Todd McIntosh is an Emmy Award-winning makeup artist, best known for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In 2004, he worked on the WB Dark Shadows pilot and gives a frank and revealing insight into the project's highs and lows...
Alexis Thorpe receives a grisly makeover as Barnabas' victim Kelly Vance © Todd McIntosh. Used with permission.
|
How did you get involved in the world of film makeup?
Well, the truth is that Dark Shadows was the genesis of my career. I was mesmerized by the original show and at the early age of 7 or 8 I was already trying to make fangs from shirt-collar stays and a Barnabas makeup with Mom's brown eyebrow pencil. I was hooked. From there, some kind soul gave me a book on stage makeup, which led me to doing local theatre. By the time I was 17, I was employed at the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. At 25 I was freelancing on movies and TV series and soon became the chairman of the makeup department for the Vancouver local union. At 30 I moved to Los Angeles - I was born in California - and began my career all over again. Interestingly - that was 1990-91 and I was on a film with Kirstie Alley, Sibling Rivalry, which was filming on the Warner Brothers lot. As I walked to the stage one day, a huge black car nearly ran me down and, as it went by, I saw a Dark Shadows sign in the window! They had just finished the 1991 pilot and I visited the set as they were taking it down. I started a huge campaign to get on the series. Unfortunately, I didn't even get an interview.
I noticed your name in an old Dark Shadows Festival program book...
I did attend some of the local festivals in Los Angeles, but having spent my entire career as an insider I find fan festivals difficult as an outsider. One of the things that attracted me to the show and fascinated me as a child was the Barnabas ageing makeup. A very famous makeup artist named Dick Smith did that. Through the years I became friendly with Mr. Smith and now own all the moulds for the old Barnabas makeup and the juicy vampire bites from the movie. When I made the acquaintance of Jim Pierson, I asked if I could reproduce that makeup at a Festival, which I did, to a resounding lack of interest, I might add!
Onto the pilot... How did you get the gig?
When a source told me the series was on the production list again, I started another campaign to get the show. Eventually I got a call from a makeup artist friend of mine, Steve Anderson, who had just received a call to do the pilot. They never even saw my resume. Steve, being a good friend told them to call me and this time I landed the job. I was in ecstasy. When I got Buffy the Vampire Slayer I thought it was the closest I would ever get to Dark Shadows. To actually get the pilot was miraculous. Of course, it was a pilot, and TV, which is all rather mundane when you get to the barebones of the job. I designed all the beauty makeup and worked with Andrew Clement of Creative Character Designs on the prosthetics. Steve Anderson and myself applied the makeups and did the actual daily work. All designs for these kind of shows are a group effort between the director, the hairdresser - my dear friend Gloria Casny - and the prosthetics house, and of course camera, lighting, sets, actors, producers all have their say. The department head's job is mostly coordinating all the input into a cohesive design.
Jessica Chastain as Carolyn Stoddard bears the scars of an encounter with Barnabas © Todd McIntosh. Used with permission.
|
Did you get to work with original series creator Dan Curtis?
As Makeup Department Head I had plenty to keep me hopping - like on Buffy, I was again doing both beauty and special makeup application, and coordinating pre-filming camera tests, and still photos for the various portraits of the actors for the set. In the middle of it all I was also fielding questions and requests from Dan Curtis' office. There was quite a bit of fuss over casting the show and Mr. Curtis was searching about for options for Barnabas. One day I had a call from his office and they wanted me to do a makeup for a Barnabas hopeful for a film test. Mr. Curtis even wanted fangs! A set of teeth has to be custom built on a cast of the actor's teeth and can take a week to 10 days to perfect - not easy to achieve in an afternoon! I packed a quick kit and drove to the office in Santa Monica - and here's the magical part... I walked into Dan Curtis' office and shook his hand and was overwhelmed: There in a corner was Barnabas' cane! In a glass case by the wall was the Zuni Warrior doll from Trilogy of Terror! I was surrounded by the memorabilia and atmosphere of the guy who had created Dark Shadows, and other favorite shows like The Night Stalker, which had coloured the landscape of my childhood and indirectly, was responsible for my own career.
And how did the camera test go?
Ever professional, I just got right to work. I had a bonus surprise when actress Barbara Steele [1991 Julia Hoffman] arrived to read the scene with the actor - she's great! In order to do fangs for the actor I had gone to a makeup store and dug through the Halloween supplies finding some adaptable individual plastic fangs. I filed and shaped them right on the spot - fitting them to the actor's teeth, then secured them with a flexible dental acrylic.
Did the boss approve of the results?
Now, Mr. Curtis was not famed for his patience! He was a gruff, tough old bird and he wanted what he wanted, now! He was directing and running the camera partly by controlling the cameraman's arms - and shouting directions at the same time. He called for me and said to run in and put the teeth in and if they didn't work just take them out and get out of the way. I had those teeth in while he was still shouting orders and he was so surprised that they looked good, the actor could talk, and it was done fast, that he just stood there and blinked at me. Then he laughed and said, "A real Dan Curtis production. Cheap and fast!" From that point on he kept asking for more stuff - sweat, circles under the eyes and so on. I had one of my best afternoons doing that test.
How did you define the Dark Shadows look for this project? How did it differ, say, from Buffy or Angel?
All previous renditions of Dark Shadows have had traditional vampires with a pale face and fangs. The producers wanted to update everything and that's why we did the decayed Barnabas at the top of the show and had him revive in stages. I really wanted to do a 'hungry' prosthetic makeup [for attack scenes] and probably would have if the show had gone to series, but there wasn't a place to introduce that in the pilot. Again, all the prosthetic looks were the combined efforts of Andrew Clement, the director and myself. We were a little constrained because right up to the very last minute they were casting the Barnabas role. That meant we had to design and construct prosthetics without an actor! All the mummy-Barnabas stuff was built for actor Doug Jones who played Abe Sapian in Hellboy as well as the lead 'Gentleman' in the silent Buffy episode. As it turns out, they hired Alec Newman to play Barnabas and he was much shorter than Jones, so we had a little problem with the continuity from creature to actor.
Marley Shelton as Victoria Winters © Todd McIntosh. Used with permission.
|
And for the less monstrous residents of Collinsport?
As for the other looks, the only one we designed was for Marley Shelton playing Victoria Winters. Because of her face and haircut we decided on a Tippi Hedron [The Birds] look and I had a great time designing that 1950s influence to her makeup.
What were the actors like to work with?
Each and every one was great. I think they really assembled a great cast for this version - very different and quirky. Alec Newman was just great to work with and I enjoyed his company and professionalism. I worked with him again on Star Trek: Enterprise a few months after the pilot finished. Marley was very professional with a real knowledge about makeup and how she wanted to look - it was a very nice partnership creating her makeup.
The pilot used lots of stylized colours and lighting. Did this affect the way you approached the work?
Very much so. At first I was told the lighting was based on the film Susperia. If you've seen that film, the coloured lighting is very much present but in the background. In the Dark Shadows pilot, the red and green was everywhere and then the director of photography used yellow lights too. I could barely see to do my touch-ups and had to drag actors off the set into some light to do any real work.
That doesn't sound ideal...
I can compensate in the makeup for some lighting like that, but it changed for every shot and I couldn't predict what was going to happen. The director of photography was in his own little world and very uncommunicative. Also, we were not allowed to see the dailies, so I didn't know how my work was looking, so that I could make any corrections to the designs. It was very depressing. I had also told the director and director of photography that using amber light on prosthetics made them go grey and look like cardboard. I told them this because I anticipated torchlight in the tomb sequence and I wanted them to be prepared - however this backfired. They lit the prosthetics with so much light that you saw them too clearly and lost the shock value.
Did you have any particular favorite aspects of the work?
I did have one favorite moment. John Karlen, who played Willie in the original series, visited the set on a couple of occasions. While he was there I put vampire bites on his wrist exactly where Barnabas had bitten him in the series. It was a great laugh for both of us and I really enjoyed making that connection.
Did you view the finished pilot?
Boy did I. When the word came that it wasn't picked up, I called Dan Curtis' office and myself, Steve Anderson, the hairdressers and Andrew from Creative Characters all went over to view the pilot. I sure could see why it didn't work. It was all over the place. Pacing was bad, the performances were uneven and in places completely wrong, like Angelique laughing with Victoria at the end - totally misdirected. When questioned about it, P.J. Hogan said he wanted to put a little humour in the show.
P.J. Hogan's direction on the pilot has received a great deal of criticism, particularly from the WB...
I rarely say anything negative about the people I work with but, despite the fact that P.J. was a nice enough guy, I am in total agreement with this sentiment. When he joined the show, it was as a replacement for another director. In my first meeting with him he had no idea about the Dark Shadows history. He would say to me, "Now this Willie, he's a vampire right?" And I'd say, "No, he's Barnabas' thrall, and he's human," and he'd say, "Well, Angelique, she's a vampire?" "No, she's a witch." And on and on. He was simply unprepared. As we got into filming he would okay Barnabas with a beard shadow, for example, and when the notes came back from the dailies that the producers hated it, he didn't bother to re-shoot the scene! At the end, we had all the prosthetics working and complex scenes to do and P.J. said that it didn't matter if he got the pilot finished, as they would just bring someone else in to shoot it when they went to series. It was that attitude that was the downfall of the project. I still hold a grudge that the series that I had such a personal investment in doing was canned because of P.J.'s attitude.
Looking back now, how would you sum up the experience of making the pilot?
All TV pilots are chaotic and pressed for budget and time. This was no exception. I love my work and I got to be a part of Dark Shadows history, so in the end it was immensely satisfying and terribly sad. Perhaps there is still a Dark Shadows incarnation in my future?
Visit Todd's website at www.toddmcintosh.com
Back
