American Cinematographer - August 1983 - 96

bony areas with blobs of cotton. For
foam latex
appliances that were strapped onto

the rib section, we made
their slender bodies."

When Smith speaks of "we," he is
usually referring to Carl Fullerton, a
young and extremely talented
makeup effects artist who had collab¬

Then the entire witches' brew

poured in and allowed to set.
''Each experiment had its own
problems," sighed Smith. ''You'd

Smith and Fullerton worked out

an

50' roll.
call for more info.

Write

or

x

THE

GREAT

(AMERICAN
MARKET©

POB 178 WOODLAND HILLS
TELEPHONE

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213/883-8182 TWX 910 494 1233

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a

marvelous material made of

microballoons and it would be
when you first removed it
mold. Three days later, upon

great

from the
losing its

moisture content, it would disinte¬

grate! On the other hand, some mate¬
rials

came

out of the mold satisfacto¬

rily, but as they dried, they became
too tough. So you go through incredi¬

Castings from the mixture were so
fragile, special molds had to be in¬
vented to separate them without
breakage. ''We developed molds
which I'd never seen before." They
consisted of two layers of flexible ma¬

batches of foam latex to cover all the

terial and the traditional mother mold,

bodies. The heads

designed to disassemble in many
pieces to avoid stress on the cast.
Naturally, all the mummy casts had to
be made at Shepperton Studio, as
transporting them would have been
impossible. ''We had around fifty
crates sent over to England," Smith
recalls, astonishingly. ''Molds, mate¬
rials, all those bloody mummy suits
and dummies. The shipping and pack¬
ing alone ran into six or seven thou¬

over

were

done in the

usual fashion, by making
actors' faces and casting

molds of the
them up. Ul¬
timately it became one big suit."
The crumbling mummy operation
required entirely new lines of thinking.
Nothing like it had been done before.
The idea was insidiously deceptive,
for Dick Smith. ''All this time, we

trying to get something out of
Hollywood called gypsum snow. But
we couldn't get it. We got excuses
were

from the manufacturer but had no

waiting period. It
might've been the ideal thing, we
thought. But on reflection, it probably
would've disappointed us. Gypsum
snow is used for prop bricks that
crumble. We needed something much
nurse

a

weaker than that."

Carl Fullerton

experimented with

hundreds of substances and fillers,

trying to develop a material that
would hold its shape yet pulverize
easily. Eventually he stumbled across
a supply of foam latex that had been
poorly mixed by the manufacturer, re¬
sulting in a cast that was porous and
crumbly. (Fortunately for their pur¬
poses), the company was able to re¬
produce it in quantities.) In order to
have it pick up detail from the mold (it
couldn't on its own), Fullerton com¬
bined it with brittle

94

have

was

placed a large plastic dropcloth. The
plastic was manipulated into various
wrinkle shapes and peeled away. ''We
would do the whole body that way,"
says Smith, ''cutting pieces from here
and there. It required maybe ten

time to

Convenient 12"

detail.

ble combinations, then search for
more."

even

light leaks, shape
beams, cut glare, cover
up loose ends...

a

that was

former's leotard;

Mask

and brushed in

Smith's

ingenious system for creating gro¬
tesque wrinkles on the suits. A layer
of foam latex was applied to each per-

■HEAVY DUTY
■FORM HOLDING
■COATED TWO SIDES

wax

thin

STATES and GHOST STORY. For AL¬

ALTERED

on

guidance, developed the
system used to
create bulges and ripples under a
foam latex appliance. For THE HUN¬
GER, he was primarily involved with
fabricating and detailing the mummy
suits, as well as experimenting with
and developing materials for the
crumbling effects.

FLEXIBLE MATTE BLACK
ALUMINUM

added to the

was

TERED STATES, Fullerton, under

Smith

micro-thin bladder

BLACKWRAR

(tiny glass beads ordinarily
a light airway during
the casting process). Being made of
glass, substances don't adhere to it
well. That helped make the wax even
more fragile. Baking soda and vinegar
used to create

layer into the mold to capture
(Vinegar caused the soda to
give off gas, making the wax spongy.)

orated with

LIGHTING DESIGNERS DONT
LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT.

balloons

wax

and micro¬

sand dollars."
Once the

casting process was com¬
pleted, then came the problem of fig¬
uring out how to make them crumble
on cue. An idea was suggested to
Smith by Bran Ferren (creator of vi*
sual effects for ALTERED STATES) of
employing a sonic vibration table, a
device conventionally used for indus¬
trial purposes to test out metal fa¬
tigue. The scheme was to anchor the
camera onto it along with the casts so
the motions would be in sync. The
table would literally shake the hell put
of the sculpture. Unfortunately, Smith
had no way of proving it out. ''There
time

or money to rent facilities
laboratory and experiment
with it. On a bigger budgeted film, it
might've been advantageous to buy
or rent it and transport it to the studio.
I just gave up on exotic means of
dealing with things that we could hanwas no

at some

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, AUGUST, 1983
American Cinematographer - August 1983

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