You know we love a good old-fashioned creature feature that goes heavy on creature design and practical FX. We practically foam at the mouth for that sort of thing around these parts. So when we first heard about Frogman and got a peek at the titular creature, we leapt at the chance to bring you an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming feature. Frogman centers on the Loveland Frogman, an Ohio cryptid rumored to be "a 4-foot frog" roaming the marshes "on its hind legs."
Frogman Director and co-writer Anthony Cousins joins us to set up the origins of Frogman, and Frogman FX team Ryan Schaddelee and Beki Ingram walk us through their creature creation process. Enjoy!
First up, Frogman director and co-writer Anthony Cousins:
When you decide to make a movie called Frogman you damn well better deliver on the title character! With that in mind, it was the first thing on our list to prepare and budget, with the rest of the production being molded around our SFX team's needs.
We had many discussions about whether he should look scary or evil, but ultimately what felt right to me was to keep Frogman looking relatively neutral and true to a frog's mild disposition. Who doesn't love a creature that can be equal parts unnerving and adorable?
Ryan Schaddelee and Beki Ingram did an incredible job delivering based on our discussions of character design and what physical capability Frogman needed to be on set. After collaborating on many projects together for over a decade, there's no one I would rather have in charge of what is undeniably the most important department of a horror movie for my first feature as a director.
Frogman is based on an actual cryptid legend out of Loveland, Ohio with sightings dating back as far as 1955 of a four-foot bipedal frog-like creature with a magic wand. When this came to our attention in 2018, my co-writer John Karsko and I started spitballing ideas for a story about our friend Nathan Tymoshuk on an obsessive mission to capture proof of the creature's existence.
We took inspiration from the very real phenomena of kitschy small towns embracing some sort of local legend or dark history as its identity, as well as the demented classic The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft. Mash those two things together, filter it through The Blair Witch Project and you have Frogman.
Frogman FX
And now, FX team Ryan Schaddelee and Beki Ingram walk us through creating Frogman, and bringing the Loveland cryptid to life, complete with extensive BTS photos of their process.
So it begins… Director Anthony Cousins has a script written by John Karsko and himself called “Frogman”. Okay, great! Let’s make a giant bipedal frog-man! Beginning with inspirational imagery we collectively had to decide how big it should be, how scary vs. cute, color scheme, how “frog” vs. “toad” elements should be merged, eye color, etc., as well as what does it exactly have to do and how it will be shot and if any CGI augmentation will be used. And of course, who’s gonna be in the suit…
For time and budgetary concerns we decided to sculpt and mold the head, hands, and feet of the legendary cryptid and fabricate the body. Knowing we were gonna stick with the classic “person in a rubber suit” we went old school and molded the elements in Ultracal 30 for a latex and foam final.
Body suit fabrication in progress with the latex and foam head plopped on to get a feel for the overall form. We knew it would be shot on Hi-8 and mostly in the dark (a very rare and forgiving scenario for FX artists!) so the silhouette and shape was as important as the details.
Pretty sure they had started filming non-FX stuff at this time as we’re preparing to get this guy ready for his screen debut. Starting to look like a… well, a frog….man.
Rare sighting of the beast in the wild… Pretty sure this was one of the last pick up shots we got (the film was shot over the course of about 2 years off and on, and 3 different people played the creature due to scheduling conflicts and other factors). After that much time and different body shapes in the suit we were a bit worried it wouldn’t look as good from repairs and alterations, but as they say, you can’t keep a good Frogman down.
The final cave scene, definitely at the end of the shoot… the tongue gag wasn’t in the original script and we had almost no time, so the solution was to basically sew a giant sock out of fabric, jam it with stuffing, paint and slime it and voilá! Sometimes the best solution is the easiest!
This was the same day as the tongue scene, the climax and big reveal. Thought the shape and silhouette was nice in this particular shot.
In addition to the suit, we also had this lil guy to figure out… frog/human hybrid thing! A silicone cast from a sculpture, manipulated in the mud with fishing lines. High tech! We actually shot this twice, the second time a few weeks later for maybe 10 full minutes as Anthony was having such a fun time filming the spawn flopping around. We all were.
Applying the prosthetics on Benny, who (you guessed it) gets mutated by malevolent Frogman malfeasance. Encapsulated silicone appliances with a latex neck skin that would inflate with bladders for that oh-so-beloved swollen throat effect!
Overall a lot of creativity and fun for what possibly turned out to be the best (only??) Frogman movie ever made!!
Frogman is now available on VHS and will be available on Vudu and other VOD and Digital Platforms March 8 from Rotting Press.
And a few more Frogman BTS goodies.
