Things have settled down now that THE AVENGERS has been and gone. Well, not exactly. That’s a complete lie, as everyday we’re hearing something about casting rumours, or on set stills etc. Most of these news items are coming from the first installment of Marvel’s Phase 2 IRON MAN 3, a film that is set to tear us apart with awesomeness. But just for now, we’d like to take you back to the year 2008. IRON MAN wasn’t always so sleek and slim. When he first stepped out of his cave he was a hulking mechanical mess, and who was responsible for that bit of practical effect genius? Our friends at The Stan Winston School Of Character Arts of course. However, they nearly didn’t get their chance to create the suit at all.
The first suit was originally conceived as an all CG creation. Stan Winston and his crew ended up creating a practical suit anyway. Effects supervisor Shane Mahan remembers creating the suit as a challenge against CGI:
The Mark I was going to be done entirely digitally, but we kept saying that this suit is perfect for having a performer inside and making it work. We were all a bit cocky about it. Our feeling was like, this is what we do. It’s a guy in a suit, trying to escape. So let us make a guy in a suit, trying to escape. We would shoot our own internal tests with stuntman Mike Justice and he’d move around while we’d operate all the radio controlled engines and belt drives on the back of the suit.
Key artist Trevor Hensley recalls the hard work that went into proving the producers wrong:
They were telling us it was never gonna work. That the suit wouldn’t walk. And Shane took that as a challenge and we all busted our ass to get that thing working. There’s not a person who worked on that suit who wasn’t up all night, taking that challenge by the horns.
The day of the film test arrived and it was time to put up or shut up as the director and producers gathered round to see a product they believed was only going to be used as a referencing aid. Hensley continues:
So we showed up for the first Mark I film test at the cave interior set. They didn’t know we were bringing a suit, they thought we were bringing a prop on a stand that they could roll in and roll out as a reference element. So we uncover the Mark I and Mike Justice is inside it, but it was dark and they couldn’t tell there was a guy in the suit. We lit him all up and there was a very brief moment where they were all looking at it, Favreau, the producers, and then suddenly Mike took a step forward and they were shocked. And then it was lots of hushed conversation and they started asking ‘How much can he move?’ Mike starts turning sideways, putting his arms out, moving all around, and they realized this was a suit that they could actually shoot with. We were so proud that we did it.
But that was 4 years ago. How does Mahan believe the Mach I suit would be created today?
Mike Justice had to get into great shape and he had to keep that up the whole time because there’s a lot of parts on the Mark I suit. It’s very heavy. We were limited to the materials we had, the epoxy armor, the aluminum frame, the backpack, lots of leather. I think it came in at around 90 pounds. Which doesn’t sound like a lot until you’re in it all day. If we were to do it today, with all that we’ve done for Iron Man 1-3, The Avengers and currently on Robocop, the Mark I would be about 40 pounds now. But whenever you do something for the first time it’s kind of an experiment.
In retrospect, and having been bombarded with new variants on the IRON MAN suit almost every few years since, the Mach I really does hold up well, and when it first bursts through those doors I can’t help but airpunch and start humming some Black Sabbath.
Source: Stan Winston School
