‘The Vampire Diaries’ Kept Makeup Simple Because Kevin William’s Hated ‘Cheap Effects’
The Vampire Diaries was hardly the first vampire show on television. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer pioneered makeup effects for vampires and other creatures. Of course there was Dark Shadows, and Vampire Diaries even came after True Blood. But one of co-creator Kevin Williamson’s big pet peeves was “cheap effects” so he devised The Vampire Diaries makeup to avoid that look.
Williamson was on a Television Critics Association panel for The Vampire Diaries in 2009. Before viewers had seen the show’s vampires yet, Williamson explained how they’d circumvent the cheap look. The Vampire Diaries is now streaming on Peacock and HBO Max.
The ‘The Vampire Diaries’ makeup was so simple
The Vampire Diaries was based on the series of books by L.J. Smith. In print, Smith could describe whatever he wanted. Williamson had to film 22 episodes a year so he knew the makeup couldn’t be too elaborate every week.
“We wanted to do something that we can actually do on a weekly basis,” Williamson said. “I hate cheap effects and I hate when it gets really cheesy and you don’t really have, really, money or the time to do things to any sort of big budget scale. Everybody who is watching this show has seen what you can do with $150 million on a feature film. So it’s kind of hard.”
The subtle makeup of ‘The Vampire Diaries’
Williamson envisioned subtle transformations when the likes of Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Stefan (Paul Wesley) showed their true nature. Fans of The Vampire Diaries will now recognize the subtle distinctions Williamson described. Keep in mind also that every time the vampires drew blood, that was stage blood too.
“We want to do something a little more subtle and just keep it to some sort of, like, biological sort of physiological sort of response so when they get excited we just sort of see the blood rush under the skin. Pales their face out a little bit, but it all goes to the eye and they kind of have these bloody eyes.”
One vampire trait they couldn’t avoid
Of course, the vampires of The Vampire Diaries still bore their teeth. Williamson wasn’t going to change that, but that was a small burden on the makeup department. It was more of a burden on the actors who ended up with lisps when they wore the fangs. Due to that, they minimized appearances of the fangs too.
“And then, of course, they have teeth,” Williamson said. “But we wanted to do something just to keep it sort of simple, something we can manage and actually do a good job with every week.”
