|
This was
my first pro film job. At the legendary Pinewood Studios,
hired
onto the crew of renowned FX shop Image Animation! Working
on a mega-budget, gadget-laden, gore-soaked spooky science-fiction
film!
Yes,
my moment had arrived and life was great: two whole months
of…
…well,
sweeping the floor and emptying the bins mostly.
Like
most new starters, I got my start at the bottom of the food
chain, at runner level. The runner is essentially the ‘Dirty
Harry’ of the crew: any job too menial / nasty / stupid for
the rest of the crew has the runner’s name on it.
Want
those moulds taken down to the storage shed? No problem. Want
your photos picked up from the developers? Done. Want the
maggots scraping off that stunt dummy that’s been left out
in the summer sun for three weeks? Why, my man, let me!
Some
of the tasks assigned to the runner can spill over into the
realm of initiation rite - for example, being dispatched to
the local chemist to buy a hundred condoms and a crate of
KY Jelly. (These are items with a legitimate special effects
use, for blood bag and slime effects.) One long-standing industry
prank is to send the naive young novice down to the hardware
store to ask for 'a long weight'. The fella behind the counter
is in on the joke and replies, "of course sir, please
just stand over there". The runner does exactly that,
and finds himself experiencing... a long wait.
Luckily
I was spared this particular brand of rib-tickling hilarity,
although I was still subjected to my share of (necessary)
‘arm elbow-deep down the drain’ moments. None of this deterred
me though -- I was surrounded by so many interesting sights
that my eyes were practically popping from my head trying
to absorb it all. (To this day, Event Horizon stands as the
most lavish ‘money to burn’ production I’ve ever been involved
with. Darn it - peaked
too soon.)
I
spent the biggest chunk of time working on the 'Shattering
Man' gag. In the film, the central characters board the Event
Horizon craft to find the frozen, mutilated bodies of the
crew floating weightlessly around. Our heroes turn on the
artificial gravity and these 'corspicles’ come crashing to
the ground and shatter into a million pieces.
Workshop
supervisor Dave Bonneywell
masterminded this effect; I
was just ‘monkey boy’, an extra pair of
hands ready to catch anything that looked like it was going
to fall over. Image had already constructed a fibreglass and
silicone ‘beauty’ version of the Man, so we used the same
moulds to build our breakaway model.
He
was constructed out of wax mixed with a brittle polymer, and
built up like a giant Airfix kit: that is to say, we got out
thin front and back sections of his legs and stuck them together,
got out his torso in two halves and stuck those on top, and
so on. By the time we got up to his neck we had a hollow,
fragile replica of our Man’s body into which we could chuck
foam, powder paint, soda crystals and anything else which
might pass for frozen innards. Then we stuck on
his head.
I
have to admit, it was a bit nerve-wracking spending my first
professional
assignment working on something that was actually designed
to come away in your hands! Then there was the small matter
of getting the Man high enough off the ground to give a good
satisfying drop-and-smash. There was talk of lifting and dropping
him using remote-release cables; it
ended up (inevitably!) with half-a-dozen of us up a scaffold
holding him precariously out by our fingertips and letting
him go!
Although
our first drops were generally successful, due to various
wrangles the producers demanded five takes of this
gag, ie. five complete
Men for Dave and me to build. It wasn’t tremendously funny
at the time, but we can laugh about it now. Through the tears.
I
got to keep one of the Man’s hands as a memento. A couple
of years later I was preparing it for display at a trade exhibition,
and just the smell of the wax was enough to bring on my Event
Horizon 'Nam flashbacks.
Ironically,
the most notorious story to come out of this job is also one
that I can't recount publicly on the Internet. What can I
say, except that (a) it involved a Barbie doll, and (b) bad
things happened. For a while this incident was the talk of
the town, and beyond: soon after, I spoke to an effects guy
based up in Glasgow and even he'd heard about it. (The film
industry is atrocious for gossip spreading like wildfire and
anecdotes getting embroidered out of all proportion. Someone
just has to nick their finger on a bandsaw for word to get
around that he's chopped his arm off and drowned in his own
blood.)
I've
set you up now so that the story in your imagination is much
better than the real one. So maybe it is just better
consigning it all to rumour and mystery.
Lobby cards and untorn tickets for the Event Horizon
world premiere. I thought these might gain some value as collectibles
if the film fluked its way to becoming a well-loved classic
of the cinema. Sadly, as audiences everywhere have learned
to their cost, the phrases "well-loved classic of the
cinema" and "directed by Paul W.S. Anderson"
mix like socially retarded oil and water.
This is Uxbridge, the closest town to Pinewood Studios and
the most westerly stop on the London Underground Metropolitan
line. I couldn't drive at the time, so I stayed here for a
couple of years out of convenience.
Sad
to say, but Uxbridge holds the record for the grimmest, most
mean-spirited place I've ever had the displeasure to live.
(Although Nottingham runs it a close second. I couldn't resist
getting that little dig in there). Imagine a 'problem'
housing estate that's expanded out into a whole town, and
you have a pretty good idea of the Uxbridge experience.
I
opened my first-floor flat door one morning to find a fresh
trail of blood winding its way down the stairwell. Another
time, I was walking down the street when a gang of lads assembled
on the other side of the road. One of their number broke away
from the group, snuck up behind me and without a word of warning
punched me full in the back of the neck. When I turned to
confront him, he scurried back to the safety of his mates.
I'm happy to let these anecdotes speak for the quality of
people in Uxbridge.
In
a third 'adventure', a exhibitionist lesbian socked me right
in the jaw. But that's too good an anecdote to kill with a
single telling on the Internet.
|
