The new Dracula series, by the BBC and Netflix, is spine-tinglingly good. Claes Bang inhabits his role so convincingly that you'd be forgiven for forgetting he is but an actor and a mere mortal in real life.
The same can be said for the sets, special effects and costumes. So effective are they in immersing us in Dracula's world that you might be surprised to learn that practical effects and enormous sets were prominently used throughout the making of the series.
Here are some of the most striking behind the scenes moments from Dracula. Be warned that light spoilers are sprinkled, much like the blood of Dracula's victims, throughout the article.
RELATED: 5 EXAMPLES OF THE TECHNICAL WIZARDRY BEHIND NETFLIX'S THE WITCHER
BBC's Dracula is an ingeniously produced series. It was, after all, made by the people behind Sherlock. Even the advertising for the show is stunning.
The main challenge, when it came to prosthetics and makeup, in the first episode of Dracula was making Claes Bang look like an extremely old man.
Though the series eventually follows its own path, the first episode does stick more closely to the source material, Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, where Count Dracula meets the British solicitor Jonathan Harker as an old man in his Transylvania castle before transforming into a young and revitalized version of himself.
In order to create the old Count Dracula look, the prosthetics team used makeup, fake teeth, wigs, and colored contact lenses. As Claes Bang points out in the video above, the process would take 4 hours per day, something he says, "I don't recommend to anybody." It's a grueling process bringing the undead to life.
How do you go about recreating the scariest castle of all time for the screen? Most similar productions will have a main set. Extra shots will then be taken in the corridors and stairwells of a real castle to create the illusion of a sprawling building.Impressively, the entire castle for the BBC's Dracula was a set made out of plywood in a warehouse.
As Production Designer Arwel Wyn Jones explains, he filled any empty spaces within the huge set with corridors, allowing almost the entire production of the first episode to be filmed on set.
Showrunner Mark Gatiss likens the set to the ones used in Hollywood in the 30s that were "the size of a cathedral." As if that wasn't enough of an undertaking for the set creators on Dracula, for the filming of episode 2 they had to take that castle apart and build the three-masted Demeter, a ship that Dracula boards to travel to England.
Perhaps the most horrific scene in the entire season saw the transformation of a possessed wolf into Count Dracula as Sister Agatha, brilliantly played by Dolly Wells, looks on. As showrunner Steven Moffat explains, a lot of work went into practical effects in order to make that scene "frightening and odd and strange."
In order to bring the scene to life, the prosthetics team created a puppet wolf that could be controlled to give it lifelike movements. The puppet was built with a cavity that allowed actors to crawl out of it via a hole underneath the set that the scene was filmed on.
The question, of course, is what type of actors to use in order to create the horrific imagery required for the scene. The production team hired contortionists to come out of the wolf's cavity in weird, twisting shapes to capture the transformation's ghastly and otherworldly quality.
Different sized contortionists were pushed through the hole wearing a creepy head mask before Claes Bang was filmed coming through. The separate shots, depicting different stages of the transformation, were then edited together to make the entire scene.
All of the new sounds for the show were created organically and "were not generated by a machine. They are recordings of real things," explains Dracula composer David Arnold.
In order to create the desired effect, the sweeping orchestral music was accompanied by "choirs of screaming distressed children," as well as rubbed wine glasses with blood in and percussion instruments made out of coffins. "It's quite macabre," Arnold says in the understatement of the century.
If you've yet to watch the Dracula miniseries, we highly recommend it. The dedication behind the scenes was clearly mirrored unlike the titular vampire's invisible reflection on camera and in the writing room, making it one of the most ghastly, fun series to have come from the BBC in a long time.
See the original post here:
Blood is Lives: Behind the Scenes on BBC's New Dracula Series - Interesting Engineering
- Vlad The Impaler, Inspiration For Dracula, May Have Cried Tears of Blood: Study - NDTV - March 24th, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC): Does the Reward Outweigh the Risks? - InvestorsObserver - March 24th, 2024
- Abigail's 1936 Inspiration Teases An Appearance By 1 Classic Horror Character (Not Dracula) - Screen Rant - March 24th, 2024
- Off The Telly - 4. "She is basically the sister of Dracula" - BBC - March 24th, 2024
- Is Dracula Token (DRC) Heading the Right Direction Thursday? - InvestorsObserver - March 16th, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC), High Volatility and Rising Sunday: Is it Time to Cash Out? - InvestorsObserver - March 16th, 2024
- 'Dracula A.D. 1972': when the iconic vampire met the hippies - Far Out Magazine - March 16th, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC) Do the Risks Outweigh the Rewards Wednesday? - InvestorsObserver - March 8th, 2024
- Luc Besson to Direct Dracula, Caleb Landry Jones and Christoph Waltz Will Lead Retelling of Bram Stokers Gothic Classic - Variety - February 19th, 2024
- Luc Besson to Direct Dracula, Caleb Landry Jones and Christoph Waltz Will Lead Retelling of Bram Stokers Gothic ... - IMDb - February 19th, 2024
- New Dracula Movie Is In Development With Different Retelling Of Bram Stoker's Story - Screen Rant - February 19th, 2024
- Caleb Landry Jones to Re-Team With Luc Besson on Dracula Origin Story - Hollywood Reporter - February 19th, 2024
- Caleb Landry Jones And Christoph Waltz To Star In Luc Besson's Dracula - Empire - February 19th, 2024
- New Dracula Feature Will Delve Into The Vampire Lord's Origins - Horror News Network - February 19th, 2024
- In This Moment to Launch the Godmode Tour with Kim Dracula - Knotfest - February 19th, 2024
- Dracula's Chivito: New protoplanetary disk discovered with Pan-STARRS - Phys.org - February 19th, 2024
- In 'Dracula: Blood Hunt,' the Lord of Vampires Takes the Daughter of Blade Under His Wing - Marvel.com - February 19th, 2024
- Embrace The Darkside! Richmond Ballet Redefines Valentine's with Dracula - rvamag.com - February 19th, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC) What Does the Chart Say Sunday? - InvestorsObserver - February 19th, 2024
- Dracula's Chivito Is This Year's Best Name For A Newly Found Astronomical Object - IFLScience - February 19th, 2024
- From Billie Holiday to Dracula, is there anyone Zahra Newman cant play? - Sydney Morning Herald - February 19th, 2024
- Review: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Presents a New Take on 'Dracula' From a Female Perspective - Cincinnati CityBeat - February 11th, 2024
- A 103-Year-Old Lost Film Was Actually The First Dracula Movie, Not The Movie People Think Is The First - Screen Rant - February 11th, 2024
- February 2020 (version 1.43) - Visual Studio Code - February 3rd, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC), High Volatility and Falling Friday: Is it Time to Cash Out? - InvestorsObserver - February 3rd, 2024
- Is Dracula Token (DRC) Heading the Right Direction Wednesday? - InvestorsObserver - February 3rd, 2024
- The Weekly Pull: Detective Comics, Resurrection of Magneto, Universe Monsters: Dracula, and More - ComicBook.com - January 26th, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC) Do the Risks Outweigh the Rewards Monday? - InvestorsObserver - January 26th, 2024
- Dracula Token (DRC) Falls 47.02% Wednesday: What's Next for This Bearish Rated Crypto? - InvestorsObserver - January 26th, 2024
- The Real History That Went Into Bram Stoker's Dracula | TIME - January 18th, 2024
- Dracula writer Bram Stoker revealed as a humble minute taker for actor charity - The Guardian - January 18th, 2024
- 'Abigail' Trailer Dracula's Daughter Is on the Hunt - Collider - January 18th, 2024
- Which 'Dracula' Movie Is the Most Book-Accurate? - Collider - January 9th, 2024
- Arundel Playhouse celebrates a successful 2023 and kicks off 2024 with 'Dracula: The Bloody Truth' - SussexWorld - January 9th, 2024
- THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER Almost Featured Van Helsing and a Werewolf-Like Dracula GeekTyrant - GeekTyrant - January 1st, 2024
- The strong Dracula Open Youth & Junior Tournament will take place in Romania on February 11-19 - Asian Boxing Confederation - January 1st, 2024
- Is Dracula Token (DRC) Heading the Right Direction Tuesday? - InvestorsObserver - January 1st, 2024
- Defining Dracula: A Century Of Vampire Evolution : NPR - December 23rd, 2023
- Was Dracula a Real Person? | Britannica - December 12th, 2023
- Dracula, a Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really Is Easy, Entertaining, and Empowering - Portland Mercury - December 12th, 2023
- Dracula: The women fight back - Oregon ArtsWatch - December 12th, 2023
- Dracula parrots: what are they and do they feed on blood? - BBC Discover Wildlife - December 12th, 2023
- Wonka | How Hook and Dracula informed the look of this autumn's musical - Filmstories - December 12th, 2023
- Dracula and rabbits and the tooth fairy...oh my! Omaha dentists trade in their traditional scrubs, making the experience less frightening - KETV Omaha - November 2nd, 2023
- Week in theater: Dracula flies into Denver, Sweeney Todd in Longmont and holiday productions are on the horizon - Boulder Daily Camera - October 16th, 2023
- When Keanu Reeves & Winona Ryder Accidentally Got Hitched On The Sets Of Bram Stokers Dracula & They Didnt Realize It Was For Real - Koimoi - February 10th, 2023
- Nina Price and Dracula Will Be the Villains of #Blade #MarvelStudios - Latest Tweet by Marvel Updates - LatestLY - January 1st, 2023
- A Dracula where the women fight back - The Boston Globe - October 19th, 2022
- Owners infuse Romanian history to Dracula-themed wine bar in downtown St. Pete The Crow's Nest at USF St. Petersburg - The Crow's Nest - October 19th, 2022
- Meet Dracula authors great-grand nephew tonight! - wnky.com - October 19th, 2022
- Cape Cod theater: Halloween season with 'The Addams Family,' Dracula - Cape Cod Times - October 19th, 2022
- "A Tale of Two Villains: Theme and Symbolism in Dracula and the Harry Potter Saga" Available Now from Histria Books - openPR - October 19th, 2022
- Netflix Added 36 New Movies and Series This Week - What's on Netflix - October 19th, 2022
- The Vampire and Its Cultural History Exponent - Exponent - October 19th, 2022
- Corin Hardy Releases The Schedule For His Halloween Horrorthon 2022 - Empire - October 19th, 2022
- Shows like Interview with the Vampire: 8 titles to sink your teeth into next - Android Authority - October 19th, 2022
- 2022: The Year of Dracula, Vampire Interviews, Nosferatu, Renfield and more - PW-Philadelphia Weekly - October 11th, 2022
- Bram Stokers Dracula review Gary Oldman is Pierrot from hell in blood-red 90s take - The Guardian - October 11th, 2022
- Cary Elwes on Bram Stokers Dracula at 30: Gary Oldman spent most of the time sleeping in a coffin - Yahoo Movies UK - October 11th, 2022
- The Best New Horror Comics in October 2022: Werewolf by Night, Creepshow, Dracula, and More! - Den of Geek - October 11th, 2022
- Ranking The Horror Movie Sequels That Sent Their Monsters To Space - Den of Geek - October 11th, 2022
- I picked up a book for 1 at a charity shop I was stunned when I found out its true value... - The US Sun - October 11th, 2022
- Abbyr Shen Reesht - Say That Again 9th October 2022 - Abbyr Shen Reesht - Say That Again - Manx Radio - October 11th, 2022
- Top 8 Horror Classics To See In Theaters This October - Bounding Into Comics - October 11th, 2022
- 'Dracula' in Spanish finds new blood after 91 years : NPR - October 2nd, 2022
- Watch Dracula Season 1 | Prime Video - amazon.com - October 2nd, 2022
- Feature: Ben Stevenson's Dracula, presented by the Nevada Ballet Theatre, to Bring Gothic Grandness - Broadway World - October 2nd, 2022
- We get real about love, sex and beauty this October on SBS VICELAND - SBS - October 2nd, 2022
- Celebrating the Glorious Horror Films of 1992 - Nerdist - October 2nd, 2022
- Plan your October in North Texas with these spirited events - KERA News - October 2nd, 2022
- October 2022 Programming on the Criterion Channel Announced - CriterionCast.com - October 2nd, 2022
- Horror as Folk: Viy and Even More Pastoral Folk Horror - Signal Horizon - October 2nd, 2022
- Intimacy and Manipulation: A Reading List of Fictional Diaries - Literary Hub - October 2nd, 2022
- 8 Horror Movies To Watch This Fall - Study Breaks - October 2nd, 2022
- 5 times Horror Franchises went to space and struggled to return to Earth - We Got This Covered - October 2nd, 2022
- Inside the life of a vampire tourist - I've even written a PhD about Dracula - iNews - September 8th, 2022
- Cinespia's October Line-up to Frightfully Finish Its Season - NBC Southern California - September 8th, 2022
- REVIEW: Major Sweets Ice Cream Sandwich, Petrified Rat Tails and More from Dracula Booth at Halloween Horror Nights 31 - WDW News Today - September 8th, 2022
- What's coming to the big stage: theater preview - The Vantage - September 8th, 2022
- Review: House of Darkness Brings an Ominous, Seductive Twist to a Classic Tale - The Mary Sue - September 8th, 2022
Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero