Everyone had a good laugh when the new 4K came to HBO Max this week Mad Man The remaster began with several serious errors that should have been caught before the show was uploaded to the streamer’s servers. The episodes went live with incorrect titles, and in one instance you can still see members of the show’s production crew who were not supposed to appear on camera. The mistakes were reportedly the result of Lionsgate Television – Mad ManThe original production company of – is sending the wrong set of exported files.
It’s absurd to think that someone at HBO didn’t notice that the remastered “Red in the Face” episode still included a candid shot. Mad Man Special effects foreman Shannon Thompson. When I recently spoke to Thompson – whose previous credits include mask, from evening to morning, American history X, Dune: Part Oneand new matlock Reboot – He told me he didn’t have time to check out the HBO remaster. But he still remembers the shooting of that episode Mad Man Obviously, and sees it as a solid example of just how much invisible special effects do in making mundane TV seem real.
How did you get into special effects work?
I always knew I loved doing creative, mechanical things like pyrotechnics and things like that, so, I started working in props, and sometimes that includes special effects. I finally met these two influential people and I immediately got along with them. They pulled me in and I’ve been doing this for 33 years.
Looking at your IMDB, you’ve worked on a lot of big science-fiction and fantasy projects, what kind of special effects have you worked on Mad Man,
like for the show Mad ManThat’s a lot of atmospheric effects. Anytime there’s something like snow or steam or rain – anything that moves on camera, but isn’t moved by an actor – that’s a special effect. Basically every elevator door you see on that show is fake, and I think most of my work on that show was elevator doors. I’m literally hiding in the walls, waiting for the sign, and figuring out the trick to making those mundane things happen seem Worldly.
What does it take to create juicy projectile vomit that looks believable and not too ridiculous?
[laughing] To be honest, you spend a lot of time studying and researching the real thing. I had to watch a lot of videos of people vomiting, but then it was the process of testing how to create that effect practically. We have a thing called a pressure pot that we fill with whatever liquid we want the vomit to look like in the final shot. You study how that liquid comes out of the tube normally. But then sometimes you have to manipulate the hole of the hose to make the liquid look like it’s actually coming out of someone’s mouth.
If you have a straight tube, it will look like it is coming out of a tube, so you will have to change it and consider what teeth and uvula normally have in a person’s mouth to create a believable vomit shape. And then the director will tell you what continuity they want, and you have to ask something like, “Well, what were they eating? Why are they sick? Is it because they’re drunk or because, well, they have a virus?”
For “Red in the Face”, do you remember what kind of conversation you had about the consistency of vomit?
For this, they really wanted Roger Sterling to eat oysters, and [producer] Matt Weiner said, “It needs to be clam chowder-ish.” So…I stopped using clam chowder, and figured out how to spread it everywhere.
What do you think might have gone wrong in the remastering process that left you with the shot that everyone has now seen?
I guess I don’t know what the future will hold, you know? Every time we created an effect, we needed to get as close as possible while remaining out of frame.
When you were originally shooting it, was there a perception that you’d just be fired?
Yes. At the time, we always tried to hide it as much as we could, but nowadays they just say “we’ll erase it in post.” Only this time, apparently they didn’t wipe us out.
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