – a still from the film
Credit to GhostbustersNews.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tony Scoleri
Original artwork by Henry Mayo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If Nunzio was supposed to be impossibly fat, Tony Scoleri was supposed to be impossibly thin.\u00a0\u00a0Tony was played by actor Jim Fye. To accentuate his thinness, we created his torso from spandex which was painted by Bob Cooper to look skeletal.\u00a0\u00a0His head was sculpted to be oversized, but long and very thin.<\/p>\n

The Nunzio costume was huge.\u00a0\u00a0We built an enormous fat suit\u00a0with bean bag style fat pouches that moved and undulated with the character.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I had recently made a similar fat suit for Weird Al Yankovic\u2019s\u00a0Fat<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0video, and Tim Lawrence, the head of the creature shop, wanted similar movement in Nunzio\u2019s body. Nunzio was played in the film by Tim Lawrence.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was decided to make both the characters appear to be flying in their electric chairs, so we incorporated flying harnesses into the suits. The mechanisms in\u00a0them were made to be controlled\u00a0\u00a0with a computerized motion control system.\u00a0\u00a0The movement could also be controlled by puppeteers for a live performance.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lawrence brought in Bob Cooper to paint Tony’s torso, Mike Smithson to work\u00a0\u00a0the heads, Bill Forsch to make Nunzio’s arms, and Buzz Neidig to work on additional details such as teeth and tongues. Al Coulter headed up the mechanics department.<\/p>\n

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Nunzio Scoleri
Original artwork by Henry Mayo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tony Scoleri fitting. Barbara Hartman Jenichen(L), Camilla Henneman (R) Jim Fye in costume
Credit to the collection of Jim Fye<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The heads for both costumes and the body for Nunzio were very heavy. The actors had to stay in the suits for hours at a time while hanging in front of a blue screen. Jim Fye said that the greatest challenge was the flying part , according to Jim, “I’d never done anything like that before and it was fun, but keeping balanced and striking the poses in midair in the full costume and the heavy headpiece was very challenging.” Though it was challenging, Fye said that he had the most fun playing Tony Scoleri. The Scoleri shoot was five days.\u00a0 Jim said, “As I recall… it was spent mostly about 10 feet off the ground. I had a very comfortable moleskin undergarment that the wires were attached to, but after that amount of time, gravity took its toll\u201d. To put it delicately, we left poor Jim black and blue in some sensitive areas, but he never voiced a complaint.<\/p>\n

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Tony Scoleri in a flying rig
Collection of Jim Fye<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here is some footage of me, Barbara Jenichen Hartman, Eleanor Harrold and Howie Weed fitting the Nunzio costume on Tim Lawrence. Video by\u00a0William Forsche.<\/p>\n

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We finished shooting the Scoleris on a Saturday. The actors got one day off and then started shooting the Statue of Liberty on Monday. We were so lucky to have really professional actors to work with. I never remember a complaint from Jim, Tim or Robin (Slimer), and we put them through a lot.<\/p>\n

Here is the finished scene of the Scoleri Brothers from the film:<\/p>\n