I did it in this movie, but I did it really, really badly. It doesn’t work. You can see it in the House of Pain. When Nyssa enters and she hears a noise, Nomak comes from the other side. But I think we were, like, half a day late. Instead of doing a really great sequence, we had to do it in one shot. So I failed miserably. [laughs] But, you know, one day I’ll do it right.

MSZ: And is that someone being decapitated by two swords?

GDT: Yeah, it’s a move I wanted Blade to make, which was to do like a twist around a guy, and after he lands, the head comes off. We didn’t do it.

The guy on the next page [opposite], I wanted him to be part of the Bloodpack, with that red tattoo, sort of tribal. And again, I drew the gold spinal cord, in case I forgot.

^{NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 26B}

–Gold spinal column with ribs

Black fabric for Chupa

Light comes from above

–Slow motion with strobe lights (72) (48) (8)

–Very shallow focus, with things entering and exiting the visual field

Marble.

–Timing for the big fight that begins with the sound of an ice cube falling into a glass with liquid in it—.

–Sound is meant for a GRIPE

–Even I have now been infected by time…

–Chain link fences on both sides.

–220° to give a little “[?]” and at 12 or at 8 FPS (print at 8 FPS?).

–When you die you turn to dust

–Perhaps give Chupa a cowboy hat and make all his clothes black.

–Ultra slow motion for the bite

^{NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 27 A}

–1/2 Dissolve spanking for Reapers.

–They go crazy with pain like B.R.P.

–Film some of the fights at 22 fps with variations in the shutter: 45°, 90°. Do some tests

–The Reapers should move on all fours like apes, but they need to make very high-pitched sounds, like squealing pig-people.

–The call of the Reapers should be like the trailing breath of a human laugh: cackle-cackle

–The Prague sewers are oval in shape, not round, and they’re made of concrete. There are carvings on the bricks.

–The oldest vampire’s lair should look much older than the rest of the building in which it is located.

–Look for a memorable detail for Scud and one for Whistler: perhaps he finds his wedding ring behind a moldy machine.

^{Nyssa (Leonor Varela) plays cat and mouse with a Reaper in the sewers. The Prague sewers, which served as the underground Location for Blade II, were scouted extensively by del Toro and other members of the film crew.}

• GDT: This is the drawing [opposite] I did based on some photographs of the Prague sewers, which have a very vaginal feel. We scouted the sewers for the movie. It was a really unforgettable experience.

MSZ: What made it unforgettable?

GDT: I love urban exploration. I used to do it a lot as a kid in Guadalajara. And there’s a thing that you find in sewers, a white mucus that is really, really thick, and it hangs in stalactites in sewers, and it is literally like huge cultures, bacteria cultures, like a living mucus.

So in Prague, when we went, it was the biggest amount of mucus I’ve ever seen. Mike Mignola and I entered, and it smelled like old yogurt, and it was like they had shot a porn film with Godzilla. It was incredible, complex. There were, like, traceries and alcoves of mucus. And just going through the sewers and seeing the domes, the big areas, the small areas, the narrow areas, it was fantastic. I asked a sewer worker in Prague, I said, “Do a lot of people scout?” And he said, “No, nobody comes in here that doesn’t have to.” There was an area where they opened it up and he said, “We’ll wait for you outside.”

^{Concept of Priest’s transformation into a Reaper by Mike Mignola.}

^{Del Toro’s concept for the Reapers, based in Eastern European vampire folklore, was carefully protected as the film moved toward production.}

• GDT: This drawing [opposite] was made because we didn’t want to give any drawings to anybody, so when we were budgeting, I would show this drawing, or I would do a new drawing on a piece of paper for each of the makeup guys that were budgeting. Finally, the guy that did it was Steve Johnson. He’s one of the best. I think he did phenomenal work. Obviously my drawing is very similar to the final one, but very different. I think the final one is so much better.

MSZ: Why didn’t you want to give the drawings to people?

GDT: Because we thought that it was a really unique idea. It’s very hard to think of a unique vampire, and I felt that I had arrived at a really good idea with the Reapers. I didn’t want it to end up showing up six months later in Buffy. Like, “Oh.”

^{Makeup artist Steve Johnson created the final design, which revealed a nest of predatory organs accessible via a split in a Reaper’s jaw, here visible on Nomak (Luke Goss).}

^{NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE27 B}

–Long lenses for the Sergio Leone–type moment in 27 and for bs c.up.

–Use wide-angle lenses (14 mm) for the deepest sets, hut with caution.

–Gabi suggests that the nights he amber and the days steel blue (confused?) and white. If we go ahead with this, how do we handle the flashback

–Reaper Design idea: avoid the lower teeth in the framing and the actor’s speech. Could we make the same micro tentacles that are on the tip of their tongues swell up or extend outward as if they were additional little tongues?

–Each time they shoot a pistol at point-blank range, we’ll use the flashes we create for the actors to wear inside their “vests.”

^{BLUE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 92}

* Now that we have every reason to think otherwise, we hear a telephone conversation (only one side) and EVERYTHING has a double meaning (someone’s listening).

* Somebody always THINKS badly about the NATIVES of a certain country and about those of his own country.

* Tumor or parasitic heart that works opposite a normal heart. It has a modular or “NODULAR” structure

* With a dirty plan, “foul play” in mind, they tell the “don”: “It must be an error no doubt” and then after mulling it over for a long time, “… no doubt”

* Children playing in the waves, seen from behind.

* Somebody who knew ARTEAGA and made fun of him “REVEALS” to us his past.

* Object buried in his chest, when it’s pulled, it pulls his chest.

* Ernie is “given” (he inherits) the “key” with which everything in the M/M runs

* Ernie: Kiss and faint.