page_title: Ghostbusters II
section_title: Creature effects
hierarchical_section_title: Ghostbusters II / Special effects and design / Creature effects
caption_attribution_description: Statue of Liberty, New York, USA
context_page_description: Ghostbusters II is a 1989 American supernatural comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts. It is the sequel to the 1984 film Ghostbusters and the second film in the Ghostbusters franchise. Set five years after the events of the first film, the Ghostbusters have been sued and put out of business after the destruction caused during their battle with the demi-god Gozer. When a new paranormal threat emerges, the Ghostbusters re-form to combat it and save the world.
  After the phenomenal success of Ghostbusters, Columbia Pictures wanted a sequel but struggled to overcome objections from the cast and crew. As with the first film, Aykroyd and Ramis collaborated on the script, which went through many variations. The pair wanted to convey a message about the consequences of negative human emotions in large cities. They settled on the idea of negative feelings creating a mass of supernatural slime beneath New York City that empowers malevolent spirits.
context_section_description: The returning Slimer ghost was re-developed to be more child-friendly like his popular The Real Ghostbusters incarnation. His face, which was controlled with wires and cables in Ghostbusters, was now controlled by servo motors and had a pneumatic jaw. Bobby Porter was hired to wear the Slimer costume until the character was removed from the film entirely. A few weeks later, Slimer was reinserted but by this time, Porter was not available and was replaced by Robin Shelby.
  The Scoleri Brother ghosts, Tony and Nunzio, were inspired by a pair of brothers who robbed Ramis' father's store. Creature designer Tim Lawrence was influenced by the musical comedy film The Blues Brothers (1980), which starred Aykroyd and featured two brothers, one of whom was tall and thin (Tony) and the other short and fat (Nunzio). The brothers were given a cartoonish design to counter the film's scary moments. Lawrence aimed to represent the characters' evil rather than their pre-death appearances. Camilla Henneman created most of Nunzio using spandex pouches filled with gelatinous materials to make him appear impossibly fat. The costume was worn by Lawrence. The impossibly thin Tony was designed as a life-size puppet but Muren thought this approach would impact the filming schedule. Tony was reworked as a costume that was worn by actor Jim Fye; it was given elongated appendages to appear unnaturally thin.
  The ghosts' faces were articulated with motors and pneumatics created by mechanical animator Al Coulter and his team. Lawrence also developed an animation system to allow the masks to lip-sync dialog. Alongside early concepts of the ghosts walking and creating explosive ruptures with each step, most of these features were abandoned in the final film. Lawrence later said without those features the same effect could have been created with a one-third-scale puppet. The brothers' electric chairs were miniatures composited into footage of the seated, costumed actors. Distortion effects such as the ghosts being squeezed were created using completed effect shots that were rephotographed through mylar material that could be warped to affect the underlying image. For the scene in which Nunzio carries the prosecutor upside-down from the courtroom, a stuntwoman was hung upside down on a rail. Reitman wanted her to pass through the doorway while seeing above it. Gaspar's team created a passage made of foam above a door that resembled the iron grill. The foam was spring-loaded so that when the wire passed through, the set sprang back into place quickly; the effect was hidden behind a composite of Nunzio. Full-scale cutouts of the ghosts were used during filming to aid the actors. Ghostbusters storyboard artist Thom Enriquez storyboarded the scene; he found the process difficult because the limited schedule meant the courtroom was being built as he worked. He was also restricted by the budget, saying he "could use only fourteen chairs. I could also blow up four pillars and one wall of glass".
  The animated Statue of Liberty was conceived by Aykroyd, who liked the idea of taking a static image and making it move about, comparing it with seeing the Eiffel Tower moving or Victoria Falls flowing in reverse. The statue's role was originally written as a weapon for Vigo but this idea did not progress the narrative. The effect was a combination of a costume worn by Fye, miniatures, and larger-than-life-size elements like the statue's crown— which in reality was too small to let the Ghostbusters peer out. The crown was mounted on a gimbal, allowing it to be pivoted as though its wearer was walking. Reitman ordered the crown be tilted down further than the actors were expecting to elicit from them a genuine reaction of surprise. The upper body was modeled and filmed at night in a makeshift pool to show it emerging from the ocean. Fye also portrayed the ghost of a Central Park jogger.
  To portray the possessed Janosz illuminating a hallway with his eyes, MacNicol was filmed walking down a hallway, which was filmed again without lights off Michael Chapman holding a light a
caption: The Statue of Liberty was a prominent feature in the film's finale. Dan Aykroyd liked the idea of animating something otherwise immobile.[49]
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