Dick Smith: "Godfather" of Make-Up

Tonight the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences is hosting a tribute to a wonderful man and a great teacher - legendary make-up artist Dick Smith.

The artist behind such memorable make-ups as those in The Exorcist and The Godfather has been a teacher for many years - first by sharing the techniques he developed with other make-up artists (many of his discoveries are now standard practice in the special effects make-up community) and later by putting together a correspondence course to help teach the next generation. Guillermo himself is one of Dick's former students (along with many, many others).

I've been enrolled in Dick's course for the last several years and I've always found him to be a warm, generous teacher, even when offering criticism. "Well, you really went out on a limb with this one," he said once while we were discussing a particularly ambitious but ultimately unsucessful project of mine, " - and the limb broke. But that's ok, that's how we learn."

Because the course is offered by correspondence all my interactions with Dick were done over the phone. I didn't get a chance to meet him in person until last summer at the International Make-up Artists' Trade Show (IMATS) in Pasadena, California. It was a marvelous treat. The only event during the whole weekend which had a line-up was the one to get into Dick's Q&A session and even then, I think they were pushing the fire regulations to the limit to allow as many people in to see him as they did. Folks were sitting on the floor all around the table Dick and his fellow panelists were sitting at, and it was standing room only at the back (I did get an actual seat, but only because I was warned in advance to line up like an hour and a half before the start of the panel).

It was a wonderful privilege to get to hear some of Dick's stories first hand. Everything from a very funny anecdote about chasing Cassius Clay (soon to be Muhammed Ali) around the boxing ring set of Requiem For a Heavyweight with a spray bottle, in an attempt to make him look sweaty despite the absolute freezing temperature of the arena they were filming in, to a very moving and touching account of his long, long friendship with Sir Lawrence Olivier.

Looking at all the faces, many my age or younger, hanging on every word the rather surreal picture popped into my head of padawan Jedi all gathered round the feet of Yoda eager to hear words of wisdom from an old master of their craft. Please pardon my extreme geekiness - I'm in no way trying to say that Dick resembles a small wrinkled green Muppet - but the sense, in many ways, that we were being taught an oral history was very strong. Hearing it in person was entirely different than reading it or watching a taped interview. It was a little mind blowing to be sitting 10 feet from the man who invented many of the techniques of prosthetic make-up (Dick Smith, for instance, was the first person to apply foam latex appliances in multiple pieces - most artists prior to that had glued large, mask-like single pieces to the actors faces. This is both much harder to do and doesn't move as realistically as overlapping pieces).

It's about 10:30 now, which, when you factor the time difference in means things should just about be getting underway in sunny L.A. I hope the ceremony goes very well and I wish Dick the very best.

Living in the Land Of The Lost

Land Of The Lost comes out tonight and I admit to being torn. On the one hand Spectral Motion handled the special effects make-up on the new film, so we know at least it's gonna look good. I'm loving their dead-on Sleestaks - all the creepy characteristics of the originals (with a few nasty upgrades from the looks of things) without the visible zippers up the backs. (By the way, if you'd like to read more about Spectral's work on the movie the Land Of The Lost film has their press kit release available on their website, with several interesting pages about the Sleestack suits and Chaka's make-up).

Plus it was a lot of fun to catch a glimpse of a Sleestak temple rising from the backlot of Universal Studios when I was in LA last summer for the HBII fan screening.

On the other hand - it's a Will Ferrell movie... I really don't like Will Ferrell movies myself. I just don't think acting like an idiot while speaking as loudly and obnoxiously as possible is all that funny. I usually want to shake him instead of laugh at him. And according to the reviews trickling into Rotten Tomatoes as I write this, Land Of The Lost is shaping up to be like just about every other film Will Ferrell's ever made (if you're on the fence but want to save yourself the time and cash you could always go play with the Will Ferrell Movie Generator instead - you'll get the gist at the very least).

I do have very fond memories of watching reruns of the original show on ABC in the early 80's - although admittedly not very many. For the complete and utter dinosaur nut I was as a small child it was a definite fave. If you're not familiar with the tv show the basic premise is that a forest ranger and his two kids, while on a white-water rafting trip, get sucked into another dimension populated by dinosaurs, ape-men, and a strange race of lizard/insectoid humanoids called the Sleestaks. Years before I ever saw my first Dalek it was the Sleestaks that freaked me out - it didn't matter that they were slow as heck. They always acted like they were being controlled by some giant hive-mind so if they did catch you there was no reasoning with them (at least as far as I remember). In the early 90's ABC produced a very disappointing Land Of The Lost remake and the much more bumbling trio of talking dinosaur-men "Sleestaks" on that show were nowhere near as creepy as the ever anonymous original drones.
The only other scene I remember vividly stuck with me because my 4 year old mind found it pretty darn disturbing at the time. The family finds a map, which they think will lead them home - until they follow it and come across the skeleton of the map-maker next to a river of lava. Their hopes crushed they attempt to retreat back the way they came - and I can't remember what happened next...

A couple years ago I found a couple LotL DVDs for rent at our awesome local video store and just couldn't resist the trip down memory lane - even though I was fully expecting things to be a bit of a trainwreck. I was pleasantly surprised. Sure the actions of the dinosaurs (and the attitudes toward them) are horribly out of date in a post-Jurassic Park world but the stop-motion animation and obvious minature backgrounds still gave me nostalgic warm fuzzies.
And I was astonished to discover that the writers for the series reads like a whos-who of science fiction names. From Star Trek alumni like Walter Koenig, and Tribble-creator David Gerrod who was the season 1 story editor to people like Larry Niven, Ben Bova, and Theodore Sturgeon (!!!)
So for a kids Saturday morning show from the 70's it's pretty obvious they were trying to do the very best with the budget they had. But then again I also love the original Battlestar Galactica, which gives you some idea of how I roll...

It does look like the new movie is trying to pay some homage to the original show but I do think in the end I'm definitely going to pass on seeing this in the theatre. But my curiousity is too great not to check it out when it eventually makes it way to cable tv.

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 ;)

Welcome to Things In Jars! Pickle anyone?

Why "Things In Jars" you ask? Well, this is a fan-blog dedicated to film director, major geek, and all around awesome guy, Guillermo Del Toro (or GDT as his fans have affectionately dubbed him).
(Psst… should you already be a Guillermo Del Toro fan, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs – you already know this stuff.)

Guillermo Del Toro’s the creative mastermind behind the Oscar winning Pan’s Labyrinth, Devil’s Backbone, and two film adaptations of Mike Mignola’s comic Hellboy (oh, and next up he’s got this little movie called The Hobbit). You don't have to watch too many GDT films before it becomes fairly obvious that there are a number of reoccurring motifs he likes to use – one of which happens to be things in jars (Cronos, Devil’s Backbone, and Hellboy all feature shots of preserved specimens of some sort).

I’ve been a fan of Guillermo’s since 2004, after watching the behind the scenes documentary for the original Hellboy (I am a complete and utter DVD extras junkie). I was blown away not only by the unabashed enthusiasm and amazing creativity he brings to his work but also by the affection and dedication he inspires in those who work with him. This mutual respect also extends to his many fans, with whom he has a very close and hands-on relationship (he regularly posts to fan message boards and answers as many fan questions and emails as he can). As I became a bigger and bigger fan myself I eventually joined DelToroFilms.com, Guillermo’s official fansite, and have been a regular ever since - so much so, in fact, that I am now a contributing blogger.

(Ok fans, you can start reading again)

Since, as the old saying goes ‘write what you know’, most of the entries here in Jars will deal with creatures, costumes, or special effects make-up, although everything should somehow relate back to GDT in a six degrees of separation sort of way. The plan is to bring you some fun interviews, articles, and interesting things (both in and out of jars) so I hope you come back and take a peek.

Speaking of interviews … COSPLAYERS – if you have a GDT related costume (including, but certainly not limited to, any characters from the Hellboy films, Blade II, or Pan’s Labyrinth) and would like to be interviewed for this blog please email me at kusanivy AT deltorofilms.com. I’ll send you some questions and happily post any pics or information you’d like to share about your costume(s).