Making (and faking) Aliens

What does it take to make an alien feel real? Bryce and Brent welcome Emmy-winning creature-effects legend Todd Masters, founder of MASTERSFX and the artist who helped bring the Dark Skies Grays to life. Todd traces his extraordinary career from calling Ray Harryhausen as a kid and working on The Empire Strikes Back at thirteen to creating hundreds of monsters and extraterrestrials. He reveals how the expanding Dark Skies aliens combined translucent materials, animatronics and early digital effects, then explains how he later reinvented the Skitters and helped transform Doug Jones into Cochise for Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies. He also shares the unforgettable story of fake body parts escaping down a raging river—and being reeled in by some very startled teenagers. The conversation soon moves beyond Hollywood craftsmanship into far stranger territory. Todd describes real-world disguise assignments that went well outside conventional filmmaking, corroborates Brent’s memory that director Tobe Hooper spoke of a government arrangement involving Spielberg, and recalls unusual visitors to the Dark Skies production offices. He also opens up about a near-death experience and considers whether consciousness and alternate realities may be connected to the larger phenomenon. Finally, the man who knows how easily reality can be manufactured explains why even experts are increasingly fooled by AI—and asks the unsettling question at the heart of “Making and Faking Aliens”: if genuine proof of non-human intelligence finally appears, will any of us still be able to recognize it? To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.