Ju Shardlow: These eyes aren't real.
In fact, they're contact lenses,
and it takes a very precise,
skilled type of artist to make them.
Today, we're going to find out how they're made
by Eyeworks for Film.
And they've made contact lenses for "James Bond,"
"Star Wars," and even "Game of Thrones."
We're gonna see how they're produced here
and even get fitted with some lenses of our own.
Clip: Such heavy ones to distort such eyes.
But Dr. Reuben Greenspoon of Beverly Hills, California....
Ju: Beverly Hills optometrist Reuben Greenspoon
is credited with first using lenses
to augment a character's appearance.
Greenspoon was tasked with changing an actor's eyes
from natural brown to blue in 1939's "Miracles for Sale."
He created a blue ceramic material, which was glazed.
The lens was attached and run through a kiln
to fuse the glass and ceramic together,
leaving a round aperture of 4 millimeters.
Since hydrogel soft contact lenses
went into mass production in 1971,
lenses with simple color pigments
have become pretty accessible,
but designing and painting bespoke lenses
is still an art form.
"Breaking Dawn" clip: This will irritate your eyes at first.
Ju: Actors wear contacts
to change their color pigment to look older,
create imperfections,
or even transform into another species.
This is Sinead Sweeney, one of the directors
of Eyeworks for Film.
The company's worked on some big Hollywood movies.
Sinead Sweeney: The idea of the contact lens
will either come from the makeup designer
or the prosthetic department
or occasionally just from the director.
So, they will approach us maybe with a character brief
or just an idea, in which case we would research
a lot about that look and then develop
some concept art, some designs.
Ju: First, Sinead has got to check
that the actor's eyes are suitable for lenses.
She does a prescription check.
U, A,
F.
She then checks the inside of the retina
with an ophthalmoscope and takes a 3D scan.
Sinead: So, we wanna make sure that the lens
sits exactly over the cornea
so that when you're wearing the contact lens
or when our actors are wearing them,
that it feels very, very normal.
Ju: Further checks look at the curve of the eye,
the diameter of the iris,
and the front of the eye for dryness,
using a yellow dye called fluorescein.
Are my eyes glowing?
I thought about actors on set,
you're on set for a really long time,
and how do you stop your eyes from getting really dry?
Sinead: We insert and remove the lenses for them,
because their hands might be covered in grease paint
or blood. And so then we monitor them,
we put drops in throughout the day.
And we only limit the wearing time, really.
We don't allow them to wear them too long.
Ju: There's a trick to putting large lenses in.
Chin up, then eyes down to the left.
You feel like you have an entire film over your eye now,
so I can picture that would really put someone
into character quite quickly.
Sinead: Yeah.
Ju: The lenses take two to three weeks to paint
and manufacture, but for the purposes of filming,
here are some that we made earlier.
We're gonna return in just a bit
to see how these ones turn out.
Oh, my...!
Manufacturers like No7 make the prescription lenses,
and then a lens artist,
such as Cristina Patterson from Eye Ink Fx,
paints them by hand using FDA-approved paint.
The lenses are then shipped and applied on set.
Sinead: Subtlety is key when it comes to the makeup,
so even one brushstroke too far can make a real difference.
Some really, really special and specific pigments
that they use.
Obviously, anything that you're gonna put on a lens
that is ultimately gonna go into someone's eye
really isn't just any pigment.
There are a lot of safety guidelines,
and also the lenses are sterilized
with extremely fine brushes, yeah,
and you have to have quite an amazing artist
in order to deliver certain textures and looks.
The detail is extremely fine.
Ju: Oh, my...!
Oh, my goodness!
I look like a fish!
I look like a fish! I'm a fish! I am Aquaman.
I am what Aquaman was supposed to look like.
Sinead: It's very similar, actually, in design
to a lot of the "Star Trek" lenses.
These lenses were painted by the same artist.
Ju: I've really got that kind of bug-eyed, fishy look
going on, but there is something really alien about it.
The detail here is incredible.
The most strange feeling,
'cause they feel really jelly-like
but they look so glazed, like ceramic.
The lenses flatten to your eye,
so it's important to get rid of air bubbles
and keep putting in drops.
Sinead: If we're gonna sell this as an actual creature,
the pupil would always be in the same place.
So we make sure that the lens is stabilized.
I think one of the biggest issues we have with that
is actually when someone is lying down,
because the lenses are weighted,
so they tend to wanna fall with gravity to the lowest point.
So if you can imagine you've got your lenses
sitting like a cat's eye, for example,
and then they lie down, everything kind of swings.
Ju: And they're not the only lenses in the building.
Sinead keeps cases of celebrity eyes
from productions the company's worked on.
Sinead: Serpent or snake-eye looks that we used
on David Tennant on "Good Omens."
So, we've got our Night King.
When you see them in this show,
they have a post-glow, which is added in CG.
And also we put some pixelated points on there,
which, with VFX, they could work with that
to pull the glow effect out.
They weren't the original blue.
Who else have we got in here?
Ju: I love the fact you're saying "who else,"
like it's just, like, a collection
of very dishy actors. Sinead: To me,
they're all people.
Ju: The company has made lenses for
"Penny Dreadful" and "Spectre."
These are the Mountain's from "Game of Thrones."
Wow, that was a fascinating process.
I can't believe that my eyes looked like that.
Into that celebrity eye graveyard
that we saw at the end,
if my contact lenses can make it into there,
I would be very, very happy.
It's clear the industry has come a long way
since just being able to change eye color in 1939.
Now, thanks to this movie magic,
actors can become all sorts of creatures.