For a zombie horror film it would seem unnecessary to have an intimacy co-ordinator for such a film but it turns out the film makers had to. So here’s why 28 Years Later had an intimacy co-ordinator and that person was Vanessa Coffey a former lawyer with a knowledge of the Sexual Offences Act which was wholly relevant when director Danny Boyle early on in the production revealed that the infected wouldn’t be wearing many clothes as they would have rotted away after so many years. But all of this was exacerbated further as the film had a 13 year old actor Alfie Williams who plays Spike and is a main member of the cast.
Coffey said, ‘So at that point it’s about, what do we do about our young person who’s going to witness all of this?………. In showing a young person specifically genitals, there’s the potential that we get into dangerous territory. And particularly if that 13-year-old is exposed to a vast number of people on set who are all showing their genitals, that feels tricky.’
Add to that the violence inherent in such a film and Coffey found herself having a conversation with Alfie and his on-set chaperone about what he would see and the necessity therefore for the naked infected to be wearing prosthetics especially the birth scene.
She continued, ‘It was like, which bits does Spike need to see, which bits does he have to watch and which bits can we keep him out of the way. But it was an incredible prosthetic that was created for that scene. We had spoken through unmedicated births and what that would look or feel like, just to make it really raw and really realistic. So having a young person witness that — we were really careful about how the conversations were managed.’
So with many of the infected cast naked there was a necessity for wardrobe and make up to be involved too. Coffey explained, ‘It was about making sure that we were absolutely erring on the right side. So there were nipple covers or, in some cases, full breasts. And penises and other genitalia. And also hair being added, which is really helpful. We used what we call a merkin, a genital wig, to cover things. And also different states of buttocks. Some were prosthetic buttocks, but others were people’s own buttocks, but in various states, like dirtied down and with partial covering’
And she had to protect the cast too adding, ‘It’s about cast welfare and even crew welfare. Because we also need to let our crew know that we were going to have people who are going to appear to be completely naked when they’re on set. So even though it was a prosthetic, we even asked them to cover up. It was like, “Can you please put your robe on between takes.” Because for all intents and purposes, it appears as though you’re naked.’
And therefore there are a lot of prosthetic penises made for the film. ‘When you think of the Berserkers, the prosthetics is quite incredible’ explains Coffey. ‘With them, there are prosthetic buttocks as well as prosthetic penises, and everything has to be held in place, so that would always have had to have been the case. But there’s also a comfort level, I suppose, because obviously the infected run really fast and I would imagine it’s much easier to fun fast confidently across the countryside with a prosthetic attached than actually having your own genitals out’.
Coffey went on to explain that there was a, ‘closed set applied for any of those scenes where we’ve got people who were in a state of undress and or seeming to be in a state of undress. We wanted people to be aware that safeguarding protocols were in place because we also didn’t want questions about what we were doing in terms of safeguarding either us or our young actor.’
And that’s why 28 Years Later had an intimacy co-ordinator
related feature : Director Danny Boyle introduces, ’28 Years Later’ at the London premiere
related feature : Jim Krut the HeliZombie talks about making George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’…
source: variety
