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 While the production was shooting the cave sequences, four-time Academy Award winner Stan Winston and his team of makeup and special effects artists were busy building all the armor Iron Man wears in the film.“I worked with all the folks at Stan Winston Studios on `Zathura' and have been a fan of their work for a really long time,” says Favreau.“They've always been a wonderful collaborative group. It was a great opportunity to introduce Marvel to a whole new group of suit designers, and I was thrilled to be able to get Stan and his gang involved in a new movie franchise.”
“The minute we heard that `Iron Man' was being made, we really went after it,” admits Winston. “I'm a big comic book fan and Jon Favreau really understands the concept of how to mix all the different technologies and do whatever it takes to make things work, rather than getting caught up in doing a movie that relies heavily on digital effects. The final design of these suits is quite amazing and I am confidant that it will be some of the coolest stuff this studio has ever produced.”
Prior to Stan Winston Studios beginning construction, Favreau describes the concept and design process that went into the creation of the different suits of armor. “When I was first hired on to direct `Iron Man,' the images I gravitated to were the Adi Granov illustrations and paintings from the recent 'Extremis' series of Iron Man comic books. That one felt the most grounded in technology and was also the most dynamic. As we started to talk about design elements, Adi actually contacted me because he saw that I posted a lot of his images on the 'Iron Man' MySpace page I had set up. We started corresponding via e-mail, and he later flew to Los Angeles to help oversee the design process of the suits. I also brought in illustrator Phil Saunders and conceptual designer Ryan Meinerding, who were both very valuable in helping us refine the different versions of the `Iron Man' suit.”
In the film, the first suit Tony Stark builds during his captivity is the Mark 1 armor. Originally called the “Grey Armor” in the early years of the Marvel comic, Favreau speaks about the process the filmmakers came up with for the suit's concept design. “I never fully believed that this suit could have been built in captivity, especially under the watchful eye of hostile captors. Conceptual designer Ryan Meinerding came up with the idea of building the suit out of materials that could have been scavenged from other Stark Industry weapons. He was able to conceptually imagine a suit that looked like a bit of a junkyard war weapon creation. It's probably my favorite suit in the whole movie and most original in our film.”
“Ryan is one of the best conceptual designers in the business,” adds Phil Saunders. “He did an amazing job of taking that iconic, sci-fi design of the very clean, boiler plate metal and making it something that really felt like it was made out of spare military parts and surplus equipment. You may notice that some of the back panels on the suit are less armored than the front. That really came from Tony's idea that `I need to get through this gauntlet of people by moving forward and there's not going to be anyone behind me because I'm gonna be toasting everybody in my path.' So there really was a psychological concept that went into the armor for the character and how he put those pieces together.”
The responsibility of physically building the Mark 1 suit, as well as all the other suits in the film, fell squarely on the shoulders of Shane Mahan, suit effects supervisor at Stan Winston Studios. An employee at Winston's for over 25 years, Mahan describes the process of building the Mark 1 armor. “First of all, the designs provided to us for the Mark 1 were very strong. The concept was hunks of metal, parts of bombs, a complete hodgepodge of pieces. It was really a lot of fun to build, because it served two functions: it paid homage to the original comic book, and it also showed the evolution of Iron Man. We built the suit with the mindset of it being an escape suit that is like a powered human tank around his body.”
Mahan continues, “We also had to make the suit as light as possible without compromising its integrity, because we knew that we wanted to make sure that Robert and the stuntmen who were going to wear the suit and move around in it didn't look awkward. The suit ended up weighing about 90 pounds because we had to make the internal structure sound enough so that it could withstand some hits without being crushed. We also constructed it to be worn in pieces so that Robert or a stuntman could wear the top half of the suit without the legs, which made it easier on the performers.”
The sturdiness of Mahan's Mark 1 suit was unexpectedly put to the test early on when stuntman Mike Justice tipped over in the full suit and fell to the ground after shooting a take in the cave.
“When I saw Mike fall face-first to the ground, my heart jumped out of my chest,” recalls Mahan. “My first thought was, `Oh no, I hope Mike is alright,' quickly followed by, `Oh no, I hope the suit is still in working order.' We only had one Mark 1 suit so anything that happened to it would have to be repaired on the actual suit. Luckily for us, Mike was fine and the suit was not damaged and we continued shooting.”
For stuntman Mike Justice, falling to the ground wearing the 90-pound suit was all in a day's work. “The one thing you did not want to do is fall over in the Mark 1 suit because it was the heaviest and had a lot of components that could be damaged,” says Justice. “The biggest challenge with that suit was that you had very limited peripheral vision and could only see the ground directly in front of you. I was lucky when I tripped and fell over in that I resisted the natural instinct to put my arms out, or I probably would have broken my wrists. They just picked me up, dusted me off and we went back to work.”
For Downey, the first time he worked in the Mark 1 brought a newfound respect for his team of stuntmen. “I'd been training all these years and thought I was pretty tough, but the first time I put on the Mark 1 suit, I almost had a personality meltdown,” laughs Downey. “I'm not claustrophobic, but after moving around in it for a couple of hours your spirit is kind of broken and you're like, `ok, time to bring in the stunt team.'”
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