BLOOD SWEAT AND LATEX EVIL DEAD II

Blood, Sweat and Latex: The Accidental Iconography of ‘Evil Dead II’

You never know. You just never know. I wonder if back in 1930, Universal Studios make up artist, Jack Pierce while constructing his “monster” make-up on actor Boris Karloff, had wondered if he was creating something transcendent. Something that would forever infuse itself into the western culture generation after generation, becoming the mental image that every brain would access when it heard the name “Frankenstein.” I bet he didn’t. I bet ol’ Jack had an assignment, did the best job that he could, collected his meager paycheck and was grateful to be working during the depression.

Truly, that is the way it is. You never can tell what will connect with audiences. You just do the work, collect your salary, and thank God you are not pounding the pavement looking for your next job.

Evil Dead II is one of those cult favorite films that so much of has been discussed and revealed through interviews, articles, supplemental videos on DVD’s, convention panels, etc., that I’m not sure what I can add to all of this information besides my individual view point. Forgive me if you’ve heard much of this information before; just know that what you are now reading is not being pushed through the filter of a reporter. I was there in Mark Shostrom’s South Pasadena studio. And although, again, I didn’t go to location in North Carolina, what I designed and sculpted at Mark’s would follow me to this day.

After Star Trek IV wrapped up, Mark contacted me about my availability to work on Evil Dead II. Like most, I was a big fan of The Evil Dead; Sam Raimi had balanced his small budget with large amounts of imagination and ingenuity. The result was a scary, weird, thrilling film that became a cult classic. The idea of working on Sam’s latest film was thrilling, especially since it was an Evil Dead film!

Returning to South Pasadena, to Mark Shostrom’s shop was an interesting homecoming. The familiar faces of Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero, and Aaron Sims would be joining the crew along with a very talented sculptor from Pittsburgh, Michael Trcic (the man with the missing vowel). I have to hand it to Mark Shostrom. He had hired a crew that he trusted implicitly and he felt comfortable dividing the artistic duties among his artists.

Howard Berger, being the most experienced among the employees would handle actor Bruce Campbell’s possession make-ups as the character, Ash. Mike Trcic would be handling all of the Linda possessions (Linda was played by Denise Bixler), Aaron Sims would be handling Ash’s “evil hand” as well as the elongated “Pee Wee” neck that grew from the possessed Henrietta. Henrietta, portrayed by actress Lou Hancock prior to possession would be played by Sam Raimi’s brother, Ted, after her possession. The make up would require extensive prosthesis as well as a bloated festering suit, so Mark decided to handle it himself. As for me, Mark asked if I would handle the possession of a character named Ed (or “Evil Ed” as he came to be called).

A day or so before everyone else started, Aaron Sims, Mark, and I spent some time drawing some designs of the various characters. The note Mark gave me about Ed was that he was going to grow an over-sized mouth. My first sketch was a color pencil rendering on deep blue paper showing a man with the signature “Evil Dead” white eyes glaring out above an elongated mouth that looked more like Universal Studios’ remake of The Mummy than anything else. It didn’t work.

The previous October, I had made a foam-latex Halloween mask inspired by the “Amy” make-up executed by Steve Johnson for Fright Night. Being a huge fan of Steve’s imaginative work, I wondered how I could take the concept further and really disguise the performer’s mouth that peeked out from beneath the over-sized mouth prosthetic. My solution was to sculpt rows of teeth like a great white shark or a lamprey. That way, the rows of teeth concealed my face and the illusion was effective. I spoke to Mark about the idea and brought him what was left of the mask to show him and he agreed that I should rework the concept.

I drew a white-line, color pencil drawing of a frightening visage with rows of more squared-off, broken teeth (rather than the shark-like teeth that I incorporated on my Halloween mask) and a concept was born.

Mark explained that the script called for Ed to do some things that could be beyond what make up on an actor would accomplish and I would have to sculpt a corresponding puppet head. Unfortunately, because of budget restrictions, this puppet head was going to have to serve double duty: It would be utilized when Ed had to spin his head completely around 360 degrees, or swallow a big clump of the character, Bobbie Jo’s hair, but it would also be used for when half of his head would get cut off with an axe.

   

When actor Rick Francis came in for life casting, we did a whole head cast, teeth, and finger casts (he would be wearing finger extensions…hey, this was the 80s, remember? Finger extensions were king!). We made a flexible mold from the cast and I had the pieces I needed to commence the work.

I sculpted the make-up first, working out the design in three dimensions on a cast of Rick’s face. When I had the piece roughed out, I made a clay pour out of a flexible mold of the original life cast to begin the puppet head using the make up sculpt as a guide.

Attempting to get the most with the least, I sculpted the puppet head with an asymmetrical expression on its face. On the camera right side, the eyebrow and eye are sculpted to look shocked, where on the camera left side, the brow and eye expression reflect rage. Cutting the head on a diagonal would leave the shocked part while the angry portion would hit the ground. As simple as it seemed, it turned out to be quite effective.

For Evil Ed’s signature teeth, Mark offered some pre-cast singular acrylic teeth that I distressed with a motor tool then carefully worked into the sculptures. Of course, they would be removed prior to molding, but I needed to keep an accurate record of which teeth went where. I sculpted Rick’s dentures and hoped to enhance the illusion by putting a row of teeth on the roof of his mouth behind his upper teeth. His tongue would cover the bottom palette anyway. As for finger extensions, I sculpted several of the fingers to have two sets of nasty fingernails to keep in concert with the multiple features concept.

By the time I was deep into Evil Ed’s work, Robert Kurtzman had returned from Italy where he had been working on set for Mark on From Beyond. Bob was a good make-up artist who actually enjoyed applying prosthesis, in contrast, I’d rather be working with a puppet or creature suit. He really wanted to go on location and apply make-ups for Evil Dead II and I was asked if I had any objections if Bob went to North Carolina instead of me. I had none. I knew Evil Ed was in good hands.

We did a make-up test for Sam Raimi and producer Robert Tappert at Mark’s shop. I had the opportunity to work with Bob applying the make-up to Rick and together, Bob and I established coloration and the “look” of “Evil Ed.” The only thing that was missing was the contact lenses, but at least I was able to see my concept fleshed out and see Sam Raimi’s reaction in person before the team headed to location.

Privately, we shot some video of the puppet head. Unfortunately the hair work had been farmed out and the pieces that came back didn’t match Rick Francis closely enough. In fact, as much as I love the make-up, the finished puppet on screen makes me cringe – mainly because of the wig.

But like I said, you never know. When I saw Evil Dead II the following year, I was blown away. I thought that the film was such an incredible imaginative ride that by the time the puppet showed up I was so into the scene that I didn’t care. And as the credits rolled up, I felt pretty good about my contribution to the film.

Flash forward a few years. I’m in line at a movie theater and I see a guy next to me with a familiar looking tattoo on his arm. I asked him to roll up his sleeve – lo and behold there is Evil Ed looking at me. Someone loved the character so much that he had it permanently applied to his epidermis. I was flabbergasted. I had never produced a piece of work that someone had felt that deeply about before. Over the years, I’ve seen masks, garage model kits, fan paintings and yes, more tattoos of Evil Ed and it never ceases to amaze and humble me. I certainly wasn’t thinking about creating something so iconic.

I was just trying to hide an actor’s mouth.

…And Last Time on Blood, Sweat and Latex…: “Boldly Going to Work on ‘Star Trek IV’”

Shannon Shea, a native New Orleanian educated at The California Institute of the Arts, has enjoyed a 27-year tenure designing, constructing, and performing animatronic creatures and characters for Motion Pictures and Television. He has had the pleasure of contributing to such diverse films as Predator, Dances With Wolves, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Spy Kids, The Chronicles of Narnia, Drag Me To Hell and 2012’s Men In Black 3.

Not limited to the confines of Motion Pictures, he paints (having been shown in New York, North Carolina, and Los Angeles), sculpts, writes and authors a new blog about his motion picture experiences called Monster History 101. Recently, he was tapped by the Stan Winston School of Character Design to be one of their instructors for a lecture series entitled Garage Monsters. When not participating on Hollywood projects, he enjoys producing, writing, and directing his own short films including Hotel Superman, Blind Passion, and his current Internet project Phantom Harbor. Shannon lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Tracy, an Operatic Soprano and their daughter, Molly, who attends the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago

BLOOD SWEAT AND LATEX THE MONSTER SQUAD

After working with both Mark Shostrom and Sonny Burman on Evil Dead II, I had ended up back at Stan Winston’s studio. Stan and his permanent crew of John Rosengrant, Shane Mahan, Tom Woodruff, Jr., and Richard Landon were back in the shop from England and Aliens, and had just completed the Robert Zemekis episode of Amazing Stories, “Go to the Head of the Class.” The next assignment was a mechanical boar for the Debra Winger/Theresa Russell vehicle Black Widow. No, you didn’t miss anything. The sequence was cut just as we finished the puppet. Alec Gillis returned to the studio in time for the next Amazing Stories episode “Miss Stardust” for which we created three intergalactic beauty contestants.

Ironically, it was during the shooting at Universal Studios, that Stan told us what the next assignment was going to be: A cross between The Goonies and Ghostbusters entitled The Monster Squad. Okay, confession time here. I do like the original Universal films Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman; I’m not a huge fan of The Mummy. Yes, my brother and I saw all of the films and collected the Aurora model kits (so good) but my love of monsters truthfully was for giant monsters: King Kong, Godzilla, Ray Harryhausen pictures, dinosaurs – those were the monsters that really ignited my imagination. I was partial to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but technically, this was a 50s monster and not a 30s monster like its cousins. So when Stan told us that we would be creating new versions of the classic monsters, I was interested, but it would have been impossible to match the excitement level of my colleagues.

While we busied ourselves around the shop, cleaning and organizing after the “Miss Stardust” shoot, Stan set to work designing the monsters himself. His challenge was that he would have to create recognizable versions of the monsters without infringing on the strict Universal Studios designs. No bolts on the neck for Frankenstein’s monster, no widow’s peak on Dracula, etc. Instead, Stan turned largely to the work of monster comic book artist Berni Wrightson for inspiration. As designs were finalized, Stan’s lifers divided up the creatures amongst themselves. Tom would take on the Frankenstein’s Monster duties, Shane Mahan tackled the Mummy, John Rosengrant would be responsible for the Wolfman, and Alec Gillis would supervise the Dracula transformation pieces. That left the Gillman duties to two relative new comers: Steve Wang and Matt Rose.

Matt had worked at Stan Winston’s on Aliens, having sculpted the Alien Warrior tail and his friend, also from San Jose, Steve Wang, joined the studio after Stan had reviewed Steve’s impressive portfolio. These “kids” (they were both barely 20 at the time) had built full monster suits in their homes for conventions and short films that they had made (surely you have heard of Kung Fu Rascals?). So, Stan decided to give them a shot and have them supervise and construct the Gillman suit that would be worn by Tom Woodruff, Jr.

Like a high school gym class, the workers were chosen by the supervisors to work on different teams; I was chosen to assist John Rosengrant with the Wolfman.

Stan put a lot of thought and effort into the design of Monster Squad’s Wolfman. He had done dozens of drawings of this creature and had made the distinction that our Wolfman was a wolf-man and not a Werewolf like the monsters featured in An American Werewolf in London or The Howling. His intention was to expand the idea of a lycanthrope to the limits of contemporary, animatronic technology, and, as was always his goal, he wanted to fool audiences and push their suspension of disbelief.

This meant that doing a prosthetic make-up, like Tom was doing for Frankenstein’s monster, was out of the question. This was to be a completely animatronic mask worn by a suit performer. Actor, Jon Gries, had been cast as the human victim of the Wolfman’s curse, and we would have to execute an on-camera transformation as well. However, Jon would not be playing the actual Wolfman, those duties would fall to Carl Thibault who was larger than Jon, thereby enhancing the illusion that the Wolfman’s body had undergone a dramatic transformation.

We cast both actors, made the necessary molds to generate body, head, hands, feet, and teeth positives to begin sculpting. John Rosengrant assigned me the task of sculpting the wolfman’s paws and feet, while he concentrated on the torso and the head. Trying to impress my colleagues I went to town, sculpting powerful, large, vein-y, arms but when it got close to molding the pieces, we took a look at the first sculpts and realized that they were too thick. Once the fur would be punched into the arms they would have had Popeye proportions. Flustered, I had to quickly sculpt another pair that were thinner and less anatomically exaggerated; they would be covered with fur anyway.

Aside from the transformation and the suit, there were a couple of additional werewolf moments that would have to be designed and built: a transformation bladder arm for when a presumed-dead Jon Gries begins to transform in the back of an ambulance, and post-explosion Wolfman parts that under some sort of supernatural power, recombine (proving that the only way to kill a Wolfman is with a silver bullet).

Too much time has passed for me to recall who came up with the idea, but my guess is that after a discussion between mechanics, Dave Nelson, Dave Kindlon, and Steve James, it was decided to build a remote control dismembered Wolfman arm. Steve James (to my memory) built most of the mechanics that drove the arm utilizing radio-control car technology. I had made a fiberglass core out of one of the Wolfman glove molds for Steve to work with, and he was even able to work in some limited wrist and finger movement!

After the arm was completed, we took it out to the parking lot and videotaped its maiden voyage, driving around, hopping over speed bumps. As it hit one of the humps, it tumbled and couldn’t right itself; this necessitated the addition of two thin stabilizer rods that prevented the arm from rolling. It was an impressive piece to be sure.

In contrast, for the torso and legs we ran latex and polyfoam pieces, finished them somewhat crudely and puppeteered them via monofilament. The mechanical head was temporarily set onto the torso in the hope of adding some facial movement to the otherwise limited puppet.

On the day of shooting, we put the body in place against the wall, attached monofilament to it and then filmed it writhing around in pain. Next we attached monofilament to the thigh area of the Wolfman’s dismembered leg and then dragged it through the shot. Finally, it was time for the arm to make its screen debut.

I wish I had had a camera on Stan’s face as Steve James appeared with two radio controllers and the mechanical arm. It was as if some invisible force had punched Stan in the solar plexus. “What is THIS?” he demanded. We told him that it had been built specifically for this shot. “WHAT?! WHY?! Why didn’t you just pull something along on a piece of monofilament like the rest of the parts?” I answered, “Because the radio controlled arm can do this!” I placed the arm around the corner and Steve James expertly drove it right to where Stan was standing. Stan wasn’t impressed, and we didn’t understand.

“How much money did we spend on this?” he asked. We shrugged. We didn’t know. We built it and no one had stopped us. Right? Stan went on to say that the arm dragging around a corner could still have been accomplished using a simple latex and soft polyfoam arm on the end of a piece of monofilament. To him it didn’t matter how cool the piece was, it was a complete waste of money.

Oops.

To add insult to injury, since it was the last body part to be filmed, it was decided that they would just shoot the arm moving in a straight line for about 10 feet.

Oops.

Oh well, when you are building so many monsters and effects for one film, it is easy to lose sight of what is required vs. the budget. Hey at least it made it into the movie.

At the Gillman camp, they had built a puppet head furnished with a frog-like tongue that could be extended out to eat a fly in the air; I don’t think ever made it in front of camera!

…And Last Time on Blood, Sweat and Latex…: “The Accidental Iconography of ‘Evil Dead II’”

Shannon Shea, a native New Orleanian educated at The California Institute of the Arts, has enjoyed a 27-year tenure designing, constructing, and performing animatronic creatures and characters for Motion Pictures and Television. He has had the pleasure of contributing to such diverse films as Predator, Dances With Wolves, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Spy Kids, The Chronicles of Narnia, Drag Me To Hell and 2012’s Men In Black 3.

Not limited to the confines of Motion Pictures, he paints (having been shown in New York, North Carolina, and Los Angeles), sculpts, writes and authors a new blog about his motion picture experiences called Monster History 101. Recently, he was tapped by the Stan Winston School of Character Design to be one of their instructors for a lecture series entitled Garage Monsters. When not participating on Hollywood projects, he enjoys producing, writing, and directing his own short films including Hotel Superman, Blind Passion, and his current Internet project Phantom Harbor. Shannon lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Tracy, an Operatic Soprano and their daughter, Molly, who attends the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago

END OF LIBERTY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME

ERAGON

HAITIAN ZOMBIES

Read a real-life medical report on three cases of Haitian zombies

Zombies may seem like the purview of AMC dramas nowadays, but in 1997, English medical journal The Lancet published an intriguing set of case studies detailing three reports of zombification in Haiti. What caused the dead to walk in these instances? Well, let's just say reality is far less lurid than George Romero flicks.

Here are the three case studies the researchers observed in southern Haiti between 1996-1997:

FI was around 30 years old when she died after a short febrile illness and was buried by her family the same day in the family tomb next to her house. 3 years later she was recognised by a friend wandering near the village; her mother confirmed her identity by a facial mark, as did her 7-year-old daughter, her siblings, other villagers, her husband, and the local priest. She appeared mute and unable to feed herself. Her parents accused her husband of zombifying her (he was jealous of her after she had had an affair). After a local court authorised the opening of her tomb, which was full of stones, her parents were undecided whether to take her home and she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Port-au Prince [...]

WD, 26 years old, was the eldest son of an alleged former tonton macoute (secret policeman) under the Duvaliers' regime. The father was our principal informant together with WD's mother and other villagers. When he was 18, he suddenly became ill with a fever, "his eyes turned yellow," he "smelled bad like death," and "his body swelled up". Suspecting sorcery, his father asked his older brother to obtain advice from a boko [or sorcerer], but WD died after 3 days and was buried in a tomb on family land next to the house of a female cousin. The tomb was not, as was customary, watched that night. 19 months later, WD reappeared at a nearby cock fight, recognised his father, and accused his uncle of zombifying him [...]

MM, aged 31, was the younger sister of our principal informant who described her as formerly a friendly but quiet and shy girl, not very bright. At the age of 18, MM had joined some friends in prayers for a neighbour who had been zombified; she herself then became ill with diarrhoea and fever, her body swelled up and she died in a few days. The family suspected revenge sorcery. After 13 years, MM had reappeared in the town market 2 months before we met her, with an account of having been kept as a zombi in a village 100 miles to the north, and having borne a child to another zombi (or perhaps to theboko). On the death of the boko, his son had released her and she travelled home on foot.

The researchers diagnosed the first patient with catatonic schizophrenia, the second with epilepsy and brain damage (presumably from oxygen deprivation), and the third with potential fetal alcohol syndrome.

To makes matters even curiouser, DNA testing revealed that the second and third patients were cases of mistaken identity. The researchers posit that reported cases of zombification have less to do with mind-controlling neurotoxins and more to do with untreated or undiagnosed mental illness and brain disorders. You can read the full study — "Clinical findings in three cases of zombification" — here.

PREDICTIONS THAT CAME TRUE

Ten 100-year predictions that came true

COMMENTS (122)

By Tom Geoghegan

John Watkins predicted Americans would be taller, tanks would exist and C, X and Q would no longer feature in our everyday alphabet

Continue reading the main story

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In 1900, an American civil engineer called John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions about what the world would be like in 2000. How did he do?

As is customary at the start of a new year, the media have been full of predictions about what may happen in the months ahead.

But a much longer forecast made in 1900 by a relatively unknown engineer has been recirculating in the past few days.

In December of that year, at the start of the 20th Century, John Elfreth Watkins wrote a piece published on page eight of an American women's magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, entitled What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years.

He began the article with the words: "These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible," explaining that he had consulted the country's "greatest institutions of science and learning" for their opinions on 29 topics.

Watkins was a writer for the Journal's sister magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, based in Indianapolis.

The Post brought this article to a modern audience last week when its history editor Jeff Nilsson wrote a feature praising Watkins' accuracy.

It was picked up and caused some excitement on Twitter. So what did Watkins get right - and wrong?

10 predictions that Watkins got right...

1. Digital colour photography

Watkins did not, of course, use the word "digital" or spell out precisely how digital cameras and computers would work, but he accurately predicted how people would come to use new photographic technology.

A scan of the original article can be found online

"Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.... photographs will reproduce all of nature's colours."

This showed major foresight, says Mr Nilsson. When Watkins was making his predictions, it would have taken a week for a picture of something happening in China to make its way into Western papers.

People thought photography itself was a miracle, and colour photography was very experimental, he says.

"The idea of having cameras gathering information from opposite ends of the world and transmitting them - he wasn't just taking a present technology and then looking to the next step, it was far beyond what anyone was saying at the time."

Patrick Tucker from the World Future Society, based in Maryland in the US, thinks Watkins might even be hinting at a much bigger future breakthrough.

"'Photographs will be telegraphed' reads strikingly like how we access information from the web," says Mr Tucker.

2. The rising height of Americans

"Americans will be taller by from one to two inches."

Watkins had unerring accuracy here, says Mr Nilsson - the average American man in 1900 was about 66-67ins (1.68-1.70m) tall and by 2000, the average was 69ins (1.75m).

Continue reading the main story

How did Watkins do?

Patrick TuckerWorld Future Society

Watkins' record as a forecaster, based on this small segment of his work, was less than perfect. But that doesn't mean he was a bad futurist. Although he died before the World Future Society was formed in 1966, we would have been honoured to consider him a member. We believe that talking about the future is the most important thing that people do, even though the future, by its nature, is unknowable. We invent the future through our actions and change it constantly. We can never know it fully but we can always be better prepared for what may occur. Watkins helped people begin this act of preparation and considered creation.

• World Future Society
• BBC experts predict big stories in 2012

Today, it's 69.5ins (1.76m) for men and 64ins (1.63m) for women.

3. Mobile phones

"Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn."

International phone calls were unheard of in Watkins' day. It was another 15 years before the first call was made, by Alexander Bell, even from one coast of the US to the other. The idea of wireless telephony was truly revolutionary.

4. Pre-prepared meals

"Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishment similar to our bakeries of today."

The proliferation of ready meals in supermarkets and takeaway shops in High Streets suggests that Watkins was right, although he envisaged the meals would be delivered on plates which would be returned to the cooking establishments to be washed.

5. Slowing population growth

"There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America [the US]."

The figure is too high, says Nilsson, but at least Watkins was guessing in the right direction. If the US population had grown by the same rate it did between 1800 and 1900, it would have exceeded 1 billion in 2000.

"Instead, it grew just 360%, reaching 280m at the start of the new century."

6. Hothouse vegetables

Winter will be turned into summer and night into day by the farmer, said Watkins, with electric wires under the soil and large gardens under glass.

"Vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants to grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. Rays of coloured light will hasten the growth of many plants. Electricity applied to garden seeds will make them sprout and develop unusually early."

Large gardens under glass were already a reality, says Philip Norman of the Garden Museum in London, but he was correct to predict the use of electricity. Although coloured lights and electric currents did not take off, they were probably experimented with.

Continue reading the main story

Who was J Elfreth Watkins?

• Lived from 1852-1903
• Was a railroad engineer until he suffered a "disabling" accident in 1873
• After that, became a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad
• In 1885, took a job as curator at the transport section of the US National Museum

Source: Smithsonian Institution Archives

"Electricity certainly features in plant propagation. But the earliest item we have is a 1953 booklet Electricity in Your Garden detailing electrically warmed frames, hotbeds and cloches and electrically heated greenhouses, issued by the British Electrical Development Association.

"We have a 1956 soil heater, used in soil to assist early germination of seeds in your greenhouse."

7. Television

"Man will see around the world. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span."

Watkins foresaw cameras and screens linked by electric circuits, a vision practically realised in the 20th Century by live international television and latterly by webcams.

8. Tanks

Tweets praised Watkins' accuracy

"Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of today."

Leonardo da Vinci had talked about this, says Nilsson, but Watkins was taking it further. There weren't many people that far-sighted.

9. Bigger fruit

"Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren."

Lots of larger varieties of fruit have been developed in the past century, but Watkins was over-optimistic with regard to strawberries.

10. The Acela Express

"Trains will run two miles a minute normally. Express trains one hundred and fifty miles per hour."

Exactly 100 years after writing those words, to the very month, Amtrak's flagship high-speed rail line, the Acela Express, opened between Boston and Washington, DC. It reaches top speeds of 150mph, although the average speed is considerably less than that. High-speed rail in other parts of the world, even in 2000, was considerably faster.

...and four he didn't

1. No more C, X or Q

"There will be no C, X or Q in our everyday alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary."

This was obviously wrong, says Patrick Tucker of the World Future Society, but also remarkable in the way that it hints at the possible effects of mass communication on communication itself.

2. Everybody will walk 10 miles a day

"This presents a rather generous view of future humanity but doesn't seem to consider the popularity and convenience of the very transportation breakthroughs [moving sidewalks, express trains, coaches] forecast elsewhere in the article," says Mr Tucker.

Continue reading the main story

And some other Watkins forecasts

• Central heating and air conditioning
• Cheap cars
• Average life expectancy to rise to 50
• Free university education
• Refrigerated transport of food

3. No more cars in large cities

"All hurry traffic will be below or above ground when brought within city limits."

However, many cities do have pedestrian zones in their historic centres. And he correctly forecast elevated roads and subways.

4. No mosquitoes or flies

"Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been exterminated."

Watkins was getting ahead of himself here. Indeed the bed bug is making a huge comeback in the US and some other countries.

Maybe the end of the mosquito and the house fly is something to look forward to in 2100?

Your comments (122)

WARM BODIES

Here is the official lowdown on the plot setup for Warm Bodies:

Zombies love people, especially their brains. But R (Nicholas Hoult) is different. He’s alive inside, unlike the hundreds of other grunting, drooling undead—all victims of a recent plague that drove the remaining survivors into a heavily guarded city. Now the Zombies roam about an airport terminal, searching for human prey and living in fear of the vicious Boneys, the next undead incarnation.
One day, R and his best friend M lumber toward the city in search of food. There, R first sets his eyes on JULIE (Teresa Palmer), a beautiful human. Determined to save her—first from the other Zombies and then from the Boneys—R hides her in his home, a cluttered 747 aircraft. Julie is terrified, and R’s grunted assurances of “Not…eat” do little to calm her. But when R begins to act more human than Zombie, coming to her defense, refusing to eat human flesh, and even speaking in full sentences, Julie realizes that R is special.

As you probably picked up from reading all that, Warm Bodies is part Romeo and Juliet-meets-the-zombpocalypse – and, of course, the book/film both invite comparisons to theTwilight series for that reason. Heck, even Hoult’s makeup job and colorless complexion as R bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, as you may note while checking out the following pics of the actor in Warm Bodies:

All that said, Warm Bodies doesn’t violate traditional zombie mythos to the degree that Stephenie Meyer’s (in)famous young adult literature (and it cinematic counterparts) does with vampires; nor does it take place against a familiar everyday backdrop or involve regular teens like either the Twilight franchise or any of its obvious imitators (ex. I Am Number Four).

Warm Bodies also has the benefit of a cast that includes experienced veterans and up-and-comers alike, including Hoult, Teresa Palmer (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), John Malkovich (RED), Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine), Dave Franco (the upcoming 21 Jump Street) and Analeigh Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love.).

Lastly – seeing how Levine was by and large successful at mixing cathartic laughs with serious drama involving a subject as volatile as cancer in 50/50, he seems as well-positioned as anyone to make an unorthodox love story about a young woman and an undead monster work onscreen.

We will see how it all pans out when Warm Bodies lumbers into theaters around the U.S. on August 10th, 2012.

Source: USA Today (via Collider)

WONDERLAND 24

THE FLY

Twenty-five years after its initial release, David Cronenberg’s The Fly is thought to be a modern classic, a highly effective mixture of science, romance, and terror that pulled in a much greater audience than the horror fans looking for a cheap thrill. Cronenberg has always been a director poised on horror as a higher art, a filmmaker who understands the grotesque and how much it is apparent in real life. Some, myself included, call The Fly his master work, and Cronenberg, a very intelligent speaker about all things, not just his own work, has much to offer the viewers of his film and the listeners of the commentary he provides that film.

So here, without any further ado or buzz or flitting around your head or what have you, the things we learned from David Cronenberg’s commentary on The Fly.

The Fly (1986)

Commentators: David Cronenberg (co-writer, director), gallons and gallons of dramatic goop

• The Fly came to David Cronenberg through Mel Brooks who was working with producer Stuart Cornfeld at the time. Cronenberg had read the screenplay for the remake before, but couldn’t work on it, as he was in the process of working on an adaptation of Total Recall with Dino De Laurentiis. The director was interested in the way co-writer Charles Edward Poguehad rewritten the original 1958 film, but Cronenberg felt the characters in the screenplay could have been differentiated more from characters in the original short story. Still he was impressed and surprised by how much the screenplay felt like something he would have written.
• The idea of the opening title card for THE FLY, the idea of it fluttering in, was done initially for the film’s teaser. Cronenberg liked it so much he incorporated it into the finished film.
• Cronenberg auditioned several women for the Veronica Quaife role, but he wanted someone who could match Jeff Goldblum‘s Seth Brundle in his eccentricities and stature. The director and Goldblum finally decided to look towards Goldblum’s girlfriend at the time, Geena Davis. Cronenberg found that working with a real-life couple meant he and the actors had to find a way to allow them to disconnect from who they were and find these characters who have just met.
• Cronenberg refers to the first designs for the famous telepod as “glass showers” much like how they looked in the original film. The director thought this was somewhat boring. The ultimate design came to Cronenberg and production designer Carol Spier when they went to his garage and saw his Ducati motorcycle. Cronenberg felt the telepods should have more of a machine element to them. In fact, the finalized telepods are the Ducati cylinder head structure turned upside down.
• “You really get into the nervous system of your actors when you’re directing, and it is like a fusion, a sort of Brundlefly fusion.” – Cronenberg on working with his actors, particularly Goldblum, who the director feels was perfect for the role.
• The director mentions he doesn’t think the original story by George Langelaan is a particularly well-written story. However, he feels the basic concept is stunning and “high concept.” Cronenberg believes it is sure to spawn a few more movies sometime in the future. No word on whether this commentary came out before or after 1989′s The Fly II. We’ll just assume it’s after and hope for the best.
• The name Brundle came from Formula One racer, Martin Brundle. Cronenberg generally takes names of his characters from the world of motor racing, as he is an enthusiast. The director notes this is interesting considering Seth Brundle suffers from motion sickness, one of the reasons why he invented the telepods.
• Cronenberg recognizes the theatricality to the movie, and, in fact, mentions how he was working on an opera adaptation with Howard Shore. He points out that most of the movie is three characters interacting in one location. “Four if you count the baboon.”
• The director mentions that watching The Fly for this commentary was the first time he had seen it since 1986 during its release. He makes notice by how disturbing yet emotional he finds the film to be. He believes that is one of the contributing factors to the film’s success, that it attracted an audience that generally did not see horror films, especially one as graphic as this.
• The idea of Veronica flushing the toilet while Stathis Borans is in the shower came about when Geena Davis was messing around on set. Cronenberg refers to this moment as one of the classics of film history and explains the concept of cold water rushing from an apartment and hot water moving to the shower. So there you have it. Pranks 101 with David Cronenberg. Who says the guy doesn’t have a sense of humor?
• The push-in shot of the baboon disappearing from one telepod was Cronenberg’s first evermotion control shot. In order to make the baboon seem to disappear the shot had to be done twice, one with the baboon in the telepod and one without. To ensure both shots are the exact same, computers have to be used to control the camera. This being the early days of such technology, the tracks the dolly traveled on were extremely large, and Cronenberg compares them to 19th Century railroad tracks.
• The idea of Seth Brundle mimicking Einstein in that his wardrobe is made up of the exact same outfit to keep him from using brain power to select clothing is one of the character elements Cronenberg added to the screenplay. In fact, the director states he has taken on this way of dressing himself since, but he says in his case it’s probably just laziness.
• “This is my version of the sexual awakening of a nerd.” – Cronenberg on the sex scene between Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife.
• Cronenberg has interesting insight into the comparison between scientists and artists, how many scientists also have some kind of artistry about them. The director notes the cross-over between brilliant scientists and brilliants artists, how their creativity works and how they come up with solutions. He mentions how like Seth Brundle, many scientists seek answers through the comfort of producing art. In Brundle’s case it is playing the piano. “You can be a science geek or a science nerd, but it doesn’t mean you have no poetry in your soul or body.”
• The director notes the baboon used in the film became attracted to the script supervisor,Gillian Richardson, as she was evidently close to his height. Cronenberg notes this was a problem on set, and Goldblum, who was exponentially taller than the baboon, was able to dominate him. A subservient relationship grew between Goldblum and the baboon, who accepted the lead actor as the alpha male on set. The director goes on to talk about how you can’t train a baboon, and ways to make it look as if the one in The Fly was performing had to be devised. For one scene, a living fly was attached to a fishing line and dangled around the baboon’s head.
• It always bothered Cronenberg that in the 1958 version of The Fly, the flies head on the human body was the size of a normal man’s head. No scientific or logical reason was given that the flies head would grow to human size if they were simply swapped. Another thing that bothered the director about the original film was the shot from the fly’s point of view, the classic mosaic shot of the screaming wife. “We all know that insect eyes have facets unlike human eyes, many facets, hundreds of them, thousands of them.” Cronenberg goes on to explain that each of those facets would replicate a different piece of the whole picture, not the whole picture itself. So there. Entomology 101 with David Cronenberg.
• The scene where Seth performs gymnastic moves around his apartment was obviously done by gymnast stand-ins. However, as Cronenberg points out, the gymnasts were not used to doing their moves in multiple takes. While competing, gymnasts train for up to years at a time to perform only once. They had to perform their moves so many times during filming it got to the point where they couldn’t do them any longer.
• Cronenberg notes in the scene where Seth is rambling on and on while continuously pouring sugar in his coffee that even though a lot of dialogue was written, Goldblum added lines in order to continue the amping up effect it had on his character. Cronenberg also notes this scene could have a parallel with someone being on cocaine, which was common in the 1980s. He also likens the Brundlefly fusion to a disease and the fact that when someone is given a disease, they always try to find the benefits to what is happening to them. “I really did want there to be a strangely attractive though dangerous up-side to the fly fusion,” mentions the director.
• When recording Howard Shore‘s score, Cronenberg remembers Mel Brooks questioning whether certain moments were too much. He particularly noticed how much the music crescendos when Brundle is walking down the street. “The guy is just walking down the street,” said Brooks. “No, Mel,” replied Cronenberg, “The guy is about to meet his destiny.”
• George Chuvalo, who plays the man Brundle arm wrestles in the bar, is the Canadian heavyweight boxing champion. He fought Muhammad Ali and George Foreman and was never knocked off his feet during his career.
• The song “Help Me” by Bryan Ferry was developed for the movie as a promotional tool. It was common in the 1980s to have a song written for your movie so you could have a music video running that promotes the film. Cronenberg doesn’t feel it fit in the movie and using it over the end credits, which was the original plan, was a complete disaster. Howard Shore’s score was just fine, and “Help Me” was left though barely audible during the bar scene.
• The line “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” came from Mel Brooks who said it casually during a conversation about the script. Cronenberg believes that as much as it has been mimicked and reused in films since most probably don’t remember it came from The Fly.
• Cronenberg notes the discussion that The Fly is really about AIDS. The disease was at its highest when the film was made, but the director says it is more about the general idea of aging, disease, and the inevitability of deteriorating. He feels this universal fear was another key element to the film’s success. Likewise, Cronenberg, now much older than he was when he made The Fly, is able to relate to the themes his film brings up. He finds the film to be far more disturbing now than when he made it 20 years prior.
• According to Cronenberg, the basic premise of The Fly, two lovers, one of whom contracts a disease and the other who is forced to watch and ultimately helps the sick one commit suicide, would never have been made as a straight drama. However, as a sci-fi, genre picture, the more serious, dramatic tones and the realism of what the film has to say was guarded. “But you have to consider how many people have given themselves their own death sentence in their bathrooms by discovering that thing in the shower or in the bathtub or in the mirror. That’s where the potency of those scenes comes from.”
• The director mentions a few times the importance of how much Brundle should be able to articulate what is happening to him. By late in the original film, the scientist was a complete mute, and Cronenberg felt this couldn’t have worked for his film. Cronenberg mentions books written from the first-hand perspective of someone who has contracted a terminal disease and how enlightening it was to hear in their own words what was happening to them. The way Brundle explains what is happening to him was drawn from these books allowing the audience to experience the disease even more so than if they were simply watching him transform. This was also important for the director later in the film when Brundle begins to literally lose his own voice.
• Cronenberg notes that even though it isn’t very realistic for someone, in this case Veronica, to only have two people in her life, he felt it important that her only source for comfort or support in dealing with what is happening to Seth is her former lover, Stathis. The director felt it important to emphasize the triangle at the center of the film and to help build Stathis’s motivations later in the film. In fact, The Fly originally ended with Veronica living with Stathis, but audience’s negative reactions – and Cronenberg’s own disapproval of such an ending – forced it to be cut.
• There are a few moments where Cronenberg notes a special effect that would have been done using computers had The Fly been made when technology allowed it. For instance, the scene where Veronica walks in on Seth crawling across the ceiling was done using a huge Ferris wheel and the set being built on that Ferris wheel. As Seth/Goldblum crawls on the ceiling and down the wall, the set rotated to give the supernatural appearance of someone able to do such a thing. Cinematographer Mark Irwin had to devise a system using mirrors in order to light the scene.
• About his own cameo as the gynecologist, Cronenberg mentions he rarely does cameos in his own films. He would prefer to hire actors for all of the roles in his films. However, Geena Davis asked him to play this part, as she felt more comfortable with the director being in this particular…um…position.
• A number of actors were approached for the role of Seth Brundle. Many of them turned the role down, as they were afraid of how much prosthetic makeup they would be required to wear late in the film, that their performance would be lost in the makeup and how much it covered. Jeff Goldblum was not afraid at all. He, in fact, welcomed the challenge. The makeup for the last part of the film took over five hours to apply before filming could even begin. Geena Davis would often sing and read to him while he was having his makeup put on. Cronenberg also notes Goldblum had to learn to speak with various kinds of prosthetic teeth in, and the actor had to work with a speech therapist throughout the filming.
• The “insect politics” speech was something Cronenberg came up with from his days as an entomologist. He was fascinated by insect societies, the division of labor, and the caste structure therein, yet they are very much not human.
• Cronenberg again mentions technology and CGI when discussing the makeup effects on Goldblum. The director finds an immediacy to the character and the performance that is generally lost when a CG performance is given or motion capture is utilized. This is particularly found in the scene between Seth and Veronica on the roof of the Bishop Straun School – they actually filmed there – where the director notes the emotion in the scene and how it could have easily been lost had it been shot using green screen.
• Cronenberg felt that in the final transformation, when Seth is completely gone and all that remains is a giant walking fly, the creature still needed some kind of human element to it for emotion. The articulation was still important even though the character could no longer speak. The director chose to give the creature emotional eyes, what Cronenberg refers to as “big versions of Jeff’s eyes.”
• Many epilogues were thought of to The Fly, most of them dealing with Veronica giving birth or not giving birth, giving birth to a perfectly healthy baby, and even giving birth to a butterfly baby which ended up being a dream. Cronenberg found that the ending they have was so shattering to audiences that nothing worked after that. The director feels the ending to The Fly is the same as the ending to The Dead Zone, another film where many epilogues were thought of but not used.

Best in Commentary

“It’s about mortality and the way that we deal with it and try to understand it and philosophies and emotional attitudes that we develop towards it.”

“The question of technology and science and morality and ethics is often raised in my movies, and there has been the kind of romantic concept of going too far, that you cannot assault the Gods. If you fly too close to the Sun, the wax holding your wings together melts, and you plunge to your doom. I don’t really believe in destiny, per se, but I think that it is innate in our nature to constantly change everything, to question everything, to try to understand everything, and it will inevitably create good and bad, and I don’t think there’s any stopping it.”

Final Thoughts

Almost as subdued as Christopher Nolan was on his Memento commentary, David Cronenberg lulls you into a calm, forcing you to hang on his every word. Thankfully, most of those words are filled with deep insight into both the concept and execution of this 1986 classic. Without a cast member or fellow crew member to bounce ideas off of, something that works for a lot of the commentaries out there, we’re left with only Cronenberg to speak to us.

This particular commentary benefits from that singular voice tremendously. The director never appears distracted, always seems on target with every thought he wishes to convey to his captive audience. The Fly is one of those films and David Cronenberg is one of those directors where you get the impression another commentary could be recorded with completely new information being brought to it, all of it absolutely fascinating.

SIX GUNS AND ZOMBIES

THE LOST GOSPELS