Breaking Bad

As Breaking Bad’s final season was being shot in Damage Control’s home city of Albuquerque, the special effects team needed help to solve a problem for a very important episode scene.  The story line was supposed to take place in the winter; however, it was mid-spring in Albuquerque.  Therefore, they wanted to create a winter set, and add realism to the scene by having the show’s main character Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, breathe mist as if it were a cold winters day in Albuquerque.  The typical special effects solution to this problem is putting dry ice in a pill box box with holes in it.  They then place the pill box on the actors's tongue, and as the actor breathes, the character then appears to be breathing out mist because of the dry ice.  The problem was that Bryan Cranston’s character needed to talk during that important scene; something he had much difficulty doing with a big pill box on the top of his tongue.

The Solution:  Damage Control was hired by the set to find an oral solution to this problem. Damage Control took an impression Bryan Cranston’s teeth and pallet, and created a device that would place the pill box on the roof of his mouth allowing tongue movement for talking during the scene, and also create the mist the special effects department was after.