_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
GOODBYE, UNCLE FORRY
By Scott Essman
At the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard on March 8, friends and fans alike were finally able to say goodbye to their surrogate father in the worlds of classic science-fiction, fantasy and horror: Forrest J. Ackerman, who passed away late last year at 92.
Ackerman was honored as the spiritual pioneer of all things in the genre by notable writers, filmmakers, and craftspeople in the touching afternoon event. Longtime friend and writer Bill Warren gave the most emotional homage in which he cited Ackerman as one of the first fans to take science-fiction seriously, especially with his publication, Famous Monsters of Filmland, but also with his habitual collecting of movie props and artifacts and his championing of all things genre.
Director John Landis, who often featured Ackerman in cameo roles in his films, gave a heartfelt written tribute to the man many called Uncle Forry, sometimes referred to as Dr. Acula. Filmmaker Paul Davids showed a clip from his Saturn Award-winning documentary, The Sci-Fi Boys, in which an aging and ailing Forry visits the grave of his friend, filmmaker George Pal and eerily forecasts that though he almost died recently, he hopes to make it to 100. Director Joe Dante gave a detailed analysis of Famous Monsters and its early impact - he too gave Ackerman cameo appearances. Another director, Guillermo del Toro, flew in from his New Zealand production of The Hobbit to regale the audience with his own detached youth in Mexico where he would scavenge to find sci-fi memorabilia and films, with Famous Monsters having a life-changing impact.
Monster maker Rick Baker, who has won six makeup Oscars, saluted Ackerman and noted that he started collecting the magazine early in life where he first learned that people could become professional creature creators. He said that Famous Monsters is where he first studied other monster makers including Willis O'Brien, Marcel Delgado, Dick Smith, John Chambers, and Jack Pierce, who were often celebrated by Forry.
Perhaps the greatest single tribute was from boyhood Ackerman friend, sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury, relegated to a wheelchair and exuding sorrow as he recalled the early years when he and Forry - plus comrade Ray Harryhausen - saw films and traded sci-fi stories.
Even the newer generations were represented in the two-hour event as Rue Morgue magazine editor Jovanka Vuckovic provided the Gen X perspective and pronounced Famous Monsters as not only a spiritual influence but an artistic one to boot. In fact, when one tallies the people who were not present at the event who have been directly or indirectly influenced by Ackerman's efforts and the denizens of creative people who have followed those original Famous Monsters fans, Ackerman ultimately had a profound impact on way many more people who can be counted. His kind will not be seen again.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Elias Merhige, born in 1964, grew up in Brooklyn, and went to school in Tenafly, New Jersey before attending film school at State University of New York at Purchase where he received a bachelor's degree in 1987. This exclusive interview concerns the making of his controversial non-dialogue feature film, BEGOTTEN. The interview was conducted for DIRECTED BY Magazine at the time of the release of SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, Merhige’s first feature. Special DVD copies of BEGOTTEN are now being made available as a not-for-profit item by DIRECTED BY Magazine for a short time only.
SCOTT: What was the earliest genesis of "Begotten"?
|
|
E.M.: With "Begotten", I was working with a lot of actors and artists at the time, and I had a small theatre company in New York. And we were doing a lot of experimental theatre. And it was the sort of thing where I had envisioned "Begotten"--I mean, a lot of my influences at the time were Antony Narto's theories on theatre and art. You know, I mean like the theatre and its double; theatre as play: all of these very luminal essays about aesthetics and what theatre needed to be in the 20th century. And one of the things that was really important, I thought, was that I had never really seen any of Barto's ideas or any of these very powerful ideas on aesthetics that Nietzsche had about plays and early Greek drama, and I hadn't seen any of it on film. I mean really to its fullest extent. |
| And so it was the kind of thing where at the time--I wrote the script when I was 20. And I originally thought of it as a dance theatre with live music piece that we would do at Lincoln Center. I was making it up as I was going along. But then I found out what it would cost to get the theatre space, what it would cost.... And it would actually cost me, at the time, a quarter of a million dollars to produce the show. And so I thought, "It's weird. There’s got to be a better way to do this." Then the challenge became, really, creating the world. Because "Begotten" really is a world more than anything. It's a world. And so that got me into shifting my whole focus into making a film. |
SCOTT: Now how long of a period, from when you wrote the script to when you said, "Okay. I want to do this as a film."?
E.M.: About six months.
SCOTT: And you were in your early 20s at the time?
E.M.: Yeah. And I finished the film when I was.... It took me three and a half years to make the film. That was not because of money. It was because--I built the optical printer that I did all the special effects on. I did all of the cinematography, all of the special effects, everything. And it was really a very powerful experience. It changed the lives of every single person involved with the film. It was really one of these transformative, ritualistic experiences, where the experience itself became what it was about, and the film was just ancillary to the experience. And--sort of like the experience was the flame--and the work itself, the film, sort of became like the vapor, the light coming off the flame. But that was a very powerful experience. But one of the challenges with that film was that it got me into the whole investigative process of "All right, if you want to create something that you haven't seen before, how do you do it?" And so I would just talk to everybody. I would call people up. I would call my new cinematographers and sit down with them for hours and talk to them. I would go to--I went to every laboratory in New York City, sat down with their timers, with their developers, and asked them how they--what is it about developing film, and if you develop it higher than the normal mean or lower than the normal mean in terms of the temperature of the developer bath, what does it do to the film? And they would do these experiments for me, and I would actually look at this stuff. You know, people are really helpful. And then I got a hold of a 16mm Aeroflex camera that was borrowed to me, and I started doing every experiment in the world, sort of developing my own film. I started doing just every conceivable thing from in a darkroom on rewinds running the unshot negative through sandpaper, you know, to scratch the negative before I shot on it. And I still wasn't getting the results that I thought I really needed. And then one day, in the conversation, somebody told me about the kind of control that you have with an optical printer. And when it came time to try and make a deal to get an optical printer, it turned out that it would have cost me millions of dollars to have an optical printer for the amount of time that I needed it. And to buy an optical printer would cost me, at the time, since that was what they used to do special effects at the time--there was no CGI -- the cost of an optical printer at the time was more than--you know, between a quarter and a half million dollars.
SCOTT: This is late 80s or so?
E.M.: Yeah. Late 80s. Mid- to late 80s. So I built one. And I went around getting parts from different camera places, different special effects houses, and they would each say, "Hey, we're not using this old..." I mean, I had an old 1936 Mitchell camera, like number 13. It was just this horse. This workhorse. And then I had a friend of mine that was an electronics engineer out at Brown. And I drove him crazy. I don't think he talked to me for years after helping me with the electronics on it. And then I used an Italian projection gate from the 1940s. |
|
SCOTT: How did you get these parts? Were they paid for, or did you get them--did people loan...?
E.M.: They were things that no one was using, and they just had it. It was like just part of their inventory. And they said, "No one on earth is ever going to use this. You can have this." And I would give them like a laundry list of things that I needed, and they would say, "Well, we don't have exactly that, but we have this." And then what I would do is say, "Okay, if I modify this, if I machine it in a slightly different way--can I do that?" And they would say, "Yeah. Sure." When I needed money, I just went to these guys and said, "I'll do some special effects for you. If you guys ever get overloaded with work, I'll do it for you for like half of what any of your other cameramen would do it for." And that was still a lot of money. That's how I paid for the sound mix for "Begotten", doing all that stuff.
SCOTT: For various different people? Small little jobs?
E.M.: Various different people. Yeah. There was like Disney jobs--there were just various different things they farmed out to me. There was this one rotoscope job that was like six seconds of this old man looking up at a spire and there was blue screen in the back, and they wanted mountains in the background. They wanted the sun to go down, the stars to come up and the moon to rise over one of the mountains. So a friend of mine, Michelle, rotoscoped the whole thing. Airbrushed the stars in, animated the whole thing, and it looked fantastic. It was actually cool doing it. I forgot that it was for a movie or anything--it was just like my own little six-second world.
SCOTT: You optically printed it off the film yourself?
E.M.: Yeah. Everything was done on film. Everything was done very physical. There were no CGI or no computer elements. "Begotten" was shot in 16mm.
SCOTT: So the optical printer could be used for either?
|
|
E.M.: Yup. All you got to do is just take a different camera--you know, I had a 16 camera mount. I used to take that off, put a 35 on. Which in hindsight, I mean, that's what I should have done. I could have just blown up the film myself instead of.... But that's something I plan on doing. I do plan on blowing up "Begotten" to 35. Not that it needs to be blown up--I just feel like doing it. Then I did the sound. And the amazing thing, and the parallel between that film and "Shadow of the Vampire" is that there was a very Zen-like incredible experience in directing "Begotten". Because I am looking through the camera, operating the camera, speaking to the actors; and I'm seeing an idea that's coming out of my imagination becoming flesh and blood in the characters and friends that I'm working with. Then that's being reflected back into the camera and recorded onto the film. And it's like this process where it's moving out of my brain into flesh and blood and back into the lens onto film. It was just an extraordinary thing to be able to speak, and--well--"Begotten" is a silent, obviously. |
SCOTT: Non-dialogue. Was there ever a point in which you thought, "It's my first film. I'm already directing it. I've already written it." Was it an artistic choice to say, "I should also operate the camera. I should also star in all the stuff myself." Did you ever feel like you wanted another point of view?
E.M.: No. It felt very natural. There was a great deal of innocence to making "Begotten". It just felt like--well, I was so curious about all the different things that needed to [be done].... And it was such a homemade, handmade, handcrafted piece of work that it just made sense that [I crew everything myself].... Because I'm sort of neurotic anyway, when it comes to doing things. I have to just know that something is done, and when it's done, that it's done properly.
SCOTT: Where was "Begotten" photographed?
E.M.: There were three or four different locations, but the main one was a construction site right on the border of New York State and New Jersey, just at the northern part of New Jersey. And they were constructing this corporate park. They were making this huge corporate park. And it--and they just had devastated the landscape. So I had talked to the engineer, the main engineer that was engineering all the groundwork there, and told them what I was doing. And they actually--they thought I was crazy at first, but when I explained to them how I was doing it and what I was doing.... I don't know. It was the sort of thing where, I guess, they felt sorry for me, you know, and they just decided, "Yeah, you can shoot that movie here." And then, on top of it, as time went on, I told them, "You know, the composition is almost perfect." And I would have them look through the lens, you know? And I'd say, "If it just had a mountain right there, you know? If it just had a mountain of rock just right over there to the right, it would be perfect." And they would make one for me. They would bring in bulldozers and heavy dump trucks and they would just make a mountain. It was remarkable.
SCOTT: You didn't have to pay for the location at all?
E.M.: No.
SCOTT: How long were you there? How many days in the quarry?
E.M.: Would you believe it was just like 20 days. It was all weekends. My agreement was that I would shoot when they weren't working. And their agreement was to have all their equipment out so I could shoot. [20 days in the quarry for the last third of the film… earlier in the film was at a lake. The middle section was in a house.] A friend of mine was going to hook me up with some Indian friends of his down in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. And they were going to take me on this like fun ritual thing that they were doing in the mountains. Anyway, I never hooked up with them, for some reason--miscommunications. So I ended up going into the mountains myself anyway, and shooting some of those sunrises. I spent a couple of days just shooting time-lapse sunrises and sunsets. That's where you get that big flat expansive [view]. And with that film, you know, that was the idea that I didn't want you to be able to tell the difference between the moon and the sun. And whether it was day or night. It's just this idea: we have opposites just colliding and coming together. And then when I finished the film, it took me two years to get it out there. I mean, I would show it to distributors and people out there, and they would say, "Listen, if you can show this for free in some high school basement in the Bronx, you're lucky." And I know people that were really brutal, and I hated them. And I just had this sort of "Well, what do they know?" kind of attitude. And then the film went to the San Francisco International Film Festival. And it was there that Peter Scarlet and Tom Luddy showed the film to Susan Sontag, who then called me up. And I projected the film in her living room for like 21 of her closest friends, and it was remarkable. Because she brought it to the Berlin Film Festival, and said just wonderful things about the film, that.... She used the word "masterpiece". I hate to use that word, but she really loved the film and thought it was just a profoundly original piece of work. And then Werner Herzog had seen the film at just about the same time. And he, also, was very supportive. He was very supportive of the film.
SCOTT: Did Sontag get the film to Nicolas Cage somehow? How did Nicolas end up seeing it?
| E.M.: Crispin Glover had given Nick a copy of "Begotten" as either a birthday present or just as a gift. And Nick, just out of his own volition, saw the film and said, "You know, I'm moved by this piece of work." And then when he opened a production company, Saturn Films, he gave the videotape of "Begotten" to his partner at the time, Jeff Levant. And said, "We need to find this guy, 'cause I'd like to work with him." And that's the way it evolved from there. And then we met, and a 45-minute meeting turned into a three-hour meeting, and we realized that we all liked each other very much as people. And three days later, they sent me the script to "Shadow of the Vampire". And when I first read that script--you know all that stylistic stuff, with going from color to black-and-white and black-and-white to color? That was stuff that I saw from the first reading of the script. I knew exactly how to do it. And that's what I loved so much about the script is that it was this great balance between technical innovation and great story-telling. And for me, I knew that I could make something really terrific out of this. |
|
SCOTT: How long did you spend in post on "Begotten"?
E.M.: That was what took all the time.
SCOTT: That was three years?
E.M.: Yes. It took me eight months to build the optical printer.
SCOTT: That's with film in the can?
E.M.: Yes. That just drove me up the wall. 'Cause if it's just a hair off, it's off. That's all. It doesn't work. And it just looks stupid. And it's wrong. Everything has to be very exact.
SCOTT: How long on the sound mix? ...the whole movie--about 88 minutes of sound effects.
E.M.: Got to tell you--that soundtrack--that was something that Evan Album--he's a guy that a friend of mine at the time, (he was the assistant director on "Begotten", Tim McCann), had a friend of his who was painting people's houses--not doing frescoes, just painting the houses. And I met this guy, and I was talking to him and I was just having regular conversation with him 'cause we were both waiting for Tim. And it was, "Well, what do you do besides painting houses?" And "I compose music." I go "Really?" "Yeah." I go, "On what? What instrument's your instrument of choice?" He says, "On the bass guitar." I said, "Really? You compose music for the bass guitar. I've never heard music composed just for the bass guitar." I said, "I'd like to listen to it." So he gave me a tape. And there was nothing in this tape, in this recording that sounded remotely like a bass guitar. This guy was functioning on a totally, completely different plane of existence. And it was at that moment that I thought, "This guy is the kind of person....," 'Cause when you talk to composers, they're all like, "Hey! This is the happy--this is my happy stuff. Oh, this is my scary stuff. Oh!" And with this guy, it was not like that at all. And that soundtrack took a year to do, because--this is going to sound a bit odd, but--we recorded the sound of feet walking on gravel in the winter, feet walking on gravel in the spring, feet walking on gravel in the summer, and feet walking on gravel in the autumn. And used all of them at different points in the film and orchestrated all of that in this careful kind of like mosaic within the film. That's how obsessively detailed that film was. I spent every frame--I mean, I was looking through the camera every single frame.... Just remember, there's 24 frames in a second. And 24 frames in a second, it would take me about 10 hours of time to get about a minute's worth of screen time, of film. When you think about that ratio of labor, it's very intense.
SCOTT: At first, did you let many people see it?
E.M.: And in the beginning, when I finished it, I was very protective of it. 'Cause there were people that hated the film and just didn't care whether it got out there or didn't get out there. So I was very protective of it. And there was never a moment that I didn't totally believe in the film. I always believed in the film. And it's that sort of thing where, when Susan Sontag saw it, it was a major epiphany and pinnacle in my own consciousness. Because it was like, "Okay. Now somebody who I've always revered and respected believes in my work. And believes that it's great." And I knew it was great, but when you have it mirrored off of someone who is great, like Susan Sontag, it enables you to suffer all the crap that you have to go through to get a film off the ground, get something out of development hell and into reality.
SCOTT: You were able to get it out there somehow?
E.M.: The film was distributed on VHS. So people could buy it from Virgin Megastore. It wasn't just myself that had to give them a copy of the tape. Rocket Video had the film. Jerry's Video over in Hillhurst that has the film as well. The thing, for me, in making a film, is I that have to just be 300% in love with what it is that I'm doing. I'm not going to spend two or three years of my life on something that I'm half-hearted about, you know?
SCOTT: My take on “Begotten” is pretty clearly that this divine being, in the beginning, is almost sacrificing himself for the birth of the next generation, which becomes Mother Earth.... Actually, in the film, Mother Earth comes from behind him. And...
E.M.: She's sort of born from him in a very theatrical way.
SCOTT: Yeah. Born out of him, and he's dead. And then ejaculates him....
E.M.: Yeah. Inseminates herself.
SCOTT: And then from that comes....
E.M.: Comes this new world order.
SCOTT: Who's, hey, got a tough life. Almost an oppressive kind of way....
E.M.: Well, it's interesting, 'cause you have this, like, the patriarchal world, sacrificing itself, giving birth to this matriarchal world, that then gives birth to this new kind of, like, child, who's a balance between the masculine and the feminine, the earth and the sky, and then is ultimately sort of sacrificed....
SCOTT: But then begets greenery and the earth as we know it. Which was a neat effect. I'm sure you did that on your optical printer.
E.M.: Yeah. I did a lot of that with time lapse, too. In a terrarium, I had little things growing.
SCOTT: A small terrarium?
E.M.: No, a large terrarium. And--but it's the kind of thing where--with "Begotten", I always felt that, having been a big Nietzsche fan at the time, this idea of circularity of time, the idea of the eternal return, the idea that everything is a circle or a sphere.... And certainly Einstein's theory of relativity, you know, that if you go in two opposite directions, you're eventually going to meet again. 'Cause the world through Einsteinian physics is spherical--the universe is spherical. So, it's the idea that--imagine that we had a culture, like 4,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago, that had the technology with cinema, to make movies. And that you're looking into a sort of archaeological discovery of this world, that is now extinct, and was sort of a pre--predecessor to the world that we live in today.
SCOTT: When the earth was really new.
E.M.: Yeah, exactly.
SCOTT: And I took the band of quote, kind of "lepers" or whoever, just to be sort of the outcast, the marginalized and the decrepit of the earth, who don't know what they're doing. Almost--I'm not specifically a religious person--but I almost read it as a Christian metaphor of sorts, where Jesus was born to a world that didn't appreciate him, and he died for the sins of all the others. In that this new being died for their sins, even though they didn't know what they were doing. Here they have this naked thing, who's been born of Mother Earth and God, and they....
E.M.: And they don't even realize it.
|
|
SCOTT: And they don't realize it and they beat him and kill him. And he begets the rest.
E.M.: I think that's very beautiful what you just said. And I don't think that's off the mark. But the thing is, you go not just to the mythology of Jesus, but also to Isis and Osiris, and you go back to Attus and Adonis, and it goes way back to be the pre-Christian ideas and, then certainly with the idea of creation as it exists in the Hebraic sense, in the Old Testament. It's just these themes of sacrifice and resurrection are in every culture and every age. And they're important themes. And I love art that is charged with both pathos and mythos. And you see it in Arnold Bachland's paintings. You see it in a lot of expressionist and symbolist paintings. And you certainly see it in the romantic paintings, and in the Romantic poets like Byron and Shelley. And in Goethe, the German poet. All these voices from the past definitely have influenced me to a very profound degree. And I feel like--that being inspired by these minds and by these works of art from hundreds of years ago, I imbue it into my own blood and invigorate it with a new life and put it out into a new--in a new way, through film and--through the films that I'm making. |
SCOTT: Also the elements in both of your films--regarding themes of sacrifice and all that--there's also sort of a haunting feeling throughout both of the films. I think that what's happening in "Begotten" isn't entirely pleasant. It's interesting. It's always sort of fascinating, but it's also upsetting.
E.M.: No. Absolutely.
SCOTT: Much in the way that any martyr, who has to suffer for others' sins or whatever--it's not the most pleasant thing ever. And same with "Shadow of the Vampire", too. It's always super-interesting, and a reflection on things you said about current filmmaking. But it's also kind of haunting. These people are disappearing, and is Schreck really killing them? And then you start to think, "He really is a vampire. Or at least he thinks he is. And that's enough."
E.M.: I can't tell you how much I appreciate you seeing "Begotten", and having an appreciation of that film. 'Cause I love that film, really. I never thought about, "Oh, I'm going to go to Hollywood with "Begotten" and I'm going to be a big movie director." It was the kind of thing where I made "Begotten" just purely like a fever. It was like a fever that hit me, and then, when the film was done, the fever broke, and it passed. It was somewhat of an obsession and a great, profound love, making that film. And I learn something new from that film every time that I see it. I don't feel like its maker. I feel like it's got its own life force, and every time I see the film, I'm learning something new from it.
You may also send a check/money order to: Scott Essman, P.O. Box 1722, Glendora, CA 91740
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
 |
• |
R.I.P. BILL LANDIS: CREATOR OF THE SLEAZOID EXPRESS |
by 42nd Street Pete
|
|
Really a sad fuckin' day for all of us Grindhouse Afficinados as Bill Landis died of a heart attack over the weekend. Bill lived and breathed the “Deuce”. He worked as a projectionist at the Nightshift, The Doll, The Venus and other Time Square porn grinders. He created the first Grindhouse oriented fanzine, The Sleazoid Express.
Thanks to Bill, we learned a hell of a lot about obscure movies that played the 42nd Street Grindhouses. Bill was a true scholar of these films and his interest in them gave them the print they needed to attract viewers. Bill was a jack of all trades on the “Deuce” projectionist, theater manager, writer, and he actually did some porn films under the name of Bobby Spector.
In the 80’s, Bill had a film festival at the 8th Street Playhouse one summer. He ran two different films everyday for over a month. Films like Salo, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Blood Feast, and more than I could possibly list here. Because of Bill, we saw this stuff on the big screen instead of a 19” TV. |
Bill worked for the notorious Chelly Wilson and her “Avon “ crew. He put together the definitive book on 42nd Street, The Sleazoid Express Book, which is required reading. Bill joined forces with his future wife, Michele Clifford and put out a mag called Metasex about the Manhattan sex trade. He was a great help to me when I was researching the film Forced Entry.
I was trying to get Bill to try and write a screenplay about his experiences with the porn biz. Now this will never happen. Bill was one of the writers who influenced me to write as well. Every genre fan owes Bill a debt of gratitude for writing about these films. He will be missed by all of us. Ending the year with this truly sucks. 2008 was a shitty year for the genre and we lost way too many people. I hope Bill will be remember as the great writer he was. R.I.P, my friend and save me a seat in the big Grindhouse in the sky. |
|
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
|
• |
Remembering The Man Who Created the Monster Magazine: Forry Ackerman Dead at Age 92 |
|
|
Forry Ackerman, or Uncle Forry to a lot of us, past away last Thursday at age 92. Forry created the world’s first monster magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland back in the 50’s.
I came to find the magazine when it was at issue #4. I forked over my 35 cent allowance for this issue. My big mistake was taking it to school, catholic school. An evil nun took it out of my desk and ripped it up in front of the entire class, in essence, branding me an outcast, a mantle I still wear proudly today.
You see, back then, if you liked this stuff you were branded an outcast, a weirdo, a creep etc. You got beat up by the jocks and ostracized by your so called peers. Such was the way it was with the monster fan right up until the mid 70’s when horror films started getting some respect. |
Uncle Forry always respected the genre and it’s fans. Forry introduced the youth of America to Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Zacherly, Lon Chaney Sr & Jr, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, George Zucco, Glen Strange, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and cover artist supreme, Basil Gogos. If you could get past Forry’s horrible puns, you learned about the classic horror films that we still love today.
I first met Forry at one of the early Chiller conventions were I had the honor of being his “bodyguard” for the show. Fans were lined up endlessly to meet the “Ackermonster” as Forry called himself. He signed the covers of back issues of Famous Monsters with his trade mark puns and showed the fans his most prized possession, Dracula’s Ring. He gave a seminar that day to an SRO crowd. |
|
|
|
He was at Chiller a couple of more times. He was always running around in his loud jacket and sneakers. He was quite a sight and was always very cordial with the fans. I lost track of Famous Monsters in my late teens. I had almost every issue. Then I discovered beer, cars, & women and sold my Monster Mag & Comic book collection to pursue them. I’m still kicking myself in the ass over that move.
Forry’s Famous Monsters of Filmland spawned many imitators. Castle of Frankenstein, Horror Monsters, Mad Monsters, Shriek, and others came and went. None would ever have the fan base or respect that Forry’s brainchild had. |
We at Scars owe Forry a debt of gratitude. The Monster Magazine was his idea. Yeah, in all probability someone else may have come up with something similar if there was no Forry. But I doubt that anyone else would have had the respect or the integrity that Forry had for the genre. Forry broke the ground so that guys like me could follow a dream and write for a Monster Mag.
I read today that Forry once said that once he’s gone and some time passes that no one will remember him. I would have to say that he was wrong. When I think of the countless people who’s lives he touched, the opportunities and encouragement he gave young writers, and just being a wonderful person, I’d say no one will ever forget “The Ackermonster”. |
|
Forry was like the little kid in all of us, lurking beneath the surface. I’d like to think that he’s up in the clouds with the rest of the greats that he knew and respected. Thank you, Forry, for all you have done for the genre. As hard as it is for me to write this, I realize that eventually we all must pass through the veil. It’s hard to lose someone we all care about, but I really like to believe that we will all meet up eventually in that big grindhouse in the hereafter. RIP, Uncle Forry, you will live forever in the hearts and minds of all of us horror fans. You will never be forgotten.
42nd Street Pete
Below is an excerpt of a 1996 interview with Forrest J Ackerman by Scott Essman. For more Forry Ackerman video, check out an excerpt of an interview here from the 2006 DVD premiere of Paul Davids' film, THE SCI-FI BOYS, where Davids interviews film monster fans RICK BAKER, STEVE JOHNSON, BASIL GOGOS and FORREST J ACKERMAN in an exclusive look at how the KING KONG character influenced their lives.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
SLAYING THE DRAGON with RANDY EDELMAN
By Scott Essman
|
|
Director-composer relationships have long resulted in some of the most memorable collaborations in movie history. Of course, there was Hitchcock and Herrmann. Spielberg and Williams. Zemeckis and Silvestri. Burton and Elfman. Now, a relatively more recent partnership has evolved between a director and composer that has had the effect of creating some of the most impacting film music of the last two decades. Enter Rob Cohen and Randy Edelman.
Starting in 1993 with Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and continuing through this season’s December 16th DVD and Blu-Ray Hi Def release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and likely well beyond, Cohen and Edelman have worked together to give the movies some of its greatest scores in modern cinema. |
With six films together to date, the relationship is special to Edelman as Cohen is usually his own producer on their projects. “Its nice to work with someone who is making most of the decisions,” said Edelman. “When he’s shooting a film, I usually go to the set. He likes me to soak up the vibe. When they were shooting The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and I saw some of the sets in this tomb, it evoked an emotion before I saw any footage from the film.”
As the relationship is an intimate artistic one, Cohen will often voice to Edelman what kind of character the music is to play in their discussions. Plus, Cohen is willing to meet with Edelman as often as the composer wishes. “Sometimes with other studios or directors, they will come over in a week when they make time,” the composer said. “Rob just shows up as soon as I ask him, and that shows up in the music. In the movies we’ve done together, we’ve got this rare history. In all of the films we’ve done, the music takes on a life of its own. It lives independently of the film even though the melodies comes out over what he’s created on film.”
With movies including Dragon, Dragonheart, xXx, Daylight, and The Skulls under their belts, it was destined that the two would work together again. But Edelman came onto Dragon Emperor by unorthodox means. “One year ago, completely by coincidence, I was in Shanghai leaving at four in the morning, and Rob was there leaving at nine am and we didn’t know each other was there,” Edelman remembered. “We couldn’t believe it, but we decided to do this movie together. I got a call from his assistant because he was doing pre-production on the film. It was interesting that our first meeting about the film was there in China. That’s the first time, and now we’re finishing the score and soundtrack in June of 2008.”
| Last fall, Edelman started working on ideas for the Dragon Emperor music. Production had shot in summer 2007 in China and following over several months in Montreal on stage. As Edelman prefers to come onto a project early, he got involved during stage work in Canada “You really can’t tell a lot from the script,” he said. “It read a certain way, and there was an aspect of this that Rob wanted that’s not really on the paper. Two of the biggest musical themes in this picture were written before I saw any cut footage. Sometimes, that’s a great idea, but sometimes that’s a terrible idea where the purposes you thought the music can serve are not what they need to do in the film.” |
|
With Dragon Emperor, Edelman knew that he would have a panoply of musical choices to implement. “This film has tremendous passion and emotion but huge action sequences,” he stated. “It carries over from the previous Mummy movies, even though this is a completely different movie. It has a historical reality and is interwoven into the theme of this Chinese emperor. It turns into something quite unexpected.”
By January of 2008, Edelman started writing the actual music though many of the ideas were already in his head. “I had some strong thematic ideas,” he reflected. “There is nothing like having time if you are going in a good direction. If not, you get locked into things. There are so many aspects on this project: it’s a musical dream. “
And a dream it was, as Dragon Emperor has two hours of Edelman’s music in a two-hour two-minute movie. “I started writing after the first of the year and was in London at the end of April where we recorded at Abbey Road,” he said. “It was three months of really creative composing, working, and talking it out with Rob — being able to react to his reactions and having the time to digest what he told me after he heard what I was doing. This was probably the best relationship that we have had.”
With wall-to-wall music in the movie, naturally, every cue segues into another piece of music, and with only three months of writing, Edelman was pressed for time, but he made it work. “If the work schedule is right, and there is not lot of studio interference, it can work out,” the composer, 61, explained. “It was just Rob and I working on this movie. I can work on a small independent picture, and there are twenty people involved. But the studio really put this in Rob’s hands. The last movies that I’ve done, there’s a lot of interference where you are trying to placate people’s egos.”
Based on a historical fact, set in China before the wall was built, Dragon Emperor has many types of music mixed into its pastiche. “I think audiences will be surprised – it’s a real musical adventure,” said Edelman. “A whole wonderful prologue explains who this guy was. The audience knows who this character is who comes to life thousands of years later.”
|
|
When Edelman finally went to Abbey Road to record, it was a quick process. “The recording was a few weeks – that’s all you have,” he said. “I had ten days with the orchestra – members of London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, and some of the finest orchestral musicians in the world. I spent a lot of time with the London Chinese ensemble and time with ethnic percussion and non-orchestral instruments. “
Unlike other composers, Edelman routinely conducts the music that he writes. “This is what I do — I would never think of not doing that,” he said. “It’s so important to me because it’s my music – I orchestrate it and conduct it. Composers now have a different background – some don’t have the traditional musical background because there is a different way of doing it. If you come from the old way, it’s hard to relinquish the reins of composing scores and turning it over to other people to execute.” |
In addition to conducting, Edelman played all of the piano parts live in Dragon Emperor’s score. “John Williams is exactly the same way,” he remarked. “He is of a different era than me but comes out of a traditional background. It’s different now – most people don’t conduct their own scores, but I don’t like sitting in a booth. I enjoy being in the room with musicians, and then I go in the booth and discuss it. I get it the best it can be, then I move on.”
In the studio, Cohen was actively involved and would provide Edelman with regular feedback. “Different directors have many ways of working – some of them back off and some of them are intimidated by it,” Edelman commented. “When you go in with an orchestra, they are all different. Rob is probably the best you would want him to be – he loves it more than anything in the process of making a movie. He knows what he wants and has very good comments. A lot of directors have a problem doing that.”
Regarding the language that they use when discussing various musical passages, Edelman described how he and Cohen have developed a shorthand disseminated in simple phrases. “You don’t have to discuss it in musical terms,” he said. “What do you like about a cue or what do you need from a cue that’s not there? He knew all the themes and out of two hours and 80-90 cues, he hadn’t seen only three. That’s how I’d like to work with everybody, so that they are not surprised by anything. I like to have a close interaction with the director rather than there be something where they are not tuned in with what I’m doing.”
“Because of the different kinds of styles and sounds,” Edelman continued, “we were on top of every aspect of the music. If Rob has an idea, I’d like to make sure that he gets to hear what was in his head. He’d be the first person to say that it was a bad idea.”
| One idea that Cohen had came from a sound that he had heard on a location, one made by a Tibetan Horn – an eight-foot long floor-seated instrument – so Edelman determined to incorporate it into Dragon Emperor’s score. “There are one or two musicians in England who play it,” he said. “It’s a really cool sound and we found a few wonderful places for it. It was an idea that [Cohen] had that we decided to pursue in a few scenes. We also used an Erhu – a Chinese violin that’s hard to play in tune with an orchestra. They have to fit in the right register, but they make very beautiful sounds — a noise that evokes certain sensations with the right visuals that are very interesting and unique.” |
|
Though many shots, effects and sections of dialogue on a movie of this size continue to change right until the film nears its release date, Edelman explained that a composer cannot wait for such elements to coalesce. “There is a certain point where you can stay writing and running around on a ball like a mouse in a cage,” he said. “You have to stop and execute what you were writing and record it, and then the music editor can edit it properly. If they make changes, the music will change – especially in this kind of film. You can do extraordinary things.”
Even after he got to the mixing stage of Dragon Emperor’s score, Edelman stayed actively involved, which is evidently his modus operandi for every step in the film scoring process. “I pre-mix myself, and mixing is when all those tracks – the electronic instruments, choirs, etc. — all of those colors are put together,” he stated. “I have a lot of control and it’s pretty much adjustments when I do the final mix – fine-tuning.” Another important facet is that Edelman mixes during the actual recording process as well. “The best sound is to get the orchestra live in the room,” he claimed, “and get the balance right at the time. Then, you adjust it in the end.”
In hindsight, Edelman noted that he always likes to feel like his last score is his best. “With Dragon Emperor, you are doing a certain type of picture, but this score affords me so many different textures and styles that I’ve done over the years,” he described. “It was fun to pull out your action and comedy chops. It’s much easier to do a big beautiful drama that everybody takes seriously. I was able to take all of my scoring background and, in this one film, put a lot of it to use to make something really special.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
As the creative force behind Drac Studios partnering with key special effects makeup artists and creature creators including Greg Cannom and producer-director of operations Harvey Lowry, Todd Tucker creates prosthetic makeups, creature suits, and puppets that are used for both film and television, including the new project Trailer Park of Terror. Most of the film’s effects were achieved practically on set using these techniques that started back during 1973’s The Exorcist with digital creations that only enhance or help “morph” the makeups on real people. Key crew members include Chris Gallaher who was the Drac Studios special makeup effects supervisor on TPOT and Martin Astles who was makeup department head and created many of the makeup concepts. Twelve additional artists worked to create the numerous effects in the film.
Tucker’s own history was always steered towards creative work. "Originally, I was going to be a cartoonist," Tucker said. "All through high school I worked on my illustration portfolio. I was always interested in horror and fantasy movies, so in 1985, I looked into schools that taught special effects makeup. Luckily, I met up with a couple of excellent special effects artists, Matt Rose and Steve Wang. They showed me sculpting and painting techniques and taught me what I needed to know." For the next five years, Tucker practiced in his garage, building his portfolio before moving to Los Angeles to try his hand at the movie business.
In 1990, he followed the nascent Rose and Wang — who collaborated on the creature for Predator among many others — coming to Hollywood from San Jose. "I showed Greg Cannom my portfolio and he liked my work," Tucker stated, “so he hired me that day and I started the following week.” Tucker found himself working as a sculptor, painter, moldmaker and fabricator over the next five years on projects including Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mrs. Doubtfire, and The Mask. "Cannom hires people who are multi-talented: people who can sculpt, paint, mold, fabricate," observed Tucker. "They need to know everything. I jumped around quite a bit, which is fortunate because a lot of times, people who work in a shop can get pigeonholed into one department like moldmaking, seaming, or running foam. I was able to work in all different aspects of the shop then work on set with the puppets and the makeups."
Due to his versatility, most of Tucker's assignments became steadily more interesting and challenging. "As the years went on, I became more involved in sculpting and designing the characters," he recalled, "and within four years, I became one of the shop supervisors and was heading up my own shows through Cannom Creations, including Jingle All the Way, Steel, A Simple Wish, and Kull the Conqueror." During this time, though he was successful, Tucker never lost sight of his boyhood dream. "I always knew that my final goal was to write and create my own stories," he said. "That was my wish since I was a little kid — to follow in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Jim Henson and create worlds of characters."
In the last decade, Drac created the makeups for Titanic, The Passion of the Christ, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Van Helsing, A Beautiful Mind, and many others. The studio has gained an amazing ten Academy Award nominations, winning twice – for Mrs. Doubtfire and Bram Stoker’s Dracula – hence their name. Greg Cannom is still one of the top names in makeup, especially in aging characters, after 32 years in the business.
For young people, who, like himself a decade ago, want to break into makeup and creature design professionally, Tucker recommends a path with equal parts persistence and self-education. "The best thing to do is get as many books, instructional materials, and videos that you could get your hands on, and practice, practice, practice," he instructed. "Sculpt, paint, learn how to run foam, apply makeup, everything you can. Start building a portfolio of your best work. Once you feel confident that you have enough knowledge and talent, start presenting your work. Never think that you're at a point when you can't learn any more. Always remember, if you really want something, it’s up to you to make it happen."
Not only did Drac Studios serve as a co-producer on the Trailer Park of Terror, Tucker also directed second unit which oversaw many of the special makeup effects and gags. Speardheaded by Lowry, who spent up to 20-hour days producing the work in TPOT, Drac has three upcoming productions to go along with six that are already in the can.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES with TRAILER PARK’s SPECIAL MAKEUP EFFECTS SURPRISES
Warning: these should be read after viewing the movie for maximum impact
|
|
TRISHA RAE STAHL as LARLENE – this overweight trailer park resident is wearing a complex makeup to appear that her whole face is ripped off, including fake teeth, fake skin, and appliances that make her appear to reveal her underskeletal muscles and facial skull. She was the most fun character in the film who wore special makeup effects and appears now in Drac Studios main shop as a mannequin in full makeup!
NICHOLE HILTZ as NORMA – in the beginning “prologue” of the film, set in the early 1980s, her makeup is youthful and character based. Then, in the present day, after she has killed all inhabitants and burned down the entire trailer park, we see her as a ghost. Now, she is wearing a blonde wig and excessive beauty makeup. Then, we see her as she would actually look in real life more than 25 years after the fire. In these scenes, her face is completely ripped off like a mask and we see her skinned via special makeup effects appliances glued at points around the outside of her face. Plus, she is wearing contact lenses. When she puts her face “back on,” that is a special makeup appliance that she actually puts onto her own face followed by a computer “morph” to blend it into her actual face. |
ED CORBIN as STANK – he performs a skinning on a character in his meat packing shop. This is achieved via false body in front of the actor. Corbin actually skins the rubber appliance which is glued in front of the young actor and contains blood and other body parts underneath. Corbin himself is wearing a multi-piece makeup to look burned and skinned plus lenses.
STEFANIE BLACK as TIFFANY – she is supposed to be high on drugs when she gets her arm amputated at the elbow by a manner of jackhammer. This was done via her real arm held behind her back with a false arm in position packed with blood and fake bone. When it is cut, the fake arm is really getting cut on camera! |
|
|
|
MYK WATFORD as ROACH – another key favorite among the crew was the guitar-playing Roach, who had a full Elvis wig and sideburns but literally has no facial features. This was also achieved with complete makeup effects appliances on his entire face to replicate teeth, bones, muscles and bits of skin. He also wore scleral lenses to give his eyes a glazed-over appearance. He too stands in Drac’s current shop as a full mannequin.
Drac Studios’ next upcoming projects for makeup effects are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Watchmen for which they provided, respectively, numerous aging makeups and many character makeups and were on set through the entire duration of shooting.
|
|
