At a time when digital pipelines increasingly dominate blockbuster filmmaking, Shane Mahan remains one of the key figures insisting on the continued relevance of material cinema, of creatures that occupy space, of objects that actors can touch, and of worlds that are built rather than rendered.
Across four decades, from his formative years at Stan Winston Studio to his current role as co-founder of Legacy Effects, Mahan has helped shape the tactile dimension of contemporary film, contributing to franchises as varied as The Terminator, Jurassic Park, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Appearing at the Visegrad Film Forum in Bratislava, he delivered a masterclass, titled Monsters, Machines, and Material Cinema, that was firmly grounded in practice: how an effect is developed, what can be achieved within schedule, and how practical builds interact with digital post-production.
In discussion with Screen Anarchy, Mahan speaks about the current slate of projects he can only outline in broad terms, action-driven productions involving creatures, and detailing how such work is still executed in workshops and on set. He addresses the persistence of practical effects alongside motion capture, the growing demand from directors for in-camera solutions, and the way projects are sourced and selected within his company.
The conversation also moves through his preference for creature-driven material, his working relationships with filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and James Gunn, and the iterative process through which designs evolve under production constraints, from early concepts to final on-set performance.
Screen Anarchy: Maybe we can start with your latest projects. What are you able to talk about at the moment?
Shane Mahan: I have to be a little vague. There are some things coming up with action, adventure and monsters, that much I can say. But not much more than that. You know how it is.
And you’re still doing the creature work in the workshop, still very much hands-on?
Yeah. Same sort of thing.
I read an older interview with you, I think it was from around 2010, where you said something like, maybe in ten years there wouldn’t be the same demand for practical effects. Did you really think that?
I don’t know if I said it exactly like that. I might have said something more like, who knows where we’ll be in ten years? And that’s true, technology changes so much.
But look, ten years goes by fast. Thirty years ago, when Jurassic Park came out, people thought what we do would be eliminated entirely. And that just wasn’t the case. So no, I don’t think it ever really goes away completely.
Really? Because if you watch a lot of making-of material now, it can feel like everything is blue screen, motion capture suits and digital environments.
There are films like that, certainly. Some are made almost entirely that way. But not every film is made the same way. There’s a whole range of techniques, and there’s a whole range of budgets that support different ways of making films.
Not every movie can be large-scale digital creation. So you use those tools when you need to. But I think we’ve also seen a real return to directors wanting to shoot on location, wanting as much in-camera as possible, and then using digital work where it’s necessary.
Why do you think that is happening?
I think some directors simply want that aesthetic. They want the actors to feel a certain way and react to something that’s really there.
If you’re doing something like the newer Planet of the Apes films, that’s a choice, to make those characters fully digital, with people in motion-capture suits. And it works very well for that. But not everybody wants to work that way. So I think it’s good when there’s a balance.
How does work actually come to you? Do you pursue projects, or are you approached?
At this point, it mostly comes through relationships. Alan Scott, Lindsay MacGowan and the rest of us have all built personal connections with producers and directors over the years. So usually people just call. We don’t have agents, and we don’t have people searching for work for us.
If we hear about something, of course we’ll reach out and ask about it. But generally it comes through conversations with people we know. Then we decide whether we can do it, whether we’re too busy, whether we have the right people available. Because you don’t want to overextend yourself. Sometimes you just have to say no.
Your portfolio is incredibly broad: creatures, robots, prosthetics, fantasy, horror, commercial work. Is there any limit to what you want to do?
No, there’s really no limit. It can be anything. It could be a tiny commercial with one small character, or a huge film production. It could be a print ad, a museum piece, an exhibit somewhere. The spectrum is all over the place. That’s part of what makes the work interesting.
Do you personally have a preference?
I do prefer creature work, and the larger surrealist kind of things. I’m just naturally drawn to that. On a personal level, that’s what I love most.
But professionally, when you’re assigned a project, you have to embrace whatever it is. You have to give it the same amount of attention. It could be some bizarre little talking piece of pasta, and that’s happened, and you still have to make it good. You can’t decide one thing deserves more care than another. From a professional standpoint, it’s all the same.
When you say “surrealist,” what kinds of projects do you mean?
Usually fantasy or horror films give you the broadest and most imaginative material. That’s where things can get really fun. Something like James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad had a lot of very strange, very peculiar designs in it, and that was great. The tone of that film was also a lot of fun.
But it can also be something like Dungeons & Dragons, which has charm and wit, and still gives you very entertaining imagery to work with. It really runs across the board.
Does that mean you’re a fantasy geek in your personal life too? Comic-Con, comic books, all of that?
Well, you have to engage with that world from a business standpoint. But I wouldn’t say I’m only that. My interests are broader than that. I’m just as interested in classical art as I am in comic books. It’s all visual culture to me, just different media, different styles.
And if we’re doing a comic-book film with characters I don’t know well, then I have to study. I have to go back, find the old issues, read up, understand the lore. When we did Iron Man, for example, I remembered seeing images of him as a kid, but I had never really studied the comics. So I had to dive in properly. And comics now are much more sophisticated than they were in the 1960s or 70s, the writing, the artwork, the subcategories of characters, all of it.
Since you brought up THE SUICIDE SQUAD, what is James Gunn like to work with?
He’s very serious, but very fun at the same time. And that’s a great combination. You want to have a good time doing the work, but you also want to do the best work you can for somebody like James, because he really knows the material. He’s a serious comic-book fan. He knows the lore, and you have to bring that out properly.
And in The Suicide Squad, all those characters were outrageous. Polka-Dot Man, Weasel, they’re all these completely implausible, otherworldly creations. So that made it especially fun.
How would you compare James Gunn to Guillermo del Toro?
They’re very different, but equally exciting to work with. Del Toro comes more from fable, myth, old mythology, a mixture of religious iconography and classical storytelling. James is much more connected to pop culture, to modern mythmaking, often in more contemporary or futuristic settings. But they’re both visionaries in their own way, and they both love the kinds of characters we create.
When you’re working with a director like that, how does their vision become something material? What does that process actually look like?
It takes time. Every creature, every character, every design like that takes time to get right. And you’re always up against a schedule. There’s a lot of review, a lot of back and forth, a lot of experimentation. A lot. It almost never comes out right the first time. You do one version, then another, then another, and slowly it distills into what it needs to be.
I always think it’s a bit like making wine. You don’t just throw grapes in a bottle and get a great result. There’s a process. You have to refine it until it serves the story, and also looks right visually. But at the same time, you can’t spend forever designing, because eventually you have to build it and get it to set.
So what makes a project especially difficult?
A lot depends on how clear the director’s vision is. That’s really key. If they know what they want, even if they can’t express it perfectly, then you can work toward it. But if they don’t have a clear sense of it themselves, and they can’t really tell you yes or no, then it becomes much harder.
We’re not mind readers. Well, maybe to a certain degree. But really what you’re doing is trying to extract something from someone’s brain that you can’t actually see. They may not be able to draw it, or describe it exactly, but they know what they want. Finding that moment where you land on it, that’s crucial.
Are you usually brought in very early?
Yes, usually in pre-production, sometimes even earlier. Sometimes projects start, then get shelved for a while, then come back. Every film is a little different. But you have to be involved early if you’re going to have enough time to make things properly.
What are the most intense projects like?
Honestly, they’re all intense in their own way. I can’t really rank them. But I will say this: the first film in any series is usually the hardest. Because you’re figuring everything out. Once you’ve done one, you can improve it on the second, and improve it again on the third. You know what worked, what didn’t, what needs to be adjusted.
In a way, we’re building prototypes for films. If this were an industrial process, you’d build ten prototypes before manufacturing. But in film, you make one experimental prototype and then you have to put it in front of a camera and make it work. Unless it’s a sequel, you usually don’t get the luxury of doing it twice.
After such a long career, can anything still surprise you?
I don’t really like being surprised on set. Ideally, by the time you get there, you should have a solid plan. You don’t want to be caught off guard. What can surprise you is how the finished film turns out. That part is not really in my hands, that’s the director, the producers, the whole editorial and storytelling side. So it’s great when a film comes out and really works. That’s always satisfying.
Sometimes you do work you’re very proud of and the film itself ends up being mediocre. That’s disappointing. And then other times, something you didn’t necessarily expect to be spectacular turns out beautifully. So there are surprises in that sense.
You mentioned you still operate puppets and mechanical elements yourself. Is that still an important part of what you do?
Oh, absolutely. We still do that all the time. On almost every film, we’re operating something. Whether it’s a robotic device, a creature, a piece of animatronics, somebody has to make it move, make it function, make it perform. If it’s a prosthetic makeup, the actor is doing the work. But if it’s a device or a creature, you have to operate it.
Take the Xenomorphs in Alien: Romulus, those are things you have to perform. You have to choreograph them, rehearse them, practice them. That’s all part of the work.
What part of the process do you enjoy most, designing, building, or performing on set?
It’s every step. It really is. I think of it like chapters in a book. The first chapter is design. The second is building it. The third is preparing it and refining it. The fourth is being on set and filming it. That’s the final chapter.
Everything is leading to that moment where the thing has to work in front of camera and tell the story. Whether it’s an actor in makeup or a mechanical creature, everything you do is in preparation for that day. So you really have to enjoy the whole process.
Do you always get enough rehearsal time before shooting?
Not always. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes the schedule gets moved up, or time runs out, and you get thrown into it with less preparation than you’d like. That’s nerve-wracking. You get through it, but it’s much better when you have a properly orchestrated setup and everything has been worked out ahead of time.
One of the most talked-about effects in ALIEN: ROMULUS was the Ian Holm character. Was that one of the trickiest things you’ve done recently?
Yes, very much so. That was a very challenging effect. It was an amazing idea when it was proposed, but once you start thinking about how to actually do it, the difficulty becomes obvious.
Ian Holm was in his early 40s in the original Alien, and there were no life casts, no scans, none of the materials we’d rely on today. The only life cast we had was from much later in his life, I think from around the Lord of the Rings period, when he was much older. It gave us some general proportions, but not what we really needed. So to recreate that specific face, that era, that look, and to do it in a very limited amount of time, was daunting.
How much time did you actually have?
I think by the time I sat down to really deal with it, we had about two months to build it. Which is very short. Very, very short. And the plan from the beginning was always a hybrid solution: animatronic work combined with digital enhancement. That was discussed with Fede Álvarez and the visual effects team right away. We knew how far we could get practically, and we also knew it would need digital nuance on top of that, because we just didn’t have the time or the information to perfect it the way we would have liked.
If we’d had a scan of Ian Holm from that era and another six months of R&D, we probably would have built it, studied it, and then built it again to refine it. But that wasn’t the situation. So we did what we could in the time we had, and I think we were all proud of the result.
There must also have been something emotional about that, bringing someone back who is no longer alive.
Yes, definitely. It’s a strange thing. You’re resurrecting somebody who doesn’t exist anymore. So it’s technical, but it’s also emotional in a way. Tricky, but satisfying.
Do you have a special personal connection to the ALIEN franchise?
Oh yes, absolutely. I’ve always loved those films. The original was so monumental, and it influenced so many people. And of course, Stan Winston’s shop worked on Aliens, which was an amazing thing to be part of historically.
So when the call came in for Alien: Romulus, I was thrilled. I didn’t even know they were developing it. It just came out of the blue, and I thought: that’s fantastic. It felt like returning to something you always wanted to return to.
Did you ever meet H. R. Giger?
No, and I was disappointed about that. When we were working on Aliens, I had hoped we might meet him, but he wasn’t involved in that film. So no, I never met him. And now, of course, it’s too late.
He still feels like a huge presence over this whole field.
Every day. His influence is still there every day. People still talk about him constantly as an artist. He really changed the visual language of this kind of work.
Are you ever tempted to direct or make something fully your own, the way Phil Tippett did with Mad God?
Yes, in a way. I always have personal projects going, sculptures, paintings, writing. And for years we’ve been developing our own scripts and film ideas as well. That was something I always loved about Stan Winston’s company, that there was also a producing side. Stan directed Pumpkinhead, he directed second unit on Aliens, and I always thought that was a very exciting extension of what the studio could be. So a few of us have tried to keep that spirit alive, developing our own projects alongside the day-to-day work.
After spending all day making films, do you ever get burned out on watching them?
Not really. I don’t watch everything, but if something really interests me, I’ll seek it out. You still have to make time for it. I was very impressed with Vesper, for example. I thought that was a really interesting film because of how simple it was in one sense, such a big concept, but not a huge amount of spectacle. It relied on performances and atmosphere and the core science-fiction idea. I found that approach very appealing.
You travel a lot for projects, don’t you?
All the time. Probably six months out of the year, at least. Different places all over.
But the fabrication itself still happens mainly in the US?
Yes, mostly. We build everything in the shop, ship it out, and then do minimal finishing on location. We don’t really fabricate major elements abroad. The studio has to keep functioning, so the work gets divided. Someone travels, someone stays back, things get finished, things get shipped. That’s how it works.
What was the last project that took you abroad?
Prague, recently. For Resident Evil. I can’t say too much, but it’s going to be fun. Zach Cregger is a great director, and he has a strong vision. I think it’s going to surprise people.
Do you enjoy working in places like Prague, Panama, Malta, Mexico, all these very different locations?
Yes, absolutely. I basically enjoy working anywhere, as long as the crews are good and the work turns out well. And honestly, I like difficult places. I like jungles. I like strange environments.
There’s a certain romance to making films in places like that. It pulls you away from the boring blue-screen soundstage and puts you in a real place with real atmosphere. For me, that’s part of the fun. The more difficult it is, the better. I’m a little weird that way.
Since everyone is talking about it now, what do you think generative AI will do to the field?
I think it’ll be another tool, like any other tool. People were afraid of digital effects. Before that, people were afraid of television. These things always advance. The tools are the tools.What matters more is whether people have creative storytelling minds and use those tools to make interesting films.
I don’t know if audiences will really embrace fully AI-generated feature films in the long run. Maybe there’ll be a novelty phase, and maybe some of those films will do well for a while. But I think people still respond to things that are built by people, performed by people, and connected to human effort in some tangible way. That said, I can’t predict where it will all go. Nobody really can.
Image courtesy of Visegrad Film Forum.