Beetlejuice artist shares behind-the-scenes secrets

Mabli says she stays cool when working with famous actors but admits to "freaking out" inside

An artist has shared some behind-the-scenes secrets on Tim Burton's sequel to cult classic film Beetlejuice.

As a mold-maker, Mabli Non Jones, from Gerlan Bethesda, Gwynedd, helps create creatures and prosthetics for film and television.

After working on two TV series of the Star Wars franchise, The Acolyte and Andor, her childhood dream became reality when she joined the crew on the recently released Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

She told BBC Radio Cymru what it was like to come face-to-face with some of Hollywood's biggest stars.

Mabli's role involves making molds for prosthetics or to create beasts, aliens and other creatures

Despite staying professional when working alongside the likes of Winona Ryder, Willem Dafoe and Danny DeVito, Mabli told the Aled Hughes show: "On the inside, I'm freaking out.

"I'm from Gerlan, I couldn't really put those two worlds together." she added.

She admitted her job was surreal, having to create "beasts and aliens bursting out of bubbles."

Mabli describes her work as "creating what the actors will wear - an ear, a pair of hands, any injuries or wounds."

"On the last film I worked on [Beetlejuice], there were a lot of different things - I had monsters, aliens, intestines exploding out of bellies, pregnant bellies, babies... everything."

Her job involves lifecasting, "where we create a negative of the actor using silicone or alginate, put it over the actor, and then create a plaster".

"You have the sculptors who sculpt whatever injuries, ears, pregnant bellies, that sort of thing, then that comes to us to mold them, using fibreglass most of the time, or silicone or plaster," she said.

Mabli works mainly on the early stages of the process, before moving the work on to other departments.

"After it comes to us, it is sent to other people who paint, put in the hair, and then to the people who put in the animatronics," she said.

Mabli has created all sorts of weird and wonderful molds for film and television

Say 'Tim Burton' three times and...

The experience of working with Tim Burton in bringing his images and ideas to life was a special one, said Mabli.

"I remember mum saying, as a little girl, I loved anything to do with Halloween, especially Tim Burton films," she said.

"He's an artist too - he chooses which characters he wants [in his films]."

"[It was a] really cool experience to be able to work with him and come up with these plans for whatever he wanted."

Mabli said she knew she wanted to work in this industry from a young age.

As a child, Mabli loved directorTim Burton's films - and decided she wanted to work on them

Her mother recently found "an old recording of me and my brother pretending to do Uned 5 (a children's programme on S4C)" she said.

"He would interview me and ask 'what do you do when you're old?' and I said 'I want to create the aliens on Doctor Who.'

"I was seven or eight years old, so at that time I already knew I wanted to do it."

After a foundation art course at Coleg Menai Bangor, she moved to London to study mold making at the London College of Arts.

"I was really lucky, in a way, that I've had such an easy path," she said.