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>>John Rosengrant: There was something in the '80s in the makeup effects business
that was the underlying
thing that everybody wanted was who is going to sculpt the head.
Who is going to get to do the main makeup?
Who's going to
get that cherry job?
Everyone, even though they're your friends,
everyone was competing.
You want to be the guy
that ends up in
Cinefex or Cinefantastique sitting there with your sculpting tool next to the famous thing.
What I realized being
the newer kid on the block
was to get there I just had to keep
getting better as an artist to the point where you can be trusted with that.
I earned that trust from Stan by every
artistic job no matter how small it was,
y'know, whatever it was
to ace that job
because I felt like that was the only way
you're going to climb that ladder,
is not be disgruntled that you're not the guy,
that they're not taking that shot.
It was also doing things on my own
like,
well, we need to do some paint schemes
for something
and just 'can I take the casting home and I'll do?'
And you do it. You bring it in
and you take your shot at that
or if they're doing concept designs,
you just--I went home and did a couple of my own,
and you just--
Do you want to take a look at this?
I think it's having that awareness
that you need to be proactive.
You need to do something about this.
Sitting there brooding about it or wishing
for something is never going to happen.
You have to take that charge.
There was this feeling you would get when you would do something and Stan would come
over,
and see it
and go, "That's great. Did everybody see this?"
Then you had that moment
because it's something I said earlier.
Y'know as an artist,
it's a real--
whatever you're working on is an extension of yourself.
It's part of why we do this.
Musicians write a song or a play.
Artist paint or draw,
or sculpt
or create.
When that's put out there,
they want that acceptance and they want people to go
"wow, that's cool."
Getting that affirmation from Stan
was important because I wanted to grow as an artist,
but then you knew
that you were
on that path.
My first
and earliest memory
was watching TV.
I think I was about five years old
and it was
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,
and absolutely fascinated.
It became a new thing for me. It's like,
"Oh, my god."
I saw King Kong
and Bride of Frankenstein,
and just was absolutely hooked on it.
There was actually kind of a monster craze at that time
because the Aurora model kits
were out. I remember asking for the King Kong at Christmastime.
But those were my first
my earliest memories that planted the seed to get in this business.
My early beginnings with this,
I started to draw
all of this time
and learned, and I started painting
and I'm talking about from kindergarten on.
That just came pretty naturally to me.
My parents
heard that from teachers and they could see that
so they were always very supportive of me.
They didn't really too much what to do.
I mean they got me some
art classes when I was very young
where you got the pastels and
you're doing the banana and apple, and all that but...
It's fantastic because
when you're six years old and you're starting to do that,
that epiphany started to click in of like,
okay, there was a highlight that's what's making the shape.
It started really early.
And I was always asking for the little plastic figures of the monsters and things like that.
And then I stumbled across
on one of our vacations. I saw a Frank Frazetta painting.
I think it was a Creepy magazine.
It had the one where Dracula is fighting Wolfman.
So it was all these things I would stumble across
that were kind of
encouraging me along.
Where this light bulb went off
to where I wanted to make this career
first was in high school
when I thought
this would be a neat thing.
Then my high school art teacher and people kinda would
they were very encouraging as far as
fostering artistic talents,
but they were also very cautious.
Y'know, "Well, there are people in Hollywood that do this.
And I think it was a very hard business to get into.
Maybe you should think about commercial art."
I think they're trying to be very helpful.
But... back in the mid,
late '70s,
this was all
a mystery, especially in Shreveport, Louisiana.
There was nothing, happening there.
And I was really sick and tired of school,
and I started to work for a while.
The thing that kept coming back to me,
something would always reach--would trigger it again--
and I found this--
a book that came out
and it had all of the famous makeup artists in it.
From the Westmores to...
starting with Long Chaney,
Jack Pierce, all the way up to
Stan Winston,
Tom Burman,
John Chambers,
Rick Baker.
Everyone was in this book.
And I've found that in a local Barnes and Noble or whatever and then
there it was Making a Monster.
That book I read it
400 times.
It's what I was doing constantly
and then I said, "That's it. Done."
Basically, it just kept gnawing at me
that I've got to take a shot. I've got to try to do this.
So I started to save up some money
and figured I was just going to move out to California and give this a try.
My uncle was an entertainment lawyer, Gunther Schiff,
and Gunther actually was Stan Winston's
attorney.
He set up a meeting for me with Stan
and I thought,
"Oh, my God.
This is incredible.
How much better can this get?"
I have my portfolio
and it was the most exciting
day of my life and
inspiring day.
Nothing happened.
I didn't get hired.
Stan looked at my book. I went in there.
He flipped through it maybe in about
mmmm...
two minutes.
He said, "This is great. This looks like my work when I was first
starting out.
I don't have any work. Why don't you have a look around and
take your time."
Well, I did take him up on that. I was in the shop for two hours.
I checked with him to make sure it was still okay
to be back there.
To look around and to see molds
and to see things, and sculptures and finished pieces
up close,
you realize
what you have to do
to get hired, to be
at that level.
It was an astounding moment.
Of course, it would have been fantastic if Stan said, "Sure, you're hired, come on
in,"
but it's probably better it didn't happen that way
because it really--it lit even more of a fire. You see this stuff, inspiration.
I saw these
Maquettes that Stan had sculpted of these--
this cat-beast thing tearing this chain away and
all the muscles and structure, and everything.
It really helped put things together
and asking him what kind of clay this was, and everything.
It was
on my way out of there. I was headed to--
it was an art school in North Hollywood, Carter Sexton,
and bought tools and clay.
I was like, "Oh, my God. Now, I really have to do this.
I have to figure this out."
I ended up going over a Makeup Effects Lab
and met with the owners over there, which at the time was Doug White,
Allan Apone,
and Frank Carrisosa.
They actually were hiring on a movie called Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn in
3D.
I was in.
It was heaven
and it was like, "Oh, Jesus.
What am I going to do here? They offered me a job for a couple of weeks."
So I'm thinking,
well, this isn't good
'cause
I quit my job at the supermarket and two weeks I'm back out on the street.
What am I going to do?
I asked them if I could have a leave of absence
and I went and gave it a try.
As everything in this movie business,
it's never what it seems.
The two weeks ended up turning into
roughly four or five months
of work
because you get your foot in the door and they see
great advice to anybody trying to get in at anything in film.
It's a team collaborative thing.
You need to be able to work as a member of the team.
You need to know when to put your artistic ego aside or
fit in, because it's important.
They don't want a squeaky wheel or somebody who's going to be a problem
to be brought in
they want somebody who's going to help the work flow,
help the process.
I understood that already from ... even as a kid.
You play team sports. You get that idea.
Working in the supermarket, you learn how to
deal with lots of personalities and individuals.
I looked back at all of those experiences as helping,
then, my God, you arrive and you're doing art work?
What you wanted to do for a living?
That is what you're being paid to do now? Not
stock the shelves or sweep the floor, or whatever.
My God. I felt like,
y'know, even though I'm the lowest paid man on the totem pole,
it's like--it was in heaven.
I found what I
always wanted to do
and it wasn't a job for me.
It was a career. It was a profession.
I wasn't looking at the clock going,
"Oops, it's five o'clock or 5:30.
Oh, see you!"
It was a passion for me.
And I think Stan recognized that,
and I think Stan saw my skills broaden.
And one time he needed a sketch of something
and I said that I can draw,
and he didn't know that about me.
I ended up drawing these characters for a film that he was putting together
called Beasties
and he needed these drawings done,
and he saw that I could do that. I think that was what
happened between Stan and I,
is he saw me progressing and growing as an artist, and he saw that I had
raw talent
and just really a passion to do this.
I mean there was one time Stan came back to the shop
at nine o'clock at night. Shane and I were still in there working
and because he had given us keys and
codes to the alarm, and all that stuff because
we built up a trust.
But I think when he saw how much we cared
and how much it meant to us,
it helped. It did this for both Shane and I because Shane was there for 25 years as
well.
We became beyond employees.
We became Stan's work family and
people that have that kind of passion and drive,
and willingness to do it perfect,
they're hard to find.
Probably, the first moment when I know I had arrived
and became
part of his real art core
was on Aliens.
Because Stan gave me opportunities on that
to shine.
And working on the queen alien.
I ended up sculpting the whole body.
We did a fifth scale maquette.
I got to do the body of the thing and I thought this is great.
Stan really--
I could see he was giving me
a shot with these things and before that, I helped Shane sculpt
one of the main Invaders from Mars characters.
One time, Stan took me aside and he said,
"You really are turning into a great artist."
But we did it very quickly
through it together with clay.
I felt things were clicking for me
as a sculptor. I always had a
pretty good handle on painting and things like that. I ended up doing a lot of painting
on Terminator.
Once I was starting to learn
the different ways of painting the materials.
Those skills
completely translated over,
how to paint.
But I felt like I was getting better and better and better as a sculptor too.
But it really felt like I had arrived on Aliens.
The films that we had the opportunity to be part of
are so ground breaking.
I mean starting with the first Terminator,
following that up with Aliens.
All of these were such 'wow' moments,
just incredible.
Terminator was that movie that
after reading the script and being on the set with Jim and the work that we were creating,
we knew there was something to this movie.
I had worked on enough other things before that to know that this was--
I think even though it was only made for six million bucks--
that there's something special about this and
it came from Jim.
I think what Jim recognized in Stan and his team was
the same desire that he had to do the best work possible and to
deliver
cinematic history.
We wanted to do that even on this small film.
Everyone had that common goal.
And I'm sure that's why Stan brought us along on Aliens.
Aliens was an amazing moment for me
because having Alien as something that I was
absolutely thrilled
with as a movie and an inspiration
to then be involved with a sequel to that.
It was funny when we got to England. There were a lot of people
over there
that--obviously, there was a team working on it that was in love with it, but there
were a lot of people that were like,
"This is not Ridley Scott. This is a...
a sequel. This is going to be bad."
And, y'know, that was...
It's like, "No, it's not guys. It's going to be
a special thing. Jim is going to make this something else."
It became its own classic because I think what
Jim did
was he didn't try to repeat what Ridley did,
but it's take it in a different way
and--but deliver.
He made a war movie out of it
with Aliens,
but still a classic sci-fi.
That was
y'know pretty spectacular
movie to be involved with.
Monster Squad
for me was a lot of fun because we got to pay
homage to all of those characters that I know I grew up wanting to be a part of.
We all did,
everybody in the shop.
It was great for Stan
to try to revisit them
and re-design them, and re-imagine them.
That was cool.
And we all got to take a character,
and I always loved the Wolf Man
and werewolves so I got to do that one.
We all had our own
own character and that was pretty special. And hot on the heels of that came
Predator
which was done in a really short period of time.
The two artists that really
ran with that one
big time
was Steve ***
and Matt Rose,
and they were pretty new to the group.
But that was their baby but we all pitched in
and helped out on
getting that done
so it could ship out. Cause...
I think it was done in
two months or something, crazy, incredible or like that,
but that was a--it ended up being another one of these landmark films
that--iconic characters.
Stan was getting
the opportunity to do what he always wanted to do is to create iconic characters.
We were all along on that ride
and it was an amazing ride.
Here's the Predator.
We had done Aliens.
We had done the original Terminator.
There are a lot of things in between, but the--
Stan directing Pumpkinhead was actually
one of those moments that I remember as being a great thing because
we got to fill Stan's role a bit more because he
had became a director.
>>Alec Gillis: Oh, that's coming out really well.
Did you just sculpture it
or did you mould it?
>>John Rosengrant: It's right out of the kiln.
We fired it and [inaudible 0:21:47].
It helped us broaden our horizons and
become very accountable for
how the effects were going to be pulled off,
and to help
figure out how they're going to be shot.
That was a
a learning moment there.
Stan being the director, it felt
really comfortable to help
move on in that way.
Then I think I really have to jump forward a couple of things in between, but the next
big moment
was Terminator 2 which was uh...
an incredibly difficult,
groundbreaking
and amazing movie.
And with Jim, y'know, it's got to be great.
Not that I wouldn't want it to be...
but there is that other factor.
This is Jim Cameron.
There's no *** that's going to get by him. This has got to be
freaking amazing
and I wanted to be freaking amazing. I always do,
but there's no quarter.
Y'know, it better be damn good--
I remember when we first brought out these hook arms or whatever
and one of the guys that worked on them,
he's like, "I want to be out on set. I want to be on set. I want to
be there and
be part of it."
Okay. Well, we're going to show to them the hook arms you worked on.
We got to show all that stuff to Jim.
Why don't you come out today?
He was standing there in the background. I remember Jim walking through and picking them
up, and go, "How the hell am I going to shoot this piece of ***?"
I looked over at him going,
"Welcome to the set!
Welcome to the big time!"
In the team's defense
they just finished the night before and pushing to,
because I think there was a lot of
scheduling changes and things. I used to
have the phone next to me at night.
You never knew when they were shooting nights even if you weren't
working on the movie
when that phone call would come.
Three AM you reach over and you pick up and you can hear the radios crackling and the
ADs talking,
"They're going to move up Scene 117 we could get to it tonight."
You're like, "Where are you guys again? In Long Beach?
Okay, cool!"
All right we'll go
get up out of bed and go pack your stuff and
hope and pray that
y'know we've got this rehearsed enough to pull this off.
I don't remember what the dynamic was, but it always seemed like it was shifting and
changing.
Jim starts thinking and go, why don't we add or do?
So you've got to be on your toes.
That's for sure.
That one makes you stronger because you had to deal with a lot of adversity.
The movie is spectacular. I'm very proud to be part of it.
That was one of those where,
okay,
we're going to tackle this
better next time and think about this.
We learned an awful lot.
We started to
get involved with cyber scans and some digital outputting.
Our skill set started to change
at that point in time, starting to embrace more things ourselves.
Then here we are. Then there was Jurassic Park after that.
I mean giant wow moment there too.
Getting to work with such an iconic film maker,
Steven Spielberg and
dinosaurs, something that we all grew up loving.
Okay, we're going to have a
16,000 lb, 36-foot long T-Rex hydraulically operated and moving on a set
along with raptors and
brachiosaurus heads and
spitters and God knows.
It was just crazy.
I mean two years of
creating these dinosaurs
from initial sketches to being on set.
That was a quantum shift,
those two films at that moment on the future
of what it was going to be
with CG being involved.
The 80s of all practical makeup effects,
has changed at this point.
Y'know based on
things I'd done on Terminator and
getting on set.
That's a whole other part of the job.
Was learning how to make the things perform and
I'd always liked theatre and
y'know... plays and,
little bits.
I never
sat there and felt like "I wanna be an actor."
But, I liked it. A lot.
And I also saw that that was an opportunity
to make these things perform. It felt like an outlet for something else
that I really
enjoyed... and
those early monsters from the 30s...
it was as much about their makeup as it was about their performance.
And Stan coming from
the acting background that he did
and him stressing that we're making characters not effects...
that resonated with me. I totally understood that.
We were off in Italy working on a movie Leviathan.
We had created these dive suits.
For some reason one of the Italian stunt guys
said, "There's no way I can walk up that ramp wearing that dive suit."
I was pretty close to the same size as the guy that was in it
and he kept insisting it can't be done.
I just went to Stan and said,
"Stan, I can do that all day long.
That is nothing."
So they put me in the suit and I walk up,
did the shot, went up the ramp and everything.
I'm sure I pissed off many people by doing it, but it just...
was one of those moments of like,
I know the suit we built is totally capable of doing this. I don't know why the guy
doesn't want to do it,
whatever.
After working in that suit on Leviathan
and some other things, we're crawling into half creature suits
on that movie and
there was an opportunity to put somebody into a raptor suit
because it just presented itself. It looks like, "Hey,
we can put somebody in there."
So I volunteered for that.
And probably the hardest suit job I've ever done.
That was tough because I was bent over
in a raptor like position
and you're in there with some variance where you're controlling the arms, other variance
where you're controlling the head and the arms are RC.
It's very strenuous to be in these suits.
I loved it. It was just
really an amazing, amazing thing.
After we lost Stan there was no question in our mind that we
needed to carry on.
For ourselves,
for Stan,
for the crew and the team that had been
y'know grew that big family that was Stan Winston Studio was now going to become Legacy
Effects.
We were not done.
Stan never wanted us to be done and there was no way that we were.
At that point in time we became
Legacy Effects.
Stan's legacy carrying on just what he wanted it to do.
I think he'd be very proud of us today.
The work that we're doing,
expanding
the work,
integrating it in today's world of filmmaking.
It was all of the things that Stan
preached and taught us.
People ask that question, "Oh my God, it must be so hard
now to run this and do this."
Thanks to Stan it really wasn't because he had us running and taking care of things...
He was that wise.
He knew the day would come when we needed to carry on.
He put us out there.
Producers and directors, people knew us.
It wasn't like,
"Oh my God, this is not a viable company now."
They knew who we were cause Stan had
helped train us for that moment.
It felt natural to just continue
and to push forward and to
move it into
the next phase
of makeup and animatronics and special effects.
I'm doing this interview because I believe in the Stan Winston School of Character Arts.
I believe
what Matt, Stan's son's mission is is to bring this to
people that have no idea of anything about this and to the people that want to
know about it and want to hone their craft.
I believe in giving back and trying to help, because people took a chance on me.
I arrived from Shreveport, Louisiana out here in Los Angeles.
People had to take a chance.
What I learned
which will help any kind of artist, I don't care what it is you want to be.
Obviously you need to hone your skills to the best they can be.
You need to be proficient in whatever tools they are whether
you're a musician, whatever it is.
You need to have that skill set and you need to strive to be the best you can be.
It has to be a fire and a desire inside that is driving you
that you are critical
and you are pushing yourself.
Because no one is going to hand you anything
in any of these artistic endeavors,
whether you're a painter, sculptor, dancer,
actor.
You have to be out there.
You've got to sell yourself
and you've got to sell it.
It's part talent.
You've got that God given talent and you've got to develop that.
You've got to be able to work with people.
You've got to be able to make that work
as a team and who you work for,
you have to make yourself valuable.
And you've just got to have that guts of never giving up.
What I see as far as the future
of this business of creating characters,
it's changing so rapidly.
Even within the four years at Legacy, I've watched our
own pipeline and workflow change quite a bit.
It keeps evolving. The digital aspect is a big part of it.
I see it's a strange dynamic in film right now at this point in time.
I think as an artist in this business,
you need to be really nimble and be able to
see the changes or pick up on them
and roll with them.
Figuring out how to diversify within
a box that you are comfortable and I'm not going to making shoes
just because I see an opportunity,
working with things that are related to your business that you know that you can
do and do well.
I think that's probably advice for a lot of businesses today.
It's a changing world competition environment.
You better be prepared to
go at it with...
The competition is global it's not just Los Angeles.
You better figure out
how to fit into
whatever the film making world is.
If it's adding to it by making an animatronic or a special makeup
that's great.
If it's helping them because of the nature of the movie,
just making great reference pieces and designs
then that's what you need to do.
It's just recognizing
when it's appropriate,
when it's not,
how to help that particular film or commercial the best way to do it.
Should this be a hybrid effect?
Should this be part digital
but part of it should be real?
It's recognizing the changing landscape
and being open to reacting to it
and not pigeon holing yourself in a place in time.
Because, as I've mentioned, I mean even in the four plus years we've been Legacy
I've watched things change.
You want to be on that cutting edge,
not catching up.
You want to be one that is coming out with the
latest and greatest way to accomplish a task
rather than learning about it
and trying to figure it out
more than ever now
because of the global competition.
Los Angeles isn't the base of film making that it once was.
We'll leave that up politicians and
business people on different levels to figure that out.
But the work is going worldwide.
I think you've got to recognize all that. You have to
understand that it's a changing landscape. I know it sounds redundant, but
I can't emphasize that enough.
For those coming out of school trying to get in this stuff,
embrace the digital world with the practical world
because it has totally meshed.
It's not two different things.
It's not to say sometimes it's not at all practical solution,
but the more you know about both of those worlds
the better off you're going to be for the future of this business.