|
 |
Find interviews by: | ||
| | |
Gary J Tunnicliffe (Part 2) Go back to Part 1 of this long interview.
"Yes, we did Haggis’ make-up. That was insane. The turnaround on that make-up was absolutely insane. I think we turned around that make-up in three days and that was for a four- or five-piece make-up. We didn’t even have time to do a cowl. I think we did basically a large brow-piece that blended off and then a nose. Luckily Neill Gorton out of the UK did the live cast. They cast Lynne Verrall literally a few days before she was shooting. We got the life cast, I blocked it out and Mark Maitre worked overnight on it. I did blocking on the pieces, Mark took the pieces and worked on them through the night, brought them back in the morning and then we started the moulds. Then we ran out the pieces we needed so Mitch had something to apply. Mitch took the first three sets of appliances with him on as excess baggage. “I really wanted it to look like the first Haggis but it just wasn’t possible. The girl who wore the first make-up was very long and had a huge neck. They had done a full cowl and we just hadn’t the time or the resources to do that. So what we basically had to create was a hag make-up, a witch bitch make-up. The only thing I was amazed by, nothing to do with the make-up, was when I heard Lynn’s voice. I’ve never heard such an incredible recreation of the original character in my life. It was fantastic, she sounded just like her. When I saw the trailer I thought she’d been dubbed. I thought they’d taken lines from the first film. I was just blown away. Blake and Mike and Mitch said no, Lynn was really dedicated to try and recapture that and listened to the first film over and over and over again. She was wonderful and Mitch had a good rapport with her. The great thing about that is: prosthetic make-up is only ten per cent of the character, it doesn’t work if it’s on somebody who isn’t into it or is no good. It’s like Pinhead - so much of that is Doug Bradley. I think we were able to pull off something very, very fast and luckily Lynn’s dedication to the character brought it to life so a total tip of the hat to her. After that of course, we had to do a whole bunch of transformation stuff." On Lance Henriksen? "Yes, that was basically me. Over a weekend I made a whole bunch of mechanisms. We did a change around which was great because we were able to basically use the technique from An American Werewolf in London but use silicone which is much more stretchy and more realistic. So I made one of those and I made a chest section which would suck in and I made a face plate with a change-over mech underneath it. They were literally all done over a weekend; it was a crazy, crazy weekend. I even drew boards for that and spoke to Jake about it. I said, ‘Look, as long as you keep cutting away to flames flickering and shadows on the wall, I’ll give you a couple of elements.’ “We made a bladder. It was literally a case of any chance we got to make anything else: ‘You’ve got five minutes, make me some bladders.’ ‘You’ve got five minutes, start making some latex sheets and I’ll wrap a skeleton inside them to make the Lance Henriksen husk.’ The body I made on the table one day by taking a skeleton and binding it in latex. All those years of doing Dracula 2000 and things like that prepare you well for making corpses. I had a wonderful, wonderful crew. Everyone got involved. I was in the fortunate situation that I could throw jobs at crew members and everyone would get behind it. And people were keen to work on it too because it was Pumpkinhead. They were excited by working on Pumpkinhead. The first day we tested Pumpkinhead - got the actor on a table, dressed him in the suit and put the head on - it was great to see everyone’s eyes light up." Did you find a real enthusiasm and excitement about Pumpkinhead because it’s something special, not just another monster? "We were excited too, you know. Pumpkinhead is an awesome creature and it's a good, solid, little horror film. We went back and watched it again. I think everyone who watches it goes: ‘Wow, Stan Winston could have just gone off and had a nice little career as a horror movie director.’ I think at the heart of it is a very cool creature. If there’s a credit missing from this film, whether it’s Stan or some of his guys, it’s whoever did that original design. That’s where a good creature can endure. Then I think you’ve got a couple of directors who understand action and pacing. Certainly from the trailer I saw, I was very excited."
"I have no idea at all. I don’t know Stan well enough to give him a call and say, ‘Stan! We’ve got your creature!’ I’m sure if it was a film I’d directed I’d be curious to see what someone else had done with it. Obviously it’s more of a sequel than the second film, this follows on from the events of the first film. I’m sure there’ll be some nitpicking from the guys when they see my bastardised version of their wonderful creature but I hope that they’ll look at it and realise the budget restraints and say, ‘That’s a pretty good job, actually.’ It’s a different Pumpkinhead but at the same time it’s got the core of it. “Luckily I had some great sculptors, people like Dave Grasso and Tully Sumners who had just worked on Silent Hill. Richard Addison-Wood, the WETA workshop supervisor on Lord of the RIngs and King Kong, did the eyes for me in New Zealand. Because he is Pumpkinhead fan so I wanted to get him involved. I tried to pull in a few favours from people. One of the painters from Spider-Man 3 came over and helped me for a few days. It was great to be able to call people and say, ‘Hey, do you want to come and work a few days on Pumpkinhead?’ Instantly people were, ‘Yeah, that would be cool!’ They would come in and see the head and go, ‘That looks really cool!’ Even after all the crazy hours - and it was crazy hours, every day was a very, very long day and no weekends for that four-week blast that we had. But the first day that we were able to get the suit on, a couple of the producers came over. We turned off the lights in the shop and we made some cookies and we lit him from underneath and we brought him to life. Everybody, myself included, was: ‘Wow, look - it’s Pumpkinhead!’" If these do okay and they make V and VI, would you be up for those? "God, yes. I’m up for anything. I’m a horror film whore I am, I don’t care. I’m up for Pumpkinhead XXVIII! It would be good if we got a few more dollars. I’m sure the producers would be: ‘Well, you’ve got the moulds.’ Yes, absolutely. Certainly if it was the same production team as before. They were so courteous and so wonderful to work with. You can only dream of having that kind of support. And the same from Jake West and Mike Hurst. To get phone calls from your director from another country the day after Pumpkinhead shot to just say, ‘Thank you so much. It looks amazing. We’re just blown away that there’s a creature here I can film.’ To get e-mails after the show saying, ‘Thank you again. It looks awesome. We’re just jazzed with the creature and your guys were awesome.’ I know that Mike and Blake and Mitch were put through the wringer and were having to come up with a lot of stuff on the spot so credit to them for backing me up. Unfortunately I couldn’t get out to Romania. I had to send them because I was dealing with Pulse reshoots and stuff like that. But I was getting phone calls nightly from Karri O’Reilly and from Mitch and Mike, post-being drenched in blood or post-being rained on." There was some pretty unpleasant stuff out there. "I know. That’s why I sent them! We keeping hope for that horror film, a Caribbean zombie movie or Caribbean werewolf movie where the visitors to a beautiful Caribbean resort are terrorised by one zombie. I invite any writer out there to write that because I would happily do that. Scuba divers who get terrorised by a zombie, that would be great because I could dive all day.” Go back to Part 1 of this very long interview where Gary discusses designing and constructing the Pumpkinhead suit.. Website: www.garyjtunnicliffe.com | ||
| | |
Were you responsible for Haggis’ make-up?
Do you know Stan Winston? Does he know about these films?