Posted Apr 14, 09 11:47 AM
Someone’s in the Kitchen with Brian, Part One
Chocolate sauce was substituted for blood in the Psycho shower scene.
How amazing that some people are still amazed by that --banal common knowledge, desperately in need of retirement. Ditto for that word -- ooooooh that word!!! – “amazed.” It’s the infomercial host in a state of constant “amazement” over vacuum space bags and home beer machines that really sets me off.
But, er… back to blood -- the pretend kind. It’s usually around fourth grade when boys (and their ultra-hip gal pals) graduate from the Heinz Ketchup Institute of Horror Make-up. Then again, I did go to film school with a guy still using the old knife-in-the-armpit gag.
So when I was ten, I coerced my younger cousin Marky to smear his face with ketchup and sprawl backwards down on a flight of stairs, thus faking a broken neck. That way, cousin Mikey could gaze down from the upper rail for inspiration. Because that’s the sort of thing cousins do for each other.
Ah, food – the instant prosthetic. There’s nothing like a fridge’s ogle to stir a terror-bound imagination… especially for kids who’ve wished for their own personal Rick Baker metamorphosis into a vampire. Transformation depends on the family grocery list. Grape Jell-o draped with al dente spaghetti makes a wonderful “transplanted” heart (got that one from SCTV). A blank dead stare coupled with gummy worms tongue-pushed outta the mouth is a hoot. And there’re rare steaks to remind us that we’re a functioning brain away from zombie-ism.
But why stop at the ‘frigerator when manipulating cuisine into a horror diet? Makeup effects guru (and Vietnam vet) Tom Savini engineered hordes of flesh-devouring zombie extras for Day of the Dead. And, mind you, a zombie’s gotta eat. But what were they … really munching? Spam. Food coloring. Corn syrup. A concoction so nauseating, undead performers muttered they’d just as soon have had the real thing.
So Chiller chilled with the The Real Thing – Make-Up & Monsters Studios’ Brian Penikas. Brian recently scored a well-deserved Emmy nomination for TV’s Mad Men. His incredible resume includes Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, three installments of Batman, Aliens, Mask, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Galaxy Quest, both Jeepers Creepers and Addams Family franchises, and – well, well – Day of the Dead.
To view Brian’s website, go to www.makeupandmonsters.com ; you can watch his demo reel here.
Chiller: So... I gotta ask. What were you like as a kid?
Brian: Hah! I was the kid who was thinking up ways of making fake blood out of mom's Vano liquid laundry starch and food coloring. Back then, my buddies and I were alley cats always finding empty soda bottles and turning them in for cash at the grocery store. Of course they wanted to buy candy and gum, but I wanted to buy stuff to "create" with…
We used to stage horrible bicycle accidents with kiddie carnage everywhere in those days. All for under a buck!
Chiller: Did you buy and stash away Fangoria Magazines?
Brian: Didn't have to stash away the Famous Monsters, Starlogs, and Fangos. Playboys, yes, but mom always found/confiscated them! Dangitall! LOL!
Famous Monsters was THE magazine that got me going. The cover art (Basil Gogos) was just friggen' amazing! And still is better than anything out there today, imho.
Chiller: So were you the guy emulating late night movies, recreating the effects with your friends based on what you could manipulate from the fridge and cupboards?
Brian: At first, no. Believe it or not, I was the biggest crybaby fraidycat out there. Hell, I'd hide under my bed if my dad was watching a horror movie in the living room. Who was I kidding?...
Actually, by the fifth grade, monsters had become cool because super heroes needed someone else to fight once all the super villains were in jail. And yes, experimenting with kitchen cupboard treasures became an on-going adventure.
Chiller: What were some of those first make-up "recipes"?
Brian: Well, KNOX gelatin was always a good choice for a blistery burn scar (… but if you put it on while it was still too hot, you always got a little EXTRA realism!!!)
One spring break, a buddy and I decided to make an Incredible Melting Man out of cake mix and frosting, but it was way too pink because of our limited supply of food coloring… That thing just was a mess. As the goop warmed up on his skin and head, it just got all soft and slippery and wouldn't stay on…
Gelatin and oatmeal zombies were always successful, though.
The coolest thing my buddy Roy and (I) did early on was to make a two piece plaster of paris mold of his hand, which we later filled with red candle wax. We painted the red wax hand with flesh colored acrylic paints, and put candle wicks into the tips of the fingers. When the wicks were lit, the fingers appeared to "bleeeeeeeeeed"!!!
It was sooooooooooooo cool! And actually one of the things my mother enjoyed displaying for many, many years in the Halloween candy bowl for the annual trick-or-treaters.
Chiller: How much of your work is edible and bakes at 375 for 40 minutes? :) What's some of the most delicious vs. some of the most nauseating concoctions you've ever created?
Brian: We did try to make a hand cake and "lady fingers" once with a cookie dough, but the dough always rose, so no matter how much sculpting we did before… the sculptures always poofed up into featureless blobs during the bake.
Once we started playing with KNOX gelatin, THEN we started getting results! Edible fingers, eyeballs, bugs, you name it.
We would take liquid latex and brush it on our fingers, building up layers to make a sturdy negative mold. Then we'd peal it off, mix up some Knox with a little sugar, coffee and creamer, and pour it into the latex finger mold. Stuck it in the fridge for 15 minutes or so, then when the gelatin was cold and set, we'd pop a fairly realistic looking finger out, add some eye shadow bruising and a little bloodied (Karo corn syrup) chicken bone stump sticking out, then leave it in some girl's desk at school the next day…
Chiller: You know, when Lon Chaney did THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, he inserted eggshells over his eyeballs --
Brian: Actually, the story is that he peeled the thin film out of the lining of an egg shell and put that over his eye. That's the legend, but I think they were actually special contact lenses. Have you ever tried putting that egg membrane into your eyeball? It's like sandpaper!!! And even when you do get it in, the eye rejects it... Trust me, I tried and tried one summer to make that one work…
Chiller: Hmm. For THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, wasn’t it hooks inside his (Lon Chaney’s) nostrils to flare them?
Brian: Actually, baby bottle rubber nipple tops (so he could breathe through the holes). The hooks and wires were in his mouth for London After Midnight, I think.
Chiller: Didn’t Jean Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST hospitalize and permanently disfigure Jean Marais, the actor playing (and wearing the applications of) the Beast.
Brian: Well, back then, if you had a white shirt, horn-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector, actors trusted you… (Boris) Karloff apparently had scars on his neck from the glue that was used to glue the Frankenstein neck bolts on.
Chiiler: Was there one craftsman, one film, one show, one particular scene or even one prosthetic that just "did it" for you -- that made you decide that, yes, you wanted to become a make-up artist?
Brian: Well, being the huge scaredy-cat that I was, everything (except the GIANT monsters) freaked me out. Until I saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), when Charles Laughton first showed up on screen as Quasimodo. I was all by myself at home… scared to death!!! Never thought to turn the TV off!
… Once I got over the initial fright of the extremely convincing Bau/Westmore make-up, I found myself transfixed… and sympathized with Laughton's poor disfigured bell-ringer.
After the movie, I was bounding all over the back yard walls and picnic tables, speaking with a slur, yelling, "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" That's when I decided to try my hand at creating a Quasimodo make-up or rubber piece.
I had no idea how to do it, nor did my parents, so it was a dismal failure. We had no idea if there were any books available that could teach a 5th grader the ropes, and VCRs wouldn't be invented for another 7 or 8 years yet…
Then of course, the PLANET OF THE APES saga invaded cinemas. And as each sequel came to theaters, so did the "how to" interviews... Finally.
Once STAR WARS (the real one) came out, my career and destiny were set in stone. STAR WARS opened the door for publications and specialty stores that completely catered to the dorks, geeks, and fans whose worlds were all about sci-fi, horror, and fantasy filmmaking. It was the big kick in the pants to a huge number of kids from my generation to get into filmmaking…
Chiller: So what's the journey been like, Brian?
Brian: Pretty amazing so far. Each job is different and brings it's own challenges, regardless if it's the same rubber, goop, and glue I used last week...
The one thing that hasn't changed is the feeling of accomplishment I get when is project is finished. Being able to create something that doesn't exist, and bring it convincingly to life… is a pretty darn cool feeling.
Interview continues in Someone's in the Kitchen with Brian, Part Two
Posted by Mike Kalvoda at 11:47 AM