Make-Up department head and make-up effects creator Ve Neill, along with make-up effects supervisor Joel Harlow and their huge crew, had their hands full once again taking perfectly reasonable looking human beings into their trailer, and then unleashing an astounding assortment of international pirates, soldiers, creatures and more proletarian citizens of the Caribbean, Asia and Great Britain upon the world. “I think at our peek we had, not even counting the people in the make-up trailers, probably about 45 make-up artists working with background players on some,” says Neill.
Some of the biggest and most difficult days were actually on the Universal Studios backlot, where Neill, Harlow and company were weaving their magical transformations for the Singapore sequence. “We did lots of prosthetics for Singapore. When Sao Feng’s pirates are in the bathhouse, they actually have mushrooms growing out of them, so as to make them appear as though they have been sitting in there for months on end. We wanted to give the Asian pirates, like the other pirates, a really aged, roughed-out look. We make them tan, dirty, stipple to give them a more rugged appearance, and lots of dirt. Oh, and don’t forget the rotten teeth. On `The Curse of the Black Pearl,’ we were painting their teeth, which became a little bit of a drama. Gore would be getting ready to roll, somebody would go and eat an apple, and all of a sudden they didn’t have rotten teeth anymore. So what we did for `Dead Man’s Chest’ and `At World’s End’ was to have a traveling lab with us for dental prosthetics.”
As befits his continued deterioration and merging with the ship to which he’s enslaved, “Bootstrap Bill does progress quite a bit in the third film,” notes Neill. “And unlike Davy Jones and the other members of his crew, it’s all make-up on Bootstrap, and no CGI. He’s a progressive silicone make-up in `At World’s End’ until he’s pretty much covered up, with very little of his own face left by the time he reaches what we called `stage 6.’ “I’ve had great fun,” enthuses Stellan Skarsgård, the distinguished Swedish actor who portrays Bootstrap Bill. “I mean, I spent more time in the make-up chair than in front of the camera.”
“Stellan was really into it,” continues Neill. “What a great guy. He was so patient and willing to sit for hours. He said that it helped him feel the character. But it was really difficult for Stellan to go through all those stages.”
Another actor who got the full treatment from Neill was Chow Yun-Fat, whose handsome, world famous visage was completely altered into a shaven-head, scarred scoundrel of the seas. “Chow was a lot of fun,” Neill says. “We shaved him, and he grew his own mustache and beard, which we then augmented. He also has a fabulous tattoo, which was designed by Ken Diaz, who runs background make-up and is a master tattoo artist.
The stars of `At World’s End’ also undergo some changes, except Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack. “Gore and Johnny both agreed that he has to be exactly who he is, without any changes,” continues Ve Neill. It’s great to have Geoffrey Rush back, and he’s completely fabricated. Beard, mustache, sideburns, wig, scar… all appliances. And because Geoffrey isn’t very old, I also do a big aging stipple all the way around so he gets all crusty and wrinkly. Keira has gotten more rugged as Elizabeth. She’s not that beautiful, pale-skinned little princess who we started off with in `Dead Man’s Chest’ at the wedding altar. She gets very tan, and dirty like the boys, quite womanly and brazen. And as Will, Orlando has a darker, moodier look.”
Once again, Neill worked in close concert with chief hairstylist Martin Samuel, with whom she shared an Academy Award nomination for their work on “The Curse of the Black Pearl.” “I think we all work together really well,” notes Neill. “It starts with costume designer Penny Rose, and we follow suit from there.” Samuel and his team provide the hundreds, if not thousands, of hair designs, wigs, extensions for a kaleidoscopic array of characters, from the traditional “pigtails” of the Chinese pirates to Admiral James Norrington’s powdered wig.
Next Page – Chapter 14: Special Effects: Maelstroms, Squid-Faced Captains
