Wizard World Toronto

Back at the end of March (yes, I know, I'm an incredibly slow blogger) Wizard magazine held their first Canadian convention - Wizard World Toronto.

So two of my best friends and I broke out our B.P.R.D costumes so we could paint the town, err Red ;)

We had a fantastic time, thanks to great company, great guests (including one Mr. Doug Jones, but more on that in a sec) and we were very fortunate to run into some very talented folks who were all nice enough to take the following very cool pics of us.

In fact that first pic was taken by Viewpoints of Elemental-Photography.Net who shot a whole string of great photos for us.
You can visit her full gallery with all her Wizard World Toronto: B.P.R.D pics HERE.

(And in case you are wondering about some of the more umm ... interesting ... shots with Abe and Kroenen, those were done as a very special parody comic for Kim and Rebecca, the creators of the webcomic Abe & Kroenen, because not only is the comic brilliant and hilarious but they both happen to be two very nice people who we wanted to make laugh - payback ladies!)

Oh and at one point we ran into this tall, skinny fellow who really liked giving hugs and for some reason really liked our costumes a lot ... ;)

Just kidding - to be honest the entire reason we dug out all the B.P.R.D gear was because we knew Doug would be in attendance. And although I have gotten to show Doug parts of my Abe costume before (like at the Hellebration) I'd never had the chance to show him the whole thing. But I've already promised the full story to Helen over at The Doug Jones Experience so for more details you'll just have to wait ;)

IMATS Toronto 2009 - Pt 2

(For more on IMATS Toronto check out Part 1 of my report)

I want to start by saying that, like Doug Jones and John Alexander, Mike Elizalde is another one of these supremely nice, friendly people that Guillermo Del Toro seems to surround himself with (I'm telling you - there's something in the water on the Hellboy sets... and whatever it is, I want some).
The last event of the Toronto IMATS was Mike's keynote address on Sunday (that's a picture of Mike, on the left, being interviewed by IMATS chief/Make-Up Artist Magazine editor Michael Key at the top of this post ). The keynote addresses are typically less of a speech and more of an interview (vaguely like an episode of Inside The Actor's Studio but without the questionnaire at the end). This one began by showing a demo reel for Spectral which had TONNES of behind the scenes shots of the monsters of Hellboy II - including some fascinating "skinless" views of some of the Troll Market animatronics in motion. Cool side note: Apparently when Spectral’s top animatronics wizard Mark Setrakian isn’t creating movie monsters he works at a robotics lab for the US government. So there’s some cutting edge electronics up there on the screen. Also on the reel were some shots of the Sleestaks from Land Of The Lost that look so cool they've almost convinced me to watch the film, Will Ferrell or no Will Ferrell.

Then the discussion moved onto how Mike got into make-up and effects (in elementary school he used to save blobs of paint on little wax-paper palettes, re-wet it once he got home, and use that as face paint since he couldn't get his hands on the real thing). As an adult, after a stint in the army, he moved out to California and worked as an air-conditioner repair-man in between looking for FX work. One day it turned out that the warehouse next to one of his job sites just happened to belong to Stan Winston Studios. Armed with his ever-present pocket album full of pictures of his work he eagerly knocked on the door. "They were very nice but they told me to come back when I had more practice," Mike said.

Eventually Mike DID get a gig – on a movie called Arena and from there he moved from film to film, befriending people like Steve Wang, who would one day come and do work for Spectral Motion.

What I had not fully realized until listening to Mike's talk, was just how instrumental Guillermo was in Spectral Motion's beginning. Mike Elizalde met Guillermo while working as a make-up artist on Blade II. Guillermo told Mike that if he got his own shop together then Guillermo would hire him on to do the effects for his next film. After a few hiccups along the way that next film eventually turned out to be Hellboy.

The fact that since then, Spectral Motion has gone on to become one of the top runners in the FX make-up field, expanding at a time when many shops are actually downgrading or outright closing, is a major accomplishment. At the IMATS “afterglow” party on Saturday night, where exhibitors and guests were free to mingle and hang out, Michael Key mentioned that make-up really is a field driven almost solely by passion. Very few make-up artists become either rich or famous. We do it because we love it –and Spectral Motion is an excellent example of that. From their small start Mike Elizalde and his team have gone on to create some amazing make-up and creature effects and from the looks of things have a fantastic time doing it. The fact that they are now being recognized as a leader in the field and receiving Oscar nominations and other awards is, I’m sure, just icing on the cake. Keep up the good work guys!

IMATS Toronto 2009 - PT 1

November 21st and 22nd marked the first annual International Make-up Artists Trade-show (IMATS) in Toronto, ON, Canada. Over the last year or so the IMATS have expanded greatly beyond their long-running shows in Pasadena, California and London, England to include a show in Sydney, Australia, and two Canadian shows - an upcoming one in Vancouver and this show in Toronto.
Not only was I excited by the prospect of an IMATS being a lot closer to home than Pasadena but there was the added bonus that one of the scheduled keynote speakers was Mike Elizalde of Spectral Motion!

Personally, I had a fantastic time at the show. This being its first year IMATS Toronto was quite small. If I'd been walking around solely as a spectator it would have been easy to see everything quite quickly (although there were two stages which kept up a steady stream of demos and talks all weekend where one could easily park themselves and just soak in the knowledge) However I was lending a helping hand at the FuseFX booth (literally and figuratively - there was a silicon copy of my hand sitting on the table all weekend) so I had lots to keep me occupied.

One of the coolest things to see was the museum area. The museum is a traditional part of the IMATS, and the Toronto museum, although again very small, was a real treat especially if you happen to be a big fan of the X-Men movies. Most of the pieces for the museum had been donated by Gordon Smith, of FXSmith, so it was 90% props and pre-production art from X-Men and X2: X-Men United.




I was particularly excited to see Nightcrawler's hands, feet, and tail on display. Having made my own version of the movie Nightcrawler outfit to wear for Halloween and SF cons a few years back it was awesome to see the "real" (or should I say "reel"?) thing up close. And now I want to do upgrades! ;)





"X-Men" was more or less the theme for the SFX portion of the show since the challenge for the SFX student competition on Sunday was "mutants" (Saturday's beauty competition revolved around "goth" looks). At the beginning of the competition students were given random prosthetic pieces and had to use these pieces to create a mutant make-up on their model within the alloted time period. Only the most general planning is possible before hand since no one knows what pieces they will be given during the actual competition. Since Spectral Motion had done the make-ups for X-Men 3, Mike Elizalde was the guest judge for the competition.

But more on seeing Mike - and in particular attending his keynote address in Part 2!

John Alexander - The BPRD's Agent in a Jar

I recently drove down to Motor City Comic-Con in Novi, Michigan, primarily to visit with frequent DelToro collaborator, actor Doug Jones (I'm a HUGE Fan-Sapien, you'll soon discover). While I was there however, I had the great luck and fortune to also get to speak with Doug's fellow Hellboy actor John Alexander.

John played Johann Krauss (along with James Dodd) as well as the Goblin Blacksmith in Hellboy II. But John's list of credits goes far beyond that. Like Doug Jones you've probably seen John's work many, many times and never realized it - everything from aliens in both Men In Black films to a Wheeler and the Cowardly Lion in Return To Oz in 1985. He particularly specializes in ape performances, with major roles in Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (as White Eyes, the ape leader), Gorillas In The Mist (as Digit the silver back), and as the title character in Disney's remake of Mighty Joe Young, although he's played ape parts on many other TV shows and movies over the years.

Personally, the credit I really wanted to ask about was a line on his IMDB page listing John as a principal puppeteer on the 1986 version of Little Shop Of Horrors - because, aside from fish-men, my favorite type of monsters are Evil Plants. And my all-time favorite Evil Plant is, indeed, Audrey II from Little Shop.

I wasn't planning on staying in Novi overnight - instead I was staying with a friend who lived about 3 hrs away (she had Hellboy playing when I walked in Friday night - does she know me too well or what?). Thanks to leaving my friend's house a little later than planned and a back-up of cross-border traffic I sadly just missed Doug and John's Q&A session. But, c'est las vie - the last place you want to be cranky and impatient is in front of a border guard...

I found Doug and John's tables side by side not too far inside the entrance to the main convention space, right next to a big section curtained off for those waiting to see Carrie Fisher. In fact I was initially scared that the very long line was for Doug and John (turns out no, that was the line to buy the tickets that then allowed you to get in line to eventually get up to see Princess Leia).

I wanted to surprise Doug, so I got in line for him first (this entry is long enough so my adventures with Doug will have to wait for another day). While Doug had a line of 20 to 30 people all day (at the time I first got in line there were only perhaps 10 people in front of me) I soon noticed that there was no line-up for John. So after speaking with Dougie and collecting the requisite, and much anticipated, Dougie-hugs (no one hugs like Doug Jones) it was very easy to slip over to say "Hi" to John, and ask my Little Shop question.

I wasn't too nervous - DTF regular, Hellmistress (who also does a wonderful job running The Doug Jones Experience) met John Alexander on the HBII set in Budapest and had told me he was a very sweet and nice guy. Which he is - a wonderful gentleman. He's quieter than Doug but get him going and he has fantastic stories to tell.

Like, yes, those are live crabs all over John when he's the Goblin Blacksmith in HBII, and yes, he, and the make-up guys from Spectral were more than a little caught off guard when Guillermo declared that's what was going to not only fill the many baskets and containers on the Goblin's cart, but also be sitting and hanging all over the Goblin's head and shoulders. Even though the crabs were kept on ice when they weren't being used, to slow their metabolism and kept them fresh, several did expire during the shooting and things were pretty manky by the time they were done filming the Goblin's scenes three or four days later.

The Goblin's cart was not as uncomfortable as it seemed either. It was about a 5 hour make-up job - first he'd be fitted with a fibreglass helmet that held the horns, over which would slip the Goblin's skin and the rest of the face pieces. Then the torso was applied. He'd be slipped into the cart when they got on set and the cart would be dressed with crabs just before the cameras would start rolling. In Bethmoora moving around wasn't too hard - the cart is actually propelled by the arm crutches, but on the slopes of the Giant's Causeway John had to be pulled along with cables worked by three guys off-camera - the ground was just too rough and uneven for him to do it himself. I mentioned that that must have been a bit treacherous - if he'd fallen over, strapped as he was into the suit, it definitely wouldn't have been fun and John agreed. They had a few near misses but he managed to stay upright for the most part. He said it reminded him a bit of playing a Wheeler in Return To Oz (evil characters who had wheels for both hands and feet, and chased Dorothy around on all-fours through a broken courtyard).

Johann, meanwhile, was not too bad to move in, but the sensation of constantly having to look, breath, and speak as though your head was wrapped in a heavy scarf (due to the material that made up the neck of Johann's suit, where John's actual face was situated) was not pleasant. Neither was the whirring of gears from the mechanism that made the smoke, and moved the values and gizmos in the helmet.

But what about my Evil Plant? John said that he had indeed worked on Little Shop for a couple days. After finishing Return To Oz a friend who was working on Little Shop asked if John wanted to come over and help them out for a day or two. He helped out with Pod 4, the largest version of the Plant, during the final showdown scene ("Mean Green Mother From Outer Space") - it was John's job to man the vine that shoots the revolver. He said that funnily enough, years later he performed as the killer robot in Zathura and the voice of the robot was performed by Frank Oz - who was also the director of Little Shop (which is yet another reason I love the film - Twoey's a "Muppet Cousin")

It's obvious that John has a great fondness and passion for his ape roles - one of his favorites being Mighty Joe Young. It made me wish I was more an ape-movie afficianado myself - we talked about everything from Congo to George of the Jungle to Tim Burton's disapointing remake of Planet Of The Apes (John told me that they had choreographed the ape movements much more thoroughly, and to be far more ape-like than what actually appeared in the finished film). Make-up junkie that I am, we also talked about all the various FX masters John as worked with. Like Doug, the list is extensive and includes all the big names, from Rick Baker, and Stan Winston, to most recently, the folks at Spectral Motion. BTW - if you're wondering which of John's roles he's most physically recognizable in, it's probably as Jarra in Men In Black II - even though he's still under a tonne of prosthetics there.

It was my great pleasure to be able to speak to John Alexander, not once but several times over the course of the day. If you happen to be at a con where John is a guest I really, really, encourage you to go up and say "Hi" - it's a real treat to get to talk to him, especially if you are, in any way, shape, or form, a film or special effects fan. And, as I said, if you happen to be a fan of ape movies then you are in for an even BIGGER treat - I'm sure he would no doubt happily chat about that topic for hours. Bribing him with Hellboy and DTF buttons helps too ;)