Inside ‘The Labyrinth’

Press, 12 May 1987, Page 15

Inside ‘The Labyrinth’

Tonight’s documentary on One at 9 is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the feature film “Labyrinth.” Jim Henson, the creator of the muppets and many other puppet characters, has brought to life a magic world of fantastic creatures, through the use of technology, artistic innovations in puppetry, and cinematic illusion. For more than two years, the concept of “Labyrinth” was developr ing in Jim Henson’s mind, and he wanted to create a totally new cast of fantastic creatures ... different from those in “The Dark Crystal” and different from any others in previous fantasy films. The new creatures in “Labyrinth” are based on the drawings of the artist and conceptual designer Brian Froud, and the film results from the second collaboration between Froud and Henson — they first worked together in 1977 on “The Dark Crystal.”

“Inside the Labyrinth” provides us with a fascinating account from Jim Henson himself, on the animatronics and technical aspects. It also features the production designer, Elliot Scott, the special effects supervisor, George Gibbs, Shari Weiser (the petite woman who performs the body of Hoggle), and Brian Henson (performer and puppeteer co-ordinator). Jim Henson explains that Hoggle is the most complicated puppet creature that he and his team have ever built. He says, “It’s the niost technically

elaborate face because we’ve put about 18 motors in there, to control all the different portions of the face, and four people operating that from outside by radio control.” The Hoggle crew are five performers, one being Shari who is inside the costume performing all the body movement The other four members of the crew are all operating the radio control.

The head however, was another matter. Inside the head “mask” was a maze of electronic circuitry.and devices that control various parts of Hoggle’s face, including the lips, eyelids and jaw. All the facial movement and expressions were the responsibility of four offcamera puppeteers operating broadcast devices that controlled 20 separate electronic remote-con-trol functions.