Here’s how the daemons in ‘His Dark Materials’ were brought to life

When you’re watching His Dark Materials, it’s easy to forget the sheer volume of work that’s gone into the thing.

But that’s also kind of the beauty of it.

The costumes, makeup, and extremely elaborate sets featured in the new BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s beloved novels all fit so seamlessly that you don’t really think about how tricky it must all have been to knit together. This highly complex world just exists onscreen.

The daemons are perhaps the greatest example of this. The animal manifestations of each character’s soul pop up in so many scenes that they’re pretty much part of the furniture — from the cheerful presence of Lyra’s daemon, Pan, to the sinister silence of Mrs Coulter’s golden monkey.

But how exactly were these daemons — with their subtle movements and facial expressions — actually woven into the show? 

We spoke to Russell Dodgson, creative director of television at Framestore and series VFX supervisor on His Dark Materials, to find out.

41 daemons, and a whole lot of hours

The daemons in His Dark Materials were always going to be a delicate balancing act — and nobody is more aware of this than the man who oversaw their creation.

“You’ve got Ruth Wilson, or Dafne Keen, or James McAvoy, and they’re delivering a stellar, dramatic, emotional performance, and then your job is to be the guy who sticks the monkey in the shot,” Dodgson tells Mashable. “It could go really wrong. Because we’re playing part of their character, we have this really, really strong duty of care to the actors and actresses to not betray their performance.”

This is exactly how Dodgson sees the daemons: a part of the character. Not necessarily a focus — at least not all the time — but more of a complement to the humans on screen.

“Your job is to be the guy who sticks the monkey in the shot… It could go really wrong.”

“Pullman, when he wrote the books, he gave us this really, really unique and interesting way of representing a part of humanity,” Dodgson says. “And that was what we really wanted to tap into. So what we did is we worked with the scriptwriters and we analysed and looked through the characters’ arcs and where they went from — and that’s within a scene and within the whole show — and then what we would do is we would work out what the reflection of that was. Like in this scene, are they acting brave, but actually they’re scared or nervous, you know?

“And then we would take the opposite of how the character was acting and try and get a bit of that emotion into the daemon.”

Although that description sounds straightforward enough, the process was a long one. Actors would initially work with puppeteer-operated daemons in order to help develop individual scenes, and then Dodgson’s team would step in.

Image: bad wolf/bbc/hbo/mashable composite

It’s a big team, too. In total 730 people spread across three sites worked on the show’s first season. They created a whopping 41 daemons, completed 2,145 shots, and delivered three hours’ worth of VFX across eight episodes.

Although he isn’t a daemon, Iorek Byrnison — everyone’s favourite armoured bear — is a perfect example of just how damn long these CGI beasts take to animate. To make Iorek’s armour, muscles, skeleton, texture, fur groom, etc., Dogson says it would take one person a solid 700 artist days back-to-back.

The golden monkey

In the end, though, the hard work has paid off. The sinister golden monkey daemon, who silently shadows Mrs Coulter like some kind of miniature furry bodyguard, is a perfect example of this.

Not only does his impenetrable little face look the part, but he also manages to add to the mystery surrounding Mrs Coulter’s character through his body language and expressions.

“We had to work out a physicality for the monkey so that you could understand what the monkey was feeling and how it was behaving in relation to Ruth Wilson without any dialogue, which was a really cool challenge,” Dodgson explains.

To do that they invited Wilson into the office to discuss Mrs Coulter in depth — including everything from her background to her relationship with herself. Then it was Dodgson’s job to use the golden monkey as a way of revealing her inner dysfunction and turmoil.

A great example of this takes place in the second episode of His Dark Materials, when Mrs Coulter has an argument with Lyra — and the golden monkey ends up attacking Pan.

“Pan steps forwards because Lyra’s feeling a bit bold,” explains Dodgson. “The monkey jumps up onto a chair and is there almost like part of Mrs Coulter’s muscle, you know, and is there to add a level of threat; Mrs Coulter walks away but the monkey stays which shows that she’s actually still engaged in that fight even though she’s trying to walk away. 

“Then, Mrs Coulter turns back around, [and] the monkey attacks — it all becomes about that monkey and the violence. But then as soon as Mrs Coulter reveals a key piece of information, the monkey just backs away and becomes quiet and sits at her feet and all we do is little looks to Lyra to show that the inner mother in Mrs Coulter wants to feel sympathy and show love for Lyra but can’t because she doesn’t want to reveal her identity.”

And that description, right there, pretty much sums it up. The level of detail instilled in the daemons isn’t just a finishing touch — it’s an important insight into the inner-workings of individual characters.

Perhaps most of all, though, it’s a sign of just how much time and effort has been spent bringing Philip Pullman’s world to life.