American Cinematographer - December 1988 - 33

certain

designs had to be dupli¬

cated to the most minute detail to

the

maquettes." The sculpture

staff, including Linda Frobos, Leo

Ryn, Kent Jones, and others, often
stood by as the maquettes were
held up in front of the final sculp¬
ture and checked for faithfulness of

detail, and to

that the

assure

planned asymmetricalities were
rendered appropriately.
"We always took into ac¬
count some sort of emotion

or

char¬

that

captured the essence of
the thing and incorporated that into
the sculpture. For example, there is
only so much movement that one
can
get out of any facial appliance,
so when it came to
creating the
degeneration sequence for Adam
acter

and Barbara

we

considered the

script's description reflecting utter
sadness and integrated that into
the sculpture," Short continues.
"We've been asked at times why the
old age make-up was so stylized,
and we remind people that they're
not strictly old age make-ups, but a
representation of what 'death for
the dead' looks like. It's

a

different

state of

being than old age. Consid¬
ering the style and overall design
of the film, a realistic old age, ala
Amadeus, would have been inap¬
propriate." In fact, Short's crew was
planning a realistic approach but as
soon as
they started sculpting, the
director said he wanted a "plucked
fruit" look, which began a whole
new
design process.
The look of everything in
Beetlejnice was very well planned,
as Munro
points out. "It was first
and foremost an exercise in style.
We tended not to compromise the
aesthetics in order to accommodate
little things like the mechanics."

the lids and the socket."
In

For the

Barbara
stands holding the severed head of
Adam, (played by Alec Baldwin)
above his body, which lies on the
floor. Once the ghostly pair realizes
that they are invisible to the hu¬
mans, Adam opens his eyes and
talks to Barbara. Then, as they real¬
one

sequence,

ize that the attic door is

Adam's

body jumps

still headless, out

up,

of the

unlocked,

and

runs,

room

passes the mortals on the
The body runs into the attic,

and

stairs.
slams

the door and holds it shut. Later,
Adam's body re-enters the study
and

puts his head back on.

"The sequence could very
well have been a very expensive
series of opticals," Short recalled.
"We

gaps between the eye and the sock¬
et. The mechanics had to make a

approached it with the under¬
standing that we would achieve the
overall effect live, on stage, without
having to compromise its impact. It
was
agreed that we would create
the talking head suspended in mid¬
air by means of a foreground piece
that replicated the front of the desk
in the background." The piece was

flexible

rendered

This sometimes caused headaches

for Short and his

crew.

"Tim insist¬

ed, for example, on the sandworm

having almond shaped

eyes. This
made it difficult to mechanize, be¬
cause when the eye moves, it leaves

backing which always kept
the eyeball pushed against the
socket. Of course the eyelids be¬
came more
complex as well, be¬
cause the eye ball was always

sufficiently out of focus to
push it into the background. "Alan
created the foreground piece, while
which attaches to Alec's neck to

changing shape in relation to both

complete the illusion of

we

made the foam latex

December 1988

appliance
a stump.

ments
,

,

.

body, running, two ele-

were

created. For shots from

,

,

behind,

we

made

,.

an

appliance

Jeff Jones and

Geena Dav,s Pre~

pare to emote
Adam-S head

with

stump to be worn by the stuntman,
and for front and side shots, a me¬
chanical

body specifically in run¬
ning mode was created. This, in
turn, gave us all the elements nec¬
essary to create such images as the
headless body running through a
doorway toward camera, then leav¬
ing the frame for a split second,
then the stuntman returning to
slam the door: hence, the illusion of

seeing the body from the front and
a
single shot. The last shot
was of the
body walking to the
desk, picking up its own head, and
putting it back on. It could have
been achieved by having the stunt¬
man
pick up the fiberglass head,
but to give it more life we opted for
cutting the desk in half to allow
Baldwin to place his head on the
back in

desk. Then, as the stuntman enters
and blocks our view for an instant,

Alec hands the stuntman

of his

own

the

replica
places
the appliance
a

head. He in turn,

glass head
stump."

on

"The sand

other

one

planet was an¬
of those situations where

had assumed that the en¬
going to be an
optical," explains Munro, "but beeveryone

tire sequence was

American

Cinematographer

31
American Cinematographer - December 1988

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