A daring science experiment ultimately leads to disaster in Director Guillermo del Toro’s gothic horror feature, Frankenstein.

Based on the classic 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, del Toro’s film tells the tragic story of a brilliant but egotistical scientist who brings a monstrous creature to life. But the experiment leads to the undoing of both the creator and his creation.

On October 19, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Del Toro discussed the making of Frankenstein during a Q&A moderated by Director Bradley Cooper (Maestro). He also discussed the film during a conversation moderated by Director Jon Favreau (The Lion King) following the Los Angeles screening on October 25.

During the Los Angeles conversation, del Toro revealed how they created everything by hand from the sets to the costumes.

“The ship is real in every shot. There’s not a single miniature ship. There’s not a digital ship. We built the entire ship. We mechanized the gimble. Every set was built completely from bottom to top. We built some of the biggest sets I’ve ever had. The ship was on two gimbles. One that pushes it when the creature pushes it. It really pushes it with all the sailors on top. And when he pushes it away, it’s on a different gimble. We sawed it in half and put new railings and there were solutions suggested. And I said, ‘I know all that. I’m not doing that.’ We’re very well versed technically but I wanted to shoot it the way we would have shot it in the fifties, in the forties. I want to build things. We loomed the fabric for the costumes. We loomed it. It was fabric that didn’t exist. We made it to reflect the circulatory system, the wings of a butterfly, the patterns on a rock. We embroidered everything by hand. I said, ‘I want to do The Last of the Mohicans.’ I’ll never have a chance to do a movie like this again.”

Del Toro’s directorial credits include the features Cronos, Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak Nightmare Alley and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio; the pilot for the series The Strain; and episodes of the series Hora Marcada, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia and Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia. His 2017 feature, The Shape of Water, earned del Toro the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film and went on to garner four Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Motion Picture of the Year.

Del Toro has been a member of the DGA since 1996.