| [Interview with Tom McLaughlin, part II of II]
His book Silicone Arts is considered by many to be the bible for working with these materials. If you don't know Tom yourself, I can tell you that he is one of the nicest, most giving people that I have ever met. If you ever have the pleasure of speaking with him, you will leave the conversation not only wiser, but you will have gained a life long friend. This interview was conducted during a recent trip to LA at his home. aRvin: Jumping
forward a bit... what was the first project that you with silicone, as
a casting material? Tom: As a casting material... It was the film "Babe" I was thrown into the deep end, and was asked by the henson's to make this work. I heard that they were using silicone in California. That's as much as I had to go on. I was on the phone a lot... Oh! I must tell you... the very first prototype of the Babe pig, we painted it with sprayed"Pantone" pens. They do a little spraying rig to use the pen as a... some sort of a crude airbrush. We sprayed a few coats of that on to silicone and let that dry. The we sprayed some clear silicone caulking sealer on top of that. And then we put more pain on top of that (once it set up) And that's how we built the color up. And it was great for the first week! The second week it didn't quite look the same. We couldn't quite put our fingers on it. What wasn't the same on the second week. On the third week it started to bloom and started to look like one of those fluorescent pink pigs that you see in the stuffed toy stores. (Laughter) Tom: one of the Pantone pens has Rodamine red ink inside of it. That's a dye, and its a fugitive dye that's oil soluble. So we couldn't use that for the film test even if we wanted to. It was bright glow in the dark pink! (more laughter) Tom: I hope
they didn't throw it out. Its a wonderful piece. Yeah... It was a good
film. We actually made 2 spare sets of skins for each of the animals,
because with foam you'd expect to go through at least 2 skins (while)
shooting. The didn't use a single one of the back up skins. It was really
good to find that out. Didn't have to do any work but... Yeah. The foam
when you put a new skin on the mechanism it never quite looks the same.
So were were shitting ourselves with the silicone, because that probably
wouldn't look the same either but we made it through the film on one skin
on each animal. aRvin: Was
that the film that made you realize the potential for the material...
did you do a lot of research on your own? Tom: I did some commercials and short films with the Hensons. There was a great one for Hayes Air freshener, and it looks like very expensive computer animation, with flowers dancing across the screen, but they're just rods of silicone. They're worked with coat hanger rods to make them move. They just hurried them into the computer, and got rid of all of the rods and the moving hands and stuff... laid that on top of another scene and it was done in a week. It was shot, edited and then screened in a weeks time. If you had sat down and animated that stuff in the computer it could have taken 2 or 3 weeks. ( Tom and I kinda both look over at Megan...) Megan (
laughing a bit) Yeah aRvin: What
was your next adventure after that? Tom: After
that phase I moved to the US, and started working at Stan's (Winston)
place on the "Congo" film, and pushed the technology even further
with that. aRvin: What
kind of skins were you doing for that film? Tom: Those
were the ape faces, and I think we did some hands and possibly some feet
too. We were using some silicone inc's silicone. XP153 I think. It was
an early version of some of their current stuff. A lot of test skins...
there were a lot of films that I've worked on that have had me do had
a lot of test skins, and when it comes time to do the hero skin the mold
is either worn out, or something else. Your hero skin is never as nice
as the first ones that come out of the mold. Well you know I should have
saved the first one and put in a drawer or something... The Amy head.
That's what ground we broke! We used some silicone mold for silicone casting.
So they could pull a plaster bust out of the silicone mold and pain that
up and get it to look right and not have to worry because it was 75 cents
worth of plaster. We were plasticizing the stuff with a good amount of
cod liver oil for the skins. I might have done 15 pulls from the mold.
When the time came to do the hero skins I couldn't figure out why the
skins were coming out so thin. It wasn't even silicone at certain bits.
If it weren't for the netting that I put on the core the pieces would
have fallen apart during de-molding Turns out that the plasticizer in
the skin silicone was being soaked up by the mold silicone. And the mold
had expanded. The core was pressing up against the mold where it was meant
to be a 32nd of an inch of silicone. aRvin: So
how did you end up solving that problem? Tom: We had to make another mold from the master really quick, and thank God we made a master! We'd have been up shits creek with out a paddle. No matter how much hair you put on the face it wouldn't have been able to cover those bits up. Oh it was grief and stress that we didn't need at the last minute, when everything else has to be ready. To have to make a whole other mold. You can probably get 10 or 12 pulls out of silicone molds with a high tolerance level. I don't think more then that, because the stuff will soak the oil. We were told by Cheryl at Circle-K that we could bake the mold in an oven, to get some of the oil off of there... so it would flash off. But we didn't have time to experiment. We knew that making another mold would surely work. aRvin: What were some of the projects... Tom: (quite
excited) Oh...The Budweiser frogs! I was the first person to cast the
first set of the Budweiser frogs. I was quite proud of them! Megan: That's really cool! My mom loved those! aRvin: What
shop did you run those at? Tom: That
was at Stan Winston's shop. aRvin: For some reason I was recalling it was Steve Johnson's... Oh! Because he did the frogs for Magnolia! Tom: Which
I still haven't seen yet, but I hear the frogs are great. aRvin: Do you have any favorite stories or projects from your many years in the industry? Tom: True ones? (Megan and I both laugh) Megan: Preferably! Tom: Oh, Lemme see. Back at the muppets we really were very loose. We had a lot of stress, a lot of things to make very quick. Lots of late nights. Spending the evening on a roll of fake fur, and waking up at 4 o clock to pull things out of an oven and stuff... we played a lot of pranks and stuff in that shop, and you know these foam guns? For foam latex? It would hold a quart or a gallon at the biggest. We had some that would hold 5 or 8 gallons of wet foam. We used those for water gun fights! (Megan and I burst out laughing) Tom: As
well as a water pic to clean the wet clay out of our molds. It really
helps. We used to fill that tank up and just squirt each other. It was
great! aRvin: At
what point did you sit down and decide to write a book? Tom: Well
it had reached a point that I was receiving so many phone calls from folks
from all around the world (asking) "how do I make this stuff work?"
"You seem to be able to get it to work..." So I started to write
notes down by the phone and stuff and I thought yeah this would make a
lot of sense to put it all in the same place, because everybody had little
bits and pieces to the puzzle. I didn't really have the time or the oomph
or the funding to do an illustrated version, and I didn't want to get
into doing all of the molding and casting, because I wanted to cover that
thoroughly. I felt that the weakest link was... most of the phone calls
came about painting and gluing, and finishing. Everybody seemed to have
a grasp of how to either make a mold with it, or pour it into a mold and
get it out..."now what do I do with it?" "How do I make
it work as an effects piece, or as an animatronic skin or a makeup thing?"
The coloration and the painting is the key element to me, as far as I'm
concerned. Because that's what gets it to look like what its meant to
be. aRvin: So once you realized that a book was a good idea.. Tom: I had just purchased a word processing package, and was learning how to use it... aRvin: and
then the first edition of it came out the summer of 1997
Tom:
Yes, yes yes. aRvin: It
had a debut at the first International Makeup Trade Show Tom: Yes!
It was such a buzz to see people walking around that show with their pink
books in their arms. aRvin: Yeah... that would have been everybody except me since I just missed out on the last one. But I remember that there was a huge buzz about silicone at that show. That's what everybody walked out of there talking about. Whether it was good or bad, that's what people were talking about. Tom: Through
the book, as well as the work others have done in the field since then,
a lot of the fright is gone. A lot of people were afraid of silicone.
Because of the horror stories they've heard as well as the expense. Now
that there are a lot of myths that have dispelled, we have used it successfully
on quite a few films. Its not such an unknown anymore. Its commonly used
every week of the year, in Hollywood for one sort of effect or another.
It has its foot in the door, and has yet to be thoroughly explored. aRvin: So
you must feel that you have in a sense gone full circle, having started
off running foam, which was the only thing that could be used, and now
you've really opened the door for another material that... Tom: Well
dealing exclusively with the surface of a casting material, you can use
the casting material to shoot on as well. With foam you put a base color
down first, and then you do your painting. But with the silicone... that
is your base color. Or can be your base color. And it can be translucent,
it can be transparent, it can also be opaque, or anything in the middle!
This is exciting! You can make the same material which will stick to its
self, which doesn't shrink. You can cast multiple layers in a mold, and
get skin, and get flesh, and underneath that get cartilage, in in back
of that you can feel a bone if you want to! aRvin: Which
is something that really hasn't been touched upon yet. Tom: Oh it moves so much more like skin then any other material that I have worked with. Unlike foam which is a sponge, and it collapses into itself when it's moved... silicone when its the proper consistency will displace its self when its moved. Just like real flesh. You push your skin, and it moved over here. With foam you push it here and it goes in. It's not quite the same. aRvin: So
what can we expect in the new edition of the book? Tom: Manufacturers have been listening to the people who use this and who want the envelopes pushed. And they've been tweaking a lot of their materials. Silicones Inc have some new things since the first version of the book. And certainly Factor II. Its all exciting! We've actually had the feedback from people like us who found out what in their lines work as a system, and have put those together. When I was starting out I'd have to call the industrial end of one outfit for caulking and talk with the molding guys for rubber and talk with somebody else for a fluid to act as a plasticizer. Now they're all in the same room. aRvin: that
definitely makes the material more user friendly. Tom: Yes, Yes. Oh! Here is a wonderful tip you know that some silicone caulks, they come in a variety of colors to match your bathtub, or your table and stuff. You can use those as ready made colors. The white! I use as white to paint with. I don't mix my white color into a bit of caulking. I use white caulking! aRvin: It makes a lot of sense. Tom: (laughing)
Its ready made! Its all mixed in and smooth, and ready to go. aRvin: We
touched upon the next silicone extravaganza, a bit earlier in the interview.
Can you give us an idea of what to expect in this next one? Tom: Oh
its going to be exciting! We're going to have some talks by some experts
in their fields. Were going to do utmost to span modern makeup technology
through props and effects. We want to have a talk or two on mold making,
silicone as a prototyping material, and we're going to have hands on workshops.
We're going to repeat the coloration and painting class. We hope that
Robert Erb will come and give a talk on intrinsic coloration. Gordon Smith
may be there... Possibly Dick Smith, Steve Prouty, if we can get him from
California. And were going to have people from the manufacturers there
to give a talk on the fun things they have in their lines. aRvin: So if somebody is really interested in the material this is not the thing to miss.. Tom: It
isn't just makeup. Its going to be the full gamut from body parts to knick-knacks
The works! And if we can get some folks to let us borrow some stuff and
have some sort of an exhibit. To not only look at, but to touch and feel.
Because silicone is such a touchy feely thing, you have to be able to
feel it. Tom: Favorite
new materials...jeez. Smooth-on has some fun rubbers for mold making.
There are some that are down in the 10 or 15 shore range that are good
for skins, and for starting out. The certainly cost a lot less than some
other silicones. Factor 2 comes out with things so fast that I can't keep
up with them! They had a self-adhesive tin-cure silicone that they've
been using on on skins, but I've not been able to play around with that
yet. Their clone lifecasting silicone looks like a lot of fun. Now is
that tin, or is that platinum? aRvin: Its
a platinum. Tom: But it sets up in about 5 or 6 minutes? aRvin: It
has about a 12 minute cure time. Tom: That's workable. aRvin: Yeah, Its definitely fun stuff. Once you get the hang of how to work with it. aRvin: Now while many people know of you work in rubber few people know of your work in electronic music. More specifically your recent work with the internet based sample workshop. Would you like to talk a bit about that? Tom: Oh I'd love to! Its in in infancy, but its definitely going ahead. Its a project I started 12 years ago called (the) London Workshop. And I lost my pants on that one, but learned a lot. We did come out with a CD called "pool side drums" which was an extended set of drums and percussion that we recorded in an indoor swimming pool complex for its sound. It must have had a reverb of about 5 or 6 seconds in length... No possibly minutes. We never sat down and listened to how long it went on for. It went on for a long time. The concept has always been to release musical sounds for musicians to make music with (using) sampling technology. There's just thousands... tens of thousands of samplers out there in the world. Each and everyone of them is as good as the mastering machine. It might take 20 seconds of sound, but its CD quality sound. The newer machines can do hours. The old machines like the S900 at their highest rate sonically out perform a good cassette player. So everybody's got a mastering machine, and They've been making their own sounds up. I just want to put them all in same place, and offer them for sale on the internet. (Editors note) My tape ran out after this point, but I will bring Tom back for a third interview really soon to talk more about the sample workshop. |
||