Oscar’s make-up from ‘The Snow Society’: “We recreated the bodies of each dead person, but Bayona threw him away”

The film tells the story of the tragedy that occurred in the Andes in 1972, when a plane leaving Montevideo (Uruguay) and heading to Santiago de Chile crashed into the mountain range. Makeup artists and the visual effects team had to recreate the scene. woundsmake dolls representing the deceased and reproduce them pieces of meat What the survivors eat.

However, the seriousness of the incident eventually led to much of the footage not being released in the Netflix movie. “It will be 30% of our business“says David Martí, makeup artist and creator of DDT SFX Studio in Barcelona. “Jota [J. A. Bayona] “I wanted to shoot everything, but then a lot of things ended up on the cutting room floor,” he says. frozen fictional portraits of deceased characters. HE “Removed out of respect for families and because it is not necessary. But in order to have all possible options, Jota had to shoot the film.” “It was an emotional film and there was no need for these details,” says Martí. Bayona did not want to get caught up in the drama, instead he wanted to show down to the millimeter what was necessary. We know what happened in the disaster.

They recall that something similar happened to them during the production of the movie ‘Impossible’, on which they worked together with Bayona. “The image of the hole in María Belón’s leg [la mujer que vivió en primera persona el tsunami] He only appears in one shot, but with him you already have the entire movie in your head.You don’t need to see it anymore. We made up to 200 prosthetics of this, one for each day, and it only came off once,” explains the make-up artist.

brutal facts

‘The Snow Society’ won the admiration of experts and the public after 12 Goya awards and became the second most watched non-English speaking film in Netflix history. But the opinion that matters most to makeup artists is the opinion of those who survived the incident. “He showed us a lot of respect, but They said they saw themselves completely depicted and were very excited.“says make-up chef Ana López-Puigcerver. Even Roberto Canessa, the doctor of the tragic incident, congratulated them for their work on the wounds.

“We were always aware that these were real events and that there were people who experienced it,” says Montse Ribé, a makeup artist at DDT SFX Studio in Barcelona. “As I examined the wounds I couldn’t believe this had happened and some of them had survived. It was a monstrous thing and You were proud to be able to present this with the respect that Jota showed.“, confesses the make-up artist.

chronological shot

The shooting of the film took a year. They encountered difficulties in the first phase between January and April 2022. recording in harsh conditions in the mountainsThere is snow and cold in the Sierra Nevada at an altitude of about 2,800 meters. “We were a big team during this process, but not everyone could go up the mountain,” says Ribé. Due to access difficulties, the number of coaches arriving was very small. “The more actors come on board, the less the makeup team. retouching was too complicated“Makeup chef Ana López-Puigcerver explains.

So the film was recorded. Chronological and linear for 141 days so much so that the players were subjected to the progressive transformation of their bodies over time on the mountain, just as weight loss or gradual hair and beard growth. However, this change was not the same for everyone. While some lost weight faster, for others it was more difficult to understand the gravity of the tragedy. They had to emphasize this difference with make-up and prosthetics suitable for every occasion.

The same thing happened with hair. They used wigs to mimic 70s cuts and stylesand touch-ups had to be periodic so that the growth was consistent with the passage of time. Belén López-Puigcerver, head of hairdressing, says one of the biggest challenges is “maintain continuity“The physique of the characters, along with the cuts in shots.

Difficulty returning to start

After passing through the territory of Granada, the team moved on to Chile and Uruguay, where the welcome scenes at the airport were recreated for the first time. “They went from Sierra Nevada to Uruguay with the same record [la relación de continuidad entre los planos para que no rompan la verosimilitud] because when they were taken away after being rescued, they had long hair and were emaciated, but then We stopped for a month so they could gain weight.“explains López-Puigcerver.

After the first break, during the summer the actors recorded pre-crash scenes and ‘flashbacks’ in Uruguay, where they said goodbye to their families before the tragic event. They later stopped filming again and resumed filming before Christmas when they finally reenacted the plane crash at Netflix studios. “From August, when they were at the airport in Uruguay and catching their flight, to November, when the crash was filmed in Madrid, They were supposed to be exactly the same. “This was difficult to achieve,” he says.

Communication with survivors

The previous documentation process was also long. They had the director’s information about the incident, his personal investigations and direct contact with survivors. “They told us stories and We sent them sketches of the body so they could show possible injuries.“Ana López-Puigcerver explains.

The visual effects team also did a preliminary study of the events: “The accidental accordion moment and how things went wrong“, “Trying to understand how it happened and staying as real and faithful as possible to what happened,” explains Ribé. The Oscar nominees are aware that “not everything is as true as reality” in the film, “even the people who survived”They tell you different things and each remembers it differently.“.

fan phenomenon

Martí and Ribé had already won the Oscar. Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’. They also worked with Bayona in the films ‘Orphanage’ (2007), ‘Impossible’ (2012) and ‘A Monster Comes to See Me’ (2016). “We knew ‘Snow Society’ would work and there could be another ‘Impossible’ but surpassed all of these“, confesses the make-up artist.

The fan phenomenon has gone too far. People searched for information about the case, collected data from previous documentaries, read books about the case, and watched the movie up to 10 times. Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver, David Martí and Montse Ribé don’t even consider taking home the Oscar; Public support is his greatest recognition.