One of the main characters of American science fiction drama Heroes is Hiro Nakamura, a Japanese office worker who has the ability to travel through time and space. A version of Hiro from an alternate future is briefly seen in Season 1 Episode 5 “Hiros” and reappears in Season 1 Episode 20 "Five Years Gone", where the Present and Future Hiros meet. In order to make the two characters noticeably different and to convey how different in personality Hiro’s future self is, there are significant differences in the appearance of Present and Future Hiro.
Present Hiro is clean shaven, wears glasses, and has unkempt hair. All of which denote a person who is innocent, physically weak, and lacks notable charisma. Whereas the costume design and, most importantly, the hair and makeup for Future Hiro build the image of much more hardened version of the character. His clothes are much darker than Present Hiro’s which marks him out as a tougher character as darker colours help to create a strong image, and his hair is slicked back with a ponytail and goatee, both of which are neater than Present Hiro's hair and are more commonly seen on stronger characters. As well as this, he no longer wears glasses. Which removes the idea of him being physically weak, as this is a common connotation for the wearers of glasses.
The idea I took from this was to primarily use costume to convey the difference between the two versions of Jeff, the film's protagonist.
The biggest benefit from this is that it would make continuity easier to maintain as dealing with facial hair (both real and artificial) and makeup such as scars or wrinkles can present continuity problems if not applied precisely the same during each shooting date
I also felt it would be more believable than using makeup to imply age since the age gap between the two Jeffs is only five years and most people do not age particularly noticeably during their twenties. Though Future Jeff’s intense stress and nomadic lifestyle after building his time machine could arguably cause him to look older than he is.
This would instantly show the difference between the two Jeffs. Present Jeff having a stereotypically ‘geeky’ wardrobe would help to sell the image of an insular yet incredibly intelligent man while costume along the lines of that worn by Future Hiro Nakamura would convey the idea of Future Jeff being a more confident and experienced person thanks to his years of time travelling.
Heroes - Season 1 Episode 20 "Five Years Gone (NBC, 2007 Dir. Paul A. Edwards)
Hair, Makeup, And Costume
One Actor Playing Two Characters
Jack And Jill (2011, Dir. Dennis Dugan)
Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 13 – "Journey’s End" (BBC1, 2008 Dir. Graeme Harper)Doctor Who Confidential Series 4 Episode 13 – "End Of An Era" (BBC3, 2008)
Visual Effects
The Doctor Who episode “Journey’s End” features a plot device where an identical copy of the Doctor is created from his dismembered hand. These two versions of the Doctor (both played by David Tennant) then work together to prevent a fleet of Daleks from destroying the universe.
Because the Dalek space station set where the episode’s climax takes place was quite large, it was simple for the two versions of the Doctor to be filmed almost completely separately from each other. However, the following scenes take place in the Tardis (the Doctor’s time machine), which was a much smaller set than the one used for the Dalek space station and the scenes filmed in it featured nine characters, making it impossible to shoot these scenes without a body double standing in for David Tennant as one of the two identical Doctors.
The body double used was a musician named Colum Regan who was chosen mainly because of his similar build and hairstyle to David Tennant, allowing him to convincingly play either of the two Doctors with his back to the camera or a small part of his body in shot.
Limited budget and shooting time meant carefully selecting shots to feature two Doctors in order to limit the cost of creating shots featuring both Doctors and the time needed during filming for the camera to be locked into place and for David Tennant to change costumes for the second part of the shot to be filmed.
Although I won’t face the budgetary problem due to doing at least the basic visual effects work (such as splitscreening) myself and therefore not being hindered financially as far as this visual is concerned, I will be limiting the number of shots featuring Jeff and Future Jeff together. This is in order to restrict the amount of visual effects needed, to avoid prolonging the length of shooting unnecessarily, and to stop the two versions of Jeff interacting being too much of a visual gimmick as opposed to a natural part of the story, as their narrative interactions should be at the core of the story rather than their visual ones.
In the 2011 comedy film “Jack And Jill”, actor Adam Sandler plays the film’s two main characters (identical twins Jack and Jill Sadelstein) and therefore appears in most of the film’s scenes opposite himself.
As well as basic visual effects practices such as use of green screens, body doubles, and splitscreening to create shots of Jack and Jill together, the performance technique used in Jack And Jill was to record a take of Sandler in one role and to then have a video monitor onset playing the take while he listened to his performance in an earpiece as opposed to having a body double act out the other part of the scene.
Although this is well thought out approach to the issue of an actor performing opposite himself in a scene and helps to create a reasonable facsimile of the actor playing both roles simultaneously, I felt that it would be much simpler and result in a much better performance if my leading actor was performing the scene with a body double. Especially as it would allow the leading actor to evoke a genuine response from the body double rather than interacting with and playing off a recording of himself.
When designing the aesthetic elements of Butterfly, one of my biggest considerations was how exactly to visualise the act of time travel since, other than the two versions of Jeff interacting, it is the focal point of the film and is shown several times.
I initially considered something simple such as the fade effect used for the Tardis in Doctor Who or a jump cut accompanied by a sound effect but decided that, because more advanced visual effects were possible, it would work in my favour to try something more visually striking, especially since it would appeal to the audience more.
Quantum Leap (NBC, 1989 - 1993 Dir. Various)
While looking at various films and television series that feature time travel, I came across Quantum Leap, an American drama about a time traveller that I briefly watched when I was a teenager and decided to use the visual of its main character Sam Beckett leaping through time as a jumping off point.
The visual effect used in Quantum Leap is arcs of electricity rippling across Sam’s body followed by his body fading into a less defined blue silhouette that is then obscured by a flash of white light. This visual effect is reversed for when he arrives in a different time period.
From this, I developed the idea of a visual where crackling arcs of electricity emerge from Jeff’s wrist-mounted time machine and spread across his entire body. This would be followed by his body rapidly being compressed horizontally, making him thinner and narrower until he disappears completely with a brief flash of light or possibly an edited lens flare. This process would be reversed when he arrives in another time.
However, creating this effect would be difficult and it may be necessary to opt for a simpler visual, or to outsource the more complicated visual effects to somebody more capable than myself.
