I would also like to thank Cormican personally for having helped out by sending so many photos, especially of his work on Dust Devil, as well as Hellraiser and Nightbreed!
Makeup Effects Archive: How did you get into the makeup effects business?
I felt at the time that noone I ever met in special makeup effects was like me, who stumbled into creature effects. Everyone I'd met, and it felt like everyone, had seen something in a film and desperately pursued work in it. Me, I just stumbled in it!
I remember I had seen An American Werewolf in London. I didn't know anything about makeup effects, but I remember there's a bit when the guy has been killed by the werewolf, and he's talking to his mate, and there's this bit of skin flapping off his face!
And I remember seeing this on the big screen (I was in Chicago at the time), and thinking, 'How was that possible?' It's the sort of thing you'd see and then cut away quicly in films, but here we're not cutting away, we're having all the time to look at his ripped face! Amazing!But it was a couple of years before I was looking for work as a sculptor. I'd done some modelmaking, and by chance met someone who said, 'I know someone who does sculpting like you do here'. The sculpture I'd done was a thing of Judge Dredd from 2000 AD, and a fanged monster - very similar to the monster from Dust Devil - and he said, 'I know a friend who does this in the film business, can I send him your photographs?'.
So I sent him these photographs, and he showed them to his friend, and his friend was Geoff Portass, who was Bob Keen's right-hand man! And on the strength of my photographs, I was already hired, as this was during the creation of Image Animation!
Q: So you were basically taken into the biz at once.
Yep. I wasn't searching, and I didn't even know about it. So when I came to the workshop, which was in Shepperton Studios at the time, I'd never seen anything like this! All these bodies, makeups, creatures, sculpting materials, plaster moulds, animatronics. It was like being a child in a sweet shop!
The first makeup I ever did was on a woman called Grace Kirby, and it was the female Cenobite in Hellraiser. And I was being talked through how to do it by Geoff, and Dave Elsey, and Nigel Booth. People were explaining to me 'This is how you do prosthetics', cos I'd never done it! Most people were doing makeup effects in their mums kitchen before they found work. I wasn't one of these people, I had learnt on the job.
It's kind of funny how I was not interested in horror movies - in fact, I'm still not interested in horror movies - which was very unusual, as all my colleagues were very interested in horror movies, makeup effects, and I was coming in from a different place. It was kinda nice as I just wanted to do the best work I could. I remember I was interviewed for a TV thing, and I think the first thing I said was 'Yeah I've done dismembered genitalia'! But if I'm doing a decapitated head, I'm going to do the best decapitated head I can do.
But the guys at Image Animation, I'm still really close with all of them. They were the best guys. We were all young, even Bob Keen. Keen was weird because he looked ten years older than he actually was. He looked and acted very mature. There was a lot of mucking about.
It was a very male-dominated world. There was one woman, Kate Murray, and she's doing FX in South America now. Over time more women would join, but in these early days of Image Amimation, there was little women. So it was a bunch of silly boys. It strikes me how how immature we all were, in an innocent fun way, as opposed to a 'boys club' which feels a bit more sinister. We were just boys making monsters, you couldn't find happier people.
In these early days, we were disliked by a few of the trade unions. The makeup union didn't like us, the plaster union didn't like us and the painters union didn't like us. It was hard for them, cos they had fought for their rights to protect themselves, and then along comes this new way of doing things that transcended three different boundaries. So we weren't liked by lots of people, and that gave an opportunity to not be treated well financially. I thought I was getting paid massive amounts, but in terms of the film business we were quite poorly paid.
To walk to on-set with the skinned Julia (in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2), which had been sculpted and painted by me, along with my assistant Beverley Pond-Jones and Will Petty. And to walk onto a set with this skinned makeup, and to have the whole crew having a hushed silence as this woman with no skin comes on...I came into rubber effects during its peak really!
Q: That skinned Julia makeup is an amazing effect, it really holds up.Thank you! As young, driven guys, we poured everything. The hours we used to do. I gave my heart and soul to makeup effects! So to hear someone like yourself appreciate it, it really means a lot!
On Hellbound I did the skinless Julia, perhaps some little things but that's the main makeup I did. On Hellraiser I did the female Cenobite, and I helped with the skinned Frank makeup, as we were all chipping in and helping. It was Cliff Wallace who did the skinned Frank.
I remember during the reshoots, Bob said, 'The camera's going to pan down at the skined Frank puppet coming out the floorboards. They wanted to go straight from the goo coming out the floorboards to a makeup. Can you make this thing underneath, like a heart beating?'.
And... it looks exactly what it is, a condom filled with goo, that just pulsates. Really badly made! I'm not proud of it.
In terms of publications - Cinefantastique, Fangoria, Starburst - they're mainly showing us what the Americans are doing. They got big budgets. But people came to us asking for these slightly more 'alternative' things. Are we competing? Completely, we're all avid fanatics of whatever America's doing, and we're trying to do the best we can do.
Q: Your next collaboration with Richard Stanley was on Dust Devil as part of new company The Dream Machine, composed of ex-Image Animation artists. Why did you leave Image Animation?There was a period when I, and Geoff Portass and Simon Sayce, all fell out with Bob. I deeply regret it, as it was because of him that I had my career. But we wanted to do things differently, and we went our separate ways. There was a lot of animosity between us, but we made it back, because of these warm, friendly times together at Image Animation.
And after our friendship regained, Keen gave me a bath and cot for my baby. So my daughter was bathed and slept in a Bob hand-me-down. The man is a dear friend of mine, I'd do anything for him. That's the sort of warmth and cherished friendships that were created in these early days, from that man Bob Keen.
What was production on Dust Devil like, given it was filmed in South Africa and Namibia?
So on Dust Devil, I was working with Portass and Sayce, and we had left rather badly from Image Animation. As for the location filming, I'm thinking of how the special effects guys - when I say special effects I don't mean the special makeups or the creature effects, I mean the guys doing the smoke, and fire, explosions. These South African guys treated me and Chris Halls, who came along with me to the UK, like gods, because of what we did. They were really warm and friendly and helpful.
And Richard Stanley was very keen on our effects, he'd had a good time. He again, treated us like gold. I had a fantastic time, its an amazing country. It was the first and only film I did as the makeup supervisor, as after that I worked on Judge Dredd and Cutthroat Island, and then after that I went to work for Jim Henson Creature Shop.
One of the last things I worked on was Gladiator, I did the cut for Russell Crowe's arm, all manky and covered in maggots, as well as working on the dead and injured people in the Germania scenes. It's aways challenging, and quite a cruel business in how it pushes you. But when it comes to makeup effects, typically you're as happy as a pig in...yeah let's not say that. But we just love what we do.
Q: The effects for Dust Devil appear briefly but are very evocative. What was the inspiration behind Hitch's demon face?
Both the makeup and mask were done by Chris Halls (now Chris Cunningham). I refer to him as a genius, and he was a very close friend. He was my assistant on Nightbreed, we worked very closely in that very cruel business. I mean, special makeup effects can have you starting at 3;30 AM, putting on a makeup to get ready for 8 AM, working all day, taking the makeup off, finishing at 11 PM, to repeat the next day. Completely brutal, 17 hour days.
So I was very close with Chris, he's a very charismatic and funny young man. I knew he was a genius right when I met him, and he didn't need me telling him what to do, so I have him carte blanche to do what he wanted.
Me and Chris were both fans of Simon Bisley, the 2000 AD artist. We even met him and visited his house! We were fanboys of Bisley! Chris did a lot of paintings and drawings of Hitch in this comic booky style.
Q: There's quite a bit of gore in Dust Devil. Dismembered limbs, peeled faces and exploding heads. How fun is it to work on gore, and do you prefer fantastical violence over more 'real world' feeling violence?
Interesting question! This was the 80s when I came into makeup effects. It used to be in the old days, if someone was shot, they'd just put their hand on their chest and acts like they've been shot. Nowadays, its the entrance wound, the exit wound, showing exactly what happened.
And I came into makeup effects just as when we were exploring what the reality of gore is. And we were always fighting with the censors, who weren't happy with us. It was almost a tag game with the censors, but we were always pursuing reality. And the only way to do that is to see what the real stuff looks like.
There was this book on forensic pathology, the study of you've come across this dead person, and how they've died. The dead person can't speak to you, so its up to the forensic pathologist to work out how they died. So if they're sitting there with a shotgun in their hand, and their head's blown off, and you see where the blood splatters, you can easily work it out. That book had everything nasty you could imagine.
After a while I became hardened to looking at real gore. However, when I moved away from Image Animation and Dream Machine, and horror in general, and I got a job at Jim Henson's Creature Shop, I very quickly became squeamish about gore again, and back to being a normal person. I was honestly happy to get out of the gore stuff, cos it wasn't actually my cup of tea.
Q: Interesting as an ethical question too, given the boundary between real and fictional violence.I have to get this off my chest. Back at Image Animation, there was a film we were shooting in (apartheid era) South Africa, where it divided the workshop. There was a moral debate about working on the South African film, as Mandela was still in prison, was asking for cultural sanctions.
It divided the workshop, as half the people thought we shouldn't work on the South African film, and the other half thought we should. I wanted to paint this picture, that moral questions were very fiercely fought out in the makeup effects world that I worked in those days.
Q: The rest of your career seemed to be in other sculpting duties and makeups; I seem to remember you said you worked making the hard parts of the Judge/soldier costumes in Judge Dredd. What was that role like compared to makeup FX?
They were doing all these commercials, I really enjoyed it. It was mostly commercials I worked on, but in terms of actual films, there was Neverending Story II, and also The Flintstones. Cutthroat Island, Pinocchio, all ones I worked on for them.
There was also a version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, that I worked on for three months, and then it was shelved.
And then there was the (Hallmark) Alice in Wonderland, which had my favorite makeup I ever worked on. Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat!
The reason why it's my favorite makeup I ever did, I mean it was Whoopi Goldberg! To meet a proper, big-time celebrity! I got to design, sculpt and paint the whole makeup on her. To do all of it, that made it one of my favorite ever makeups, and Whoopi was my favorite celebrity I ever met, cos she was a warm, lovely person.
I didn't like the (Cheshire Cat) puppet, that had already been filmed. I thought it was very important, especially as Goldberg probably thought in the mirror, excuse my language, 'I look fucking brilliant'. And there's a lot of underseen work going on in the makeup with the shape of her head, to make her look more feline, but it's all covered in fur.
Q: I definitely agree about the puppet. It's a stupid design choice to stick a human face on a cat body.I didn't like it, it wasn't a clever thing to do. If they had done the head, and worked on the body afterwards, maybe it could have worked.
Q: Whose idea was it?Well, they're big machines, film productions. And Jim Henson's was a big machine in of itself. I mentioned him earlier on, but Nigel Booth was their go-to prosthetic makeup artist. They wanted Nigel, but he wasn't available, so I was their second go-to prosthetic makeup artist.
So by the time I was on there, there's been a lot of reasons as to why they've found themselves in this position. So I didn't know why it was what it was, but I can imagine it was something to do with Whoop's availability, so they had to shoot the body without any head there. And later match Whoopi to the puppet body. They're not gonna tell her, 'we're gonna stick your head on this body!'. I can imagine that was how it was.
Q: The Goldberg face makeup makes me think a little of the Cats musicals. Is that a bad comparison?Funny you mention, cos I wasn't looking at the Cats shows. I was focused on making it look like Whoopi, but as a cat. I can't really remember the brief, but I imagine it was 'We have to see Whoopi!'. I thought I did a great job.
I was ecstatic. I sometimes describe myself as a closet painter, so I loved drawing and designing, and Chris (Halls) who worked on Judge Dredd. Being a friend of mine, he got me into the art department, and that was the only time I ever worked in the art department.
And there I am, just getting paid for drawing. That's just me having fun! If I'm sculpting, that's hard work, but to draw and get paid! I always thought I was good, but being good doesn't get you where you want to be in films. There's avenues where I was banging on the door, and just couldn't get in.
Q: Are you still in the film industry? If so, would you say its changed since the 1980s/1990s practicals FX heyday?
No I left the film industry quite a long time ago. My last one was Son of Rambow, and I did a makeup effect for a dream sequence, as I was also working at Madam Tussauds. I started working at Madam Tussauds during 2005, and then went full-time later one.
Q: Do you prefer Tussauds over your film work?
That question, I got asked all the time when I was at Tussauds. There was quite a few people there who wanted to work in the film business, and I was coming in from the other way round. It was an absolute passion of mine, and I'd already given everything to the film business.
I loved it, but I was very happy to walk away from it. And now I had a daughter. The hours were brutal in the film business, but a lot more friendly (and family-oriented) at Tussauds.I again must thank John Cormican for being so generous to discuss his work with me and send me so many photographs. You can see more of Cormican's sculpting work on his website; johncormican.co.uk
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