Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers from the series premiere of “It: Welcome to Derry,” now streaming on HBO Max.
It doesn’t take long for “It: Welcome to Derry” to remind audiences that they’ve returned to Stephen King’s haunted town of the same name. The first episode alone features enough blood, guts and gore to rival Andy Muschietti’s “It” movies, much of it spilling out within the first 10 minutes.
The HBO series begins circa 1962 with an 11-year-old boy named Mattie (Miles Eckhart) hitchhiking from a town in Maine. He is picked up by a family: a bespectacled father (Mark McRae), a pregnant mother (Zoe Barrett Wood), a teenage daughter (Audrey Wellington), and a boyish son (Lochlan Ray Miller). At first glance they seem safe and friendly, but in Delhi such descriptions are always a cause for alarm.
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The family says they’re headed to Portland, but as they drive past “Welcome to Derry” signs over and over again, Matty becomes suspicious that they’re driving in circles. Meanwhile, the son, who is at the word-spelling stage, begins to spell out increasingly dark terms, such as “kidnapping,” “maggot,” “corpse,” and “strangulation” at his mother’s request. Matty’s pleas to stop the car go unheeded, and all the doors are locked.
Then the mother begins labor. The family sings an exhilarating chorus of “Out! Out!” with their son. The woman’s abdomen begins to move, and blood and internal organs ooze from between her legs. Eventually, a bloody head appears and a deformed fetus is pushed onto the floor of the car.
The baby, shrouded in darkness beneath the dashboard, appears like a two-headed demon with bat wings, flying around the car like a wild animal connected only by its mother’s umbilical cord. Things only calm down when the whole family, including the newborn, stops and looks at Matty. We then cut to the sound of a window breaking and the baby lunging towards Matty, presumably signaling the boy’s brutal death.
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“Welcome to Derry” serves as a prequel to two “It” movies: 2017’s “It: Chapter 1” and 2019’s “It: Chapter 2.” It chronicles the origins of Pennywise the Clown and previous generations’ encounters with the town’s haunting curse.
Like the film’s predecessors, the show combines modern visual effects with old-fashioned prosthetics to create harrowing sequences. It can be difficult to tell which effects are practical and which are digital, as they blend seamlessly into a frightening yet visually spectacular effect. For example, the cold open utilized an LED sound stage and a digital model of the demon baby, along with a mother’s prosthetic leg and a working doll swinging around on a stick.
To learn more about how Welcome to Derry pulls off its shocking scenes, Variety spoke exclusively with Daryl Sawchuk and Sean Sansom. Mr. Sawchuk served as VFX supervisor on the series, and Mr. Sansom served as head of the prosthetics department after previously working in the makeup department on both “IT” films.
What was it like for you both to work on “Welcome to Derry”?
Sean Sansom: For me, it was Andy’s previous relationship with Barbara Muschietti, working on his first two films and several other projects. Andy likes his team to come together, and since the show is in the same world as the movie, he wanted it to have the same style and look.
Darryl Sawchuk: When Andy was finishing The Flash for Warner Bros., John Des Jardins, who was the visual effects supervisor on that movie, was actually kind of my mentor, and we’ve made a lot of movies together over the years. When they were looking for a visual effects supervisor, John was very nice and complimented me. Then I had a conversation with Andy and we really hit it off.
Given your respective roles and departments, please tell us how the two of you worked together to bring the show to life.
Sawczak: From pre-production to production to post, my responsibility was to develop early ideas for the show’s visual effects sequences with Sean and other department heads and some of the previs. I was on set and was responsible for making sure we had all the reference passes, all the materials we needed to later add visual effects and bring it into post-production.
Sansom: I did all the building. Throughout pre-production, I held concept meetings, met with other department heads, and worked out what we would physically build for the set. I also helped Darryl with whatever he needed in terms of physical references, scanning them and using them as the basis for building (digital) models. And I was also on all the filming locations.
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When you both read the script for the first episode and immediately saw this gruesome, brutal open birth scene, how did you feel knowing it would involve a lot of heavy effects and prosthetic work?
Sawciak: To me, you are clearly shocked by what you are reading on this page. “Oh my god, I know this is for HBO, but, well, this is going to be a really dark, gruesome, gritty opening that’s going to be really shocking.”Then the storyboards start. Andy starts drawing on his own, but also has a storyboard artist he works with. You realize that some of the angles he’s going for are very graphic. We started doing some previs early on to make it easier to block things from an action standpoint. This will help you understand what angles you need to shoot at.
Then we were able to take it over and work with guys like Sean and the costume team to figure out what we actually needed to build. We realized we were really going for it. My approach to visual effects has always been to try and incorporate as much practicality as possible, and it was great to see that Andy and Sean felt the same way. So we created a lot of practical reference material to scan and photograph the baby coming out, but Sean’s team also created a fake leg for the woman and a birthing device. We had some great practical goo and blood and all sorts of other things that we used as a starting point and expanded on as we went into post.
Sansom: As for the script, reading Andy’s project, I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be easy. It’s always going to be a challenge. As Darryl said, you can’t expect to see everything described in the script. Because I think they’re going to tone it down a little bit on TV, but not with Andy. Additionally, there are all sorts of complex elements involved in filming, including filming in a car. Normally it would be fine to make something up, like the actress had a fake belly and legs to push the baby out the back, but now she’s also sitting in a car seat, and that car seat is part of a late 1950s car and they only have two. So you have to create a fake seat that mimics a car seat. The art department also participates, making it a large group effort. All of this comes from concept meetings, where we think about who will be in charge of what and what will be crossover. Of course, there’s a lot of crossover with Daryl’s team in terms of creatures and everything. Andy also wanted a practical baby, so we made one.
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How did you put practical babies to use? Was it included in any of the final shots or was it just a reference?
Sansom: We had two. For Daryl to use as a reference, he made one with arms and wings spread out, attached it to a stick, and flew from one person to another and all over the car. But there was also one that was all folded up in the fetal position, which actually pushed out of the abdomen and was used to start that scene.
How did you create the legs and stomach in the birth photo?
Sansom: It’s like an old magician’s trick of cutting the body in half. The actress was actually standing upright and kneeling. Her arms and shoulders, head and neck were sticking out of the car seat, her body was completely fake from the collarbone down, and there were rods running through the soles of her feet and holes in the car floor that allowed her to control her legs from below.
Sawciak: I think Sean also downplays the constraints of physical space a little bit. I shot this on a volume wall so I had some interactive light. You could also do this on a bench with no seats and maybe just the dashboard. That way, Sean probably would have had more space to move around and do all the puppetry. And he was in every shot and we would have had to fill him in. I think there were some cuts where I would have had to remove the arms and such, but I wanted to use the volume wall as lighting, so I kept it as fixed as possible when shooting. The door was always closed, so Sean had to get in through the back or under the seat. We had to figure out a way for him to get through there, but the first few shots of the baby coming out were completely practical. We added blood and guts to this scene, but all the babies that come out are Sean. It had real lighting, viscous goop and all that stuff. And it’s a great, homage to old school horror and traditional technology, with the benefits of some new technology.
What was it like using puppets on set with the actors?
Sawciak: Sean’s team is amazing. For example, we’re always looking for authentic lighting references, and he made the baby up. I can’t remember if we designed something or if we provided a 3D sculpt and he molded it and did all the painting and stuff, but we had a great lighting reference so we could see how the light interacted. We puppeteered a creature on a stick and walked around the scene. Observe how the light changes from the front of the car to the back. It also served as a reference for actors. You’ll actually get a genuine response. We did a rehearsal take and Andy jumped in there too. If you have to smash something in an actor’s face, you can attach this baby to a stick and do it. I think there were also some softer, smaller parts, like just the head, for more interactivity. Andy was given the opportunity to direct the actors’ actual performances so they were reacting to something authentic. Helps achieve more reliable performance.
Sansom: Andy had his concept artists come up with all the ideas that fit his style. He would also design various things himself. That’s great for us because he draws pictures on the whiteboard during concept meetings and explains what he’s looking for. He provided some of these concept designs and used them to sculpt the baby and head.
What was it like working with such a young cast throughout this first episode and series?
Sawchak: It’s always interesting to work with children. Some child actors have more experience than others. I worked with Matilda Lawler seven years ago, but this was the first time she was manipulating puppets and grasping gray stuffy objects that were later replaced by CGI. I mean, she had some experience, which was pretty great, but not everyone had that experience. So I think that’s another reason why it’s great to have Sean’s team provide practical references and set pieces. That way they can kind of understand, “This is what I have to react to,” and find the fun in it all.
Sansom: Yeah, the kids are great. It was very similar to “IT: Chapter 1”. Since it deals with pretend play, children will be very interested in it. Every day feels like Halloween on a set that deals with creatures, blood, and slime. they are having a lot of fun.
Finally, what are some of the effects in the show that people might think are digital effects, but are actually practical, or vice versa?
Sawczak: Well, here’s the opening. I think everyone thinks it’s mostly digital these days, but this is actually an homage to the great makeup and prosthetic effects that came before, and we really tried to maintain that and just add on top of that.
Sansom: It’s difficult because almost everything we’ve done on the show is a crossover and we’re both involved in the scene. There’s a practical part and a little digital part. It’s hard to understand. We didn’t even know who did what in the first episode.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
