The first season's success led to Lindala having a team of assistants on the second, though still using his basement as a workshop! Lindala's crew included Adam Behr, Bill Terezakis, Doug Morrow, Roy MacGregor, Robert Moon, Charlie Grant and Brad Proctor. His first intensive assignment of the new season was 'The Host' with its worm-like 'Flukeman'.
However, Lindala's work on 'The Host' wasn't just for the Flukeman', as the script called for an autopsy scene where a worm is found crawling in the corpse of one of the Flukeman's victims. Lindala recalled how it was done;
'There was some stuff we made for the autopsy scene with Scully and the worm for the flukeman episode. The effects crew was puppeteering the worm, and our group set it up with all these real organs. We used a sheep's heart, a cow's liver, miscellaneous pieces of chicken fat and skin all glued onto the skin inside. It looked really, really fleshy and thoroughly disgusting.
We shot pretty quickly, and had big coolers there that kept it all frozen. It was not something Gillian wanted to dig into too much. Luckily, she was wearing rubber gloves in the scene. Terezakis set it up, but we didn't get to it the first day, so he took it home and ended up keeping it in his freezer.'
The autopsy makeup, with a dissected organ appliance on the chest.
These are *not* the same organs used for closeup shots of the worm prop.
The Flukeman suit was built in just ten days, under 'insane hours' as Lindala described it; Darin Morgan, who wore the suit, recalled that it actually took 12 hours to fully apply the prosthetics and put on the suit. Lindala explained how the Flukeman costume was fabricated;
'
We made a suit that came down to the elbows and the knees, to allow it a little bit more of that baggy sort of worm-like look. His feet cast actually (came out) in a straight-out position, but it's a neat look when you see him crawling around, and he's got these sort of slipper sort of look to his feet. And a facial prosthetic, contact lenses and teeth that came out of the prosthetic as well as the distended lips.'
As usual for rubber monster suits, wearing it was not a pleasant experience, and the water filming sequences added more to Lindala's workload as Morgan recalled;
'Each day that I wore the suit, I would have to be in water, and the water would destroy the whole thing. And so Toby had to rebuild everything from scratch each day, so it was just an ordeal. And I wore two pairs of contact lenses, one on top of the other. One of them was for the color, the other to create a kind of milky film over that. The contacts were the only things that didn't hurt. I barely knew they were in there. And the good thing too was that they were prescription. I could actually see in them.
The rest of the stuff was actually quite painful. The mask and the rubber smelled of sulphur and the whole thing was unpleasant. I had no air through the nose, so I didn't eat, because you had to eat and breathe at the same time. It was just impossible. Reading the script, I thought, I was going to do more things, and then once I was in the suit, I couldn't really act in it. I just tried to survive. You could barely move like that. Being underwater was actually pleasant, because it cooled everything down. It was very hot in there as well.'
Lindala and his small team were proud of the Flukeman suit (especially as it became one of the series most iconic monsters), but after filming Lindala still had one question about Darin Morgan's performance; 'How does he go to the restroom?'
In a 'Behind the Truth' featurette, Morgan revealed the disgusting truth; '
The thing was incredibly heavy. I couldn't talk. There was no hole for me to urinate. Sex was completely out of the question. I decided to relieve myself when in the water (filming with David Duchovny) cos I figured Duchovny would never find out. He's never gonna watch these things!''.
The Grey aliens in 'Duane Barry' also proved troublesome for Lindala, as the performers were children. To save fuss, only one child actor had their head cast as Lindala recalled, '
Try to cast the full head of an eight-year-old! She wasn‘t too impressed until we got her out of it.'
Adam Behr made the Grey masks' eyes, by heat-forming lexan over a pool ball to give it a round shape, and tinted with inks for the glossy black colour. The 'bodies' were onesies and gloves provided by the wardrobe department, and painted over by Lindala's team.
Lindala also made finger extensions for the gloves, a tedious task for him; '
That was a bit of a chore because working on these tiny little fingers and getting the molds was such a long process. We glued them on to the end of the gloves and just extended the forefingers'.
Lindala elaborated; 'The aliens were all made off of one mold. There were a couple who had a little more character. We just wrinkled them up a bit & they became these wise old aliens. All were individual paint jobs, but from the same sculpture. (...) With the paint jobs & all of the different body sizes and proportions, it looked like a bunch of different beings from the same race.'
Filming was also awkward, as the children had to act next to Steve Railsback giving an intense performance as an alien abductee. One boy especially did not enjoy it as Lindala recalled; 'We put him in front of the bed, and Railsback is screaming bloody murder, and the camera comes back and the little guy just pulls his mask off and goes, ‘Where's my mom?“'. Poor kid!
The episode 'Firewalker' required simple air bladder makeups for the shots of the infectious fungus' victims' necks bulging. Lindala also made a large fruiting body stalk appliance attached to various performers necks.
The throat-root from 'Firewalker'
For the episode 'Irresistible', Lindala was also tasked with transforming serial killer Donnie Pfaster into a demon; 'The writers came up with an episode where a killer appears to transform into this gargoyle figure which is the embodiment of evil. The entire creature was all glued-on prosthetics; it took close to four hours to do it on the first day.
Once we got the colour scheme all worked out on him, it only took about three hours. With our schedule, we don't have a lot of prep time to take care of these things.
It consisted of a large piece with the humplike, bony shoulders, a two-piece head prosthetic that blended on the top and around just behind the ears, plus separate ear tip pieces and full back-of-the-hand prosthetics. Rather than use gloves, we wanted to keep his hands long and spindly. The gentleman who wore the makeup, Terry Abrams, really worked them well.'
The Donnie demon appliances being sculpted
Like much of Lindala's work, the demon makeup was only briefly seen; 'We wanted to hit the gargoyle with all of the detail we coul. There are a couple of shots, where it catches a little light, and you can see a bit of detail. The producers had the option to shoot it any way they wanted.
I would like to have seen a little bit more of it in the show, but I also like the fact that things like that aren't taken too far. They were not in the forefront, which seems to be a common fault of a lot of film and television productions today. When it's right there in front of you and you're dealing with it, some of the fear is gone.'
Lindala designed a gruesome facial appliance for Kevin Conway in the episode 'Fresh Bones', as a hallucination that is only glimpsed briefly in the episode itself.
Lindala also had to create several aging makeups for the episode 'Død Kalm'. The early stages for Duchovny and Anderson's aging were done via more simple makeup techniques, with the more advanced stages realized as latex facial appliances.
Lindala's sculpts of David Duchovny's aged makeup appliances in 'Død Kalm'
Another effects-heavy episodes of the second season was 'Humbug', a humorous episode set in a carnival's freakshow. One of Lindala's makeups was the disfigured face of the freakshow museum's curator, a half-face and hand appliance on Alex Diakun.
Director Kim Manners was impressed with Lindala's handiwork; 'This was just one scene, and l didn't want to do too intricate a makeup job. l was hoping that if we didn't see it that clearly, it wouldn't have to be that detailed. But as it turns out, Toby did a very detailed job, so we did end up showing a little bit more of it than I originally thought we would'.
A more elaborate makeup was the 'Alligator Man', which was actor John Payne in a foam rubber suit and facial appliance to appear scaly and cracked. Another makeup appliance was the bulging tumor on Vincent Schiavelli's abdomen as conjoined twin Lanny
The episode's 'monster' was Lanny's conjoined twin Leonard, capable of splitting off from his body. Only briefly glimpsed in the episode, Leonard was realized as a puppet.
Note; I would REALLY like to know if there's any behind the scenes images of the Leonard puppet and various makeups in 'Humbug', as well as the demon makeup in 'Irresistible'.
For the episode 'F. Emasculata', Lindala had to create several pustule makeups. Some of the 'pustules' were air bladders, similar to the throat appliances in 'Firewalker'.
Lindala also had to fabricate an infected boar corpse dummy for 'F. Emasculata', with air bladder mechanisms inside the 'pustules' that could squirt out fake pus on camera. Sadly so far I've not found any behind the scenes photo of the dummy!
'F. Emasculata' was not the only episode that would require gruesome corpse dummies to be made by Lindala's team, far from it. Lindala also had to provide several dessicated corpse props for 'Død Kalm', and a mummified alien prop for 'Anasazi'.
Lindala's grisly work on the series led to a bit of a reputation, as he recalled to Fangoria; '
(Duchovny and Anderson) think I'm sick. And I think they're right. They and the producers are constantly coming up to me and saying, 'Lindala, that's really disgusting - but good.''
Sources:
- Cinefantastique Vol 26 No. 6 / Vol 27 No. 1 (October 1995)
- 'F/X EFFECTS LINDALA'S SPECIALTY', Vancouver Sun, October 1997
- 'The FX Files', Fangoria #142
- Assorted 'Behind the Truth' featurettes.
