The opening minute of Outcast features a disturbing scene: A young boy smashes his head against a wall, crushing a cockroach…which he then proceeds to eat. Series creator Robert Kirkman tapped the pilot’s production designer Tom Hammock and The Walking Dead SFX artist Greg Nicotero—as well as an insect wrangler—to bring the scene to life.
Here, Hammock reveals all the juicy details.
First: Is that bug real or fake?
It is both: “That’s where the cleverness comes in,” Hammock says. “We had the real cockroach that’s on the wall, and then we had these fake cockroaches that were edible and were designed so that when Joshua bites into them, a bunch of goo comes out. It did not sound crunchy when the boy ate it. That’s added in after the fact.”
Making a fake cockroach.
According to Hammock, “It was constructed, basically, out of candy and some gelatin so that it had guts and innards.” Moreover, to insure truly magnificent gore-factor, “Greg Nicotero, who did the blood and gore on The Walking Dead, actually built the fake cockroach with the guts in it.”
Help from the bug wrangler.
There was an insect wrangler on set. Hammock makes clear: “The cockroach was not harmed in anyway.” He explains: “The bug stays in place because there’s a little drop of sugar water and, just outside of frame, there’s a little string of fishing line, like a coral.”
The bigger picture.
“It speaks overall to Robert and [pilot director] Adam Wingard’s commitment to doing things ‘in-camera.’ It would have been really easy to do this in CG—to have a little boy just smash his head into the wall and add some digital blood. But they wanted to set the precedent right away that this show is going to be about in-camera work—in-camera gore. We’re going to do it for real.”