- Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:20 pm
#60444
Seeing this soundtrack posted on the forum recently has conjured up many memories of one of my earliest film experiences. As a young artist from Staten Island NY, I developed a letter and phone correspondence with one of the all time masters of special makeup, Dick Smith. Dick Smith's classic work can be seen in films like The Exorcist, Scanners, Ghost Story and Amadeus. Smith was legendary in the field not only for his makeup effects, but his generosity in helping other artists, and inventing many of the techniques still used today. During my teenage years, Smith would occasionally recommend me for certain projects. So when British Makeup man Nick Dudman (Batman, Harry Potter films) came to the United States for the production of The Last of the Mohicans searching for an effects crew, he called Smith, and got a list of several makeup people for hire - luckily I was one of them.
I remember getting the message on my answering machine about the job and being completely nervous since I was only 18 years old at the time. While I had worked on smaller projects, this was a big production and required living out of state for a long period of time. Also, I was already a fan of some of Micheal Mann's films like "Thief" and "Manhunter." It would be shooting in and around Asheville North Carolina. Another makeup friend of mine was also contacted, so we flew down together. This was an enormous production that remains one of my fondest memories - the beautiful locations, the vast set constructions and the people associated with it.There was a prosthetic crew of about 5 or 6 of us who would be creating all the casualty makeups and gore for the battle scenes. Our shop was set up in this old building in downtown Ashville. Upstairs from us there was a whole department of about 20 British women, who for months, made wigs for the production. All hand tied, individually knotted wigs. Pretty amazing! I never got the full picture of why it was a joint US/British production..probably an artistic choice because the British are fantastic in many of these departments.
This film assignment in total was a little over five months from start to finish. I think we worked for about 2 and a half months in the shop and then another 2 or three months on set. It was a very long and exhausting shoot. It was not the era of selfies and constant picture taking, so I really don't have many images of the work that was created. Before the shooting schedule started, we spent our time in the studio sculpting, molding, and painting tons of generic wounds that could be made to fit virtually anyone. We made everything we could possibly think of in large batches from small bullet holes, to extreme, gaping wounds, scalping pieces and even long hanging earlobe pieces for the Native American tribes.
The tough part of the assignment was the on-set filming. The battle scenes were on such a large scale, with many extras needing to be made up, that they would form lines of soldiers outside our makeup trailer. We would each have very little time to apply these prosthetics and do makeup on the wounded soldiers.This went on for weeks and weeks. We were working 6 day weeks with the Sunday off. Usually we would get picked up from the hotel around 5 am and then would take an hour or two to travel to these very remote places in the mountains. Then it was often a 12 - 16 hour day. Our crew was often some of the last to leave since we had remove the prosthetics from so many actors. We were averaging 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night for almost 3 months, so that by the end of production, we were all completely exhausted. Saying that, we all felt fortunate to have been part of the film.
One night during shooting at Fort Henry, we had tons of extras made up as wounded. Our crew did research and some of these injuries suffered were really large, grotesque wounds. All of a sudden Micheal Mann stopped filming, and pulled his assistant director aside for a talk. The assistant director then got on a bull horn and started screaming: " Hey effects guys, this in not Friday the f@ucking 13th..we don't want to see all this kind of shit with people's stomachs hanging out." So after that, we toned it down a bit.
One of my featured contributions which is barely seen is a prosthetic piece I made for the death of the Wes Studi character Chingachgook. During the final fight scene, one of the injuries was to be a compound fracture of his elbow. So we cast his elbow area and I sculpted an appliance in clay with the skin ripped opened and the bone sticking out. We molded it and made a foam piece. I also remember a nightmare situation during the filming of that scene. After they filmed Wes Studi with the elbow piece, and he was taken to the trailer to have it removed, they needed to apply it on another actor. I can't remember the reason, but I was the only one on set and we had no duplicate pieces. Normally we would have had 2 or 3 extra pieces for backup, but for some reason we did not. So I was running around trying to find something I could use to recreate the broken elbow piece...with the entire film crew waiting. I found a bag of torn up little foam bits, and with about 50 people just staring at me on a mountain side cliff, I duplicated the appliance. It ended up being fine, but it was one of those moments you never forget.
Another funny episode was unintentionally receiving the full wrath of lead actor Daniel Day Lewis. Drivers would ferry the crew around in small open-backed trucks. One day, two other crew members and I were sitting in the open back of the truck being driven to set. Along the path we saw Daniel Day Lewis working out with his trainer. As part of the deal, the production company had to hire local drivers to work on the crew. Our driver was a bit starstruck and did not understand set protocol. He slowly pulled our truck up and stopped right next to them. We were parked a couple of feet away and I could see that Daniel was ignoring us but getting pissed off. Being the closest to him, I was feeling really uncomfortable...and hoping that the driver would just move along. So then the driver took out his camera and started taking pictures. The three of us were thinking, oh Christ. All of a sudden, Daniel turned bright red, and looking toward me screams, " I am not some F@ucking monkey in the zoo...that everyone just stares at." Now even though this would normally be a very uncomfortable situation, it was hard not to laugh a bit. Needless to say, the driver took off, and I tried to stay out of Daniel's eye line for awhile. A year later when I was watching the film in the theater, and listening to that strong emotional score, I felt honored to be part of it.
