Paul Jones has over 20 years experience working in special FX, and more recently FX Design (head honcho of all practical make-up/prosthetics and physical creature effects).

His FX legacy spans from creature building work on "Nightbreed", to the FX design of "Silent Hill" and the upcoming "Resident Evil 4". I sat down with Jones to get his thought on his work as FX designer on this year's Midnight Madness selection Solomon Kane.

"I got Kane because of Silent Hill -- (Solomon Kane director) Michael Bassett is a big fan of Silent Hill. I was brought in purely based on a completely different movie..."

When looking at the grand scheme of things, Paul reflects on how the genre has advanced from the 80's.

"Lord of the Rings really set the precedent for Fantasy films", explains Jones. However, Kane is of course a completely different animal tonally--"This is a gritty Lord of the Rings."

And by this, he means blood! While I'm under a spoiler blood oath not to mention the specifics-- it sounds like the world of Solomon Kane is a gratuitously visceral one.

"Rubber used to be the only way of doing things, and it was very limiting for us." explains Jones, as directors would write things knowing full well the limitations. When CGI arose there soon became a lull in the demand for traditional FX work; as it became the trend to rely more and more on computer graphics.

"Guys would come in and say we need a fire demon, and we'd say: ‘see ya!'"

However, looking back on classic FX films like Rob Bottin's work on "The Thing" and Rick Baker's work in "An American Werewolf in London", it's evident that some of the most legendary special FX have been grounded in physical reality.

"What's happening now is that a lot of younger directors are coming in, who've seen all the cg stuff that's going on, but they kind of long for the days of old school, the rubber stuff, but they go ok, the rubber, the technology in prosthetics has advanced, where you can no longer tell the difference between flesh and fake rubber, and cg has gotten a lot cheaper- and they get thinking, well what I'm going to do is have a creature built and then maybe I'll have CG legs, and everything now is a hybrid, half prosthetics, and half CGI. Now I'm as busy as I was back in the 80's- because the director's vision has changed now to include us. It's the best of both worlds."

Although much of the film's look was established by artists that Solomon Kane director Michael Bassett had been developing with for years, and Jones' job was to bring these FX visions to life- he did have chance to put his own personal stamp in the creation of a certain character in the film; working from clay on a bust, freely creating just like the good ol' days.

Jones credits Director Michael Bassett to be passionate, extremely focused, cheerful, and never belligerent in getting even the most difficult takes.

Incidentally one Paul's first FX jobs was on Hellraiser 2, which also had its world premiere at Midnight Madness... could this be a sign that things are coming full circle into a new age of FX and CGI?

Be there for a grittier unification of seamless CGI and old school FX tangibility in Solomon Kane!

Solomon Kane plays at TIFF09:

 Wednesday, Sept. 16 11:59PM - RYERSON / Thursday Sept. 17 3:15 PM - SCOTIABANK 1