SPECIAL MAKE-UP FX • ANIMATRONICS • BODY & FACE ART
IN THIS ISSUE!
ISSUE 8
AUTUMN 2017
The 80s Anthology EXCITING IES Personal snapshots of a monumental era in makeup FX
ALIEN: COVENANT
£6.95
EIGHT ! SPECIAL
Creatures Inc. and Odd Studio combine forces to create the aliens, artefacts and effects for Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel
Knowledge & Know-How Airbrushes, silicone brush up negative master moulds, latex appliances and setting up your own workshop
GUARDIANS OF
THE GALAXY:
VOL 2
Legacy Effects’ Lindsay MacGowan, Shane Mahan and their key team members discuss the superb prosthetic makeup in Marvel’s latest release
CREATURE REVOLUTION From The Thing to Thriller Remembering the Golden Age of makeup FX and the making of modern screen history PROSTHETICS
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AUTUMN 2017 PUBLISHER Neill Gorton EDITOR Lisa Gorton DESIGNER Mike Truscott ARTWORK ASSISTANT Stuart McDonald SALES Katie Gurney PROOFREADER Mary Loveday
Welcome
to issue eight of Prosthetics Magazine What did the 80s mean to me? When the decade started, I was a Star Wars obsessed nine year old in possession of my first Dick Smith monster makeup kit. The 80s closed with me now aged nineteen, working at Pinewood Studios and already with several movie credits under my belt.
Contact Prosthetics Magazine 59-61 Killigrew Street, Falmouth, Cornwall, UK. TR11 3PF
What started for me as an interest became a hobby - hobby to passion, passion to profession and now my lifelong career.
Email info@prostheticsmagazine.co.uk
With no Internet to feed my mind every magazine feature and book on prosthetics was gold dust, every picture of a sculpture or mould was scrutinised for information and every behind the scenes feature on TV recorded on VHS and played over and over and over again.
Subscriptions Subscribe to the magazine and online library at www.prostheticsmagazine.co.uk Cover image Nick Maley’s Beast from Krull built in 1982, film released in 1983. An incredibly complex animatronic construction for its time, this suit featured three separate moving facial components: eyes/eyelids, mouth and snout; moving 12-fingered hands; moving ribs plus a moving heart and lungs with visible, dispersing fluids. This job was a turning point for Maley, who felt the details were not shown adequately in the film and led him to want to direct his own sequences in the future as a result. Image courtesy of Nick Maley.
CONTRIBUTORS Our sincere thanks to everyone who provided material for this issue and shared their knowledge so generously, in page order: Gino Acevedo, Whitley O’Donnell, Anthony Davies, Joe Nazzaro, Stuart Bray, Todd Debreceni, Lisa Munro, Tim Gore, Lawrence Kelatow, Adrien Morot, Mark Coulier, Josh Turi, Paul Jones, Steve Wang, Geoff Portass, Todd Masters, Colin Ware, Doug Drexler and Michael Burnett Content, instructional material and advertised products:
My parents were driven to buying a second TV and VHS player, installing them in the dining room and banishing me there to save them from the strange and unusual torture of being made to watch The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the hundredth time. Not the pop video mind you, just the making of feature. Finding these snippets of information was like panning for gold, and you’d strike lucky in the oddest of places. I remember the rush of excitement at stumbling across the Richard Corson stage makeup book in my sixth form college library - and in a dusty second hand shop, a book about the movie The Elephant Man with a chapter on Chris Tucker and that now legendary piece of prosthetic work. This was a makeup that, while not receiving an Academy Award itself, was acknowledged by the Academy and inspired them to establish an annual makeup award the following year. The recipient of the first award was Rick Baker for An American Werewolf in London, and that film and award paved the way for the superstar makeup FX artists and mega Hollywood FX shops that dominated that decade, making it a golden era for prosthetics and makeup FX. I hope you enjoy going back to the 80s in this issue as much as I have!
Neill Gorton Publisher
The publisher is not responsible for unsolicited material, technical/artistic instruction or materials cited or promoted herein and does not endorse, guarantee, provide assurance of or recommend any products advertised or techniques described. All contents © Prosthetics Magazine (a subsidiary of Neill Gorton Prosthetics Studio Ltd) or published under licence. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without prior written permission from the publisher, including for storage and transmission purposes. All rights reserved.
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Contents
Adam Johansen
06 WORDS OF WISDOM
39 LATEX APPLIANCES: PART 1
Gino Acevedo, industry veteran and Weta Workshop’s creative art director sets the scene for this issue
08 THE ALIEN FACTOR
Legacy Effects’ Lindsay MacGowan, Shane Mahan and their key team members discuss the tricky brief for their superb work on Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2
20 BRUSHING UP ON MOULD MAKING
Anthony Davies takes us through making a silicone brush up negative master mould of a full head cast, a time efficient alternative to matrix moulds
30 CREATING ‘COVENANT’
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“…it’s rawer, more animalistic and less biomechanical; it’s more of a flayed skin look.”
Joe Nazzaro talks to UK-based Creatures Inc. and Sydney’s Odd Studio about their combined work to create the aliens, artefacts and effects for Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant
PROSTHETICS
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In the first of a multi-part tutorial, Stuart Bray and Todd Debreceni bring us their knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic about working with liquid or ‘pre-vulcanised’ latex
47 PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
Neill Gorton asks experts Lisa Munro and Tim Gore to analyse the leading lights in the airbrush market
53 DEAR NEILL…
56 FROM THE THING TO THRILLER: Remembering the Eighties
Creature Effects Revolution
Joe Nazzaro reminisces with a host of big makeup FX names about the Golden Age of the craft
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1980s style no-nonsense advice on your prosthetics problems from one of the industry’s straightest talkers
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08 79 HOW TO SET UP YOUR OWN WORKSHOP
Netherlands-based makeup FX artist and teacher Lawrence Kelatow on the essential requirements for setting up your own work space
82 THE 80S ANTHOLOGY
Sights, sounds and personal snapshots of a monumental era: some of makeup FX’s enduring leaders share memories of making their first forays into a new industry
96 THE B-SIDES
Film and TV prosthetics that didn’t make the screen. This issue’s subject: Vincent Guastini’s work for the prequel of infamous 1982 John Carpenter horror classic The Thing
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FOReWORD
Words of Wisdom An industry leader sets the scene for the issue
Gino Acevedo, industry veteran and Weta Workshop’s creative art director on ego, work envy and why respect rules
M
y wife is a New Zealand casting director and is credited for over 30 feature films. She gives numerous talks to drama students about the business, but one of the most important lessons she hopes they will take with them is ‘respect’. One of her great lines is, “The production runner that you shit on today could be the director on your future project, and they will remember you.” Simply meaning, it’s better to treat everyone with respect. Treat people the way you would like to be treated, it isn’t too hard. You never know what kind of a day that person may be having or what’s going on in their life. Try to give them
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PROSTHETICS
the benefit of the doubt. You can make a difference in someone’s life by complimenting a perfect stranger,
I have always lived by the thought that ‘there will always be someone better than you’, therefore all you can do is to strive to
You can make a difference in someone’s life by complimenting a perfect stranger, it could be just what they needed to hear… it could be just what they needed to hear and make a difference to the rest of their day, maybe life. This entertainment industry that we are in is such a fantastical but fickle business filled with incredible opportunities, but along with it can also come some incredible egos and jealousy. Now we all have a bit of an ego and we can get jealous from time to time, whether it be from admiring someone’s amazing work only to wish that you had done it, or when you think that you should have had the job instead. Then there are times when you may say, “Why didn’t I think of that!” In my career of almost 30 years I have come across all these emotions, and have had to deal both with being jealous of someone’s work and being the envy of someone else, which is never comfortable.
be the absolute best that you can be. But to get there means a lot of hard work and dedication. Our great mentors paid such a price for being so dedicated to their craft that they may have sacrificed things along the way in their life, but at the end of the day look where they are now, they are our mentors. Some are still here and some have passed on but that does not mean that they are any less of an inspiration to us. Sometimes you will hear their voice in the back of your mind, just like Obi-Wan telling you to stick with it, don’t give up! Always remember, you are only as good as your crew; and give credit where credit is due. And keep practicing; don’t worry you will never get too good, but you can try! Gino Acevedo Creative Art Director, Weta Workshop
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PROSTHETICS
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Makeup application of a ‘Xeronian’ alien originally created for Guardians of the Galaxy and played by Ian Gonzalez. Applied by Emily Coughlin with wig styled and applied by Tina Fabulic