American Cinematographer - December 1988 - 87

"then all the tendons would stream
out and

she'd go

flying! She could
- the take
they used was the one where the
operator got a little trigger happy
and let go before she was expecting
it, so her look of surprise was really
genuine."
put all her weight on it

Most remarkable about

this effects sequence is
Gardner and his crew

gether. "The

how quickly
put it all to¬
effects coordina¬

new

Stuart Ziff, told

tor,

me

on

a

Wednesday that the director in¬
tended to shoot this entire sequence
the following Tuesday!" Gardner
" 'We have

avers.

it,' he told

me,

no

idea how to do

'but you've been in

the

shop awhile, so we know you'll
pretty good job. We're going to
have dinner. See you!' I had six days
to figure that one out.
"We worked straight
through the weekend experiment¬
ing with different ways to make
this thing work. Fortunately, peo¬
ple on Lyle's crew helped us out
by providing Blob quilt. Marilyn
do

a

Dozer and Noel

Above: The Blob

stage at Dream
Quest. Left: Modelmaker touches up
the miniature Main

Street set.

Escher, who sewed

most of the

quilts, joined our little
along with a couple other

group,
Blob technicians. We built all the
the shoulder stuff in six

over

In

days!

dailies, the director said, 'That's

the best Blob I've

ever

seen! I want

them all to look like that!'

so we

just

those ideas for our
miniature and closeup effects.
Eventually, I was asked to handle
the Blob element through the entire
sequence."
improved

on

Another memorable

quence occurs

in

a

se¬

restaurant's

life

head

-

Once the cook's head had

Gardner and

Conway's
really simple,"
Gardner says. "It consisted primar¬
ily of a sink with no bottom. The
effect of the cook's head collapsing
as he's dragged down the drain was
a variation on one
Lyle's 'Jack
Pumpkinhead' puppet for Return
crews.

ant incident in the restaurant. "We

disappeared, Gardner's crew used
a full sized
decapitated dummy to

drain! Nicknamed the Drain Ride,
the effect was a collaboration be¬
tween

drain.

a

the

on

Clark, who attempts to summon

surprise ride of his
first, right down the

kitchen, where the Blob takes
cook

lapse to give the impression his
head was being sucked down the

"That

was

To Oz. In this case,

the actor had his

head bent forward in
was

covered

and

a

a

finish the Drain Ride. "We

factured

fake neck and head

were

rig

'spin n' barf'

-

that held two puppeteers.
Each of the puppeteers operated
the hot melt

part of the effect with
Candy Clark in a phone booth on a
soundstage surrounded by giant
Blob quilts," Gardner explains. "A
rig was built above the phone booth
so that six of the puppeteers could
slowly let the Blob slide down over
the sides. It crawled

on

its

own

with blood tubes and steam tubes

water tank constructed

under the sink, all
raincoats."

its sides.

down

you

a

wrapped

in

December 1988

The water

on
was

two of

semi¬

transparent and tinted pink, and

do for an encore? Blob someone
phone booth! In this case, the

unfortunate victim

a

up

After dragging someone
drain head first, what do

whole

designed to col¬

shot the first

weight. In the next cut, the phone
booth appears to be surrounded by
the Blob, which was really just a

in

was

unpleas¬

vinyl legs of the cook
dummy, and one of them doubled
as his arm. They were strapped in

attached to his shoulders. The

thing

manu¬

nicknamed the
it was a giant lazy

we

susan

hole which

by the Blob element,

a

the town's sheriff after the

was

Candy

there

Blob fabric

moving about
together. It
was
basically a giant aquarium."
Inside the aquarium,
Gardner's puppeteers operated the
was

in there to tie the look

American

Cinematographer

85
American Cinematographer - December 1988

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