·       LMC: What did you puppeteer on Batman Returns?

VH:  I puppeteered one of the mid-sized penguins that was built by Stan Winston’s shop.  Although we were only hired to puppeteer I also helped tweak the mechanics in mine when needed.  There were five guys from Stan’s shop on set to do that, but it got real boring just sitting around in all the down time we had so I helped keep my penguin in tip-top condition by adjusting the cables, etc.

LMC: You’ve done some TV, commercials, movies, what do you like best and why?

VH: All three have their good and bad (or not so good) points.  Commercials are good because they’re usually quick.  You make your stuff, shoot it and it’s on TV a few days or weeks later.  Plus, commercials usually pay very well.  The downside to commercials is that because they’re quick you sometimes don’t have enough time to make your stuff properly or to the level you’d like.  With films you usually have more time to make your stuff (pre-production time), but producers are often more demanding and tighter with money.  TV is kind of in between.  It can be really good, like “Hercules” and “Xena” were for the most part, or they can be fast, cheap and unrewarding.  In general, I’d say I like feature films best as the quality and level of your work tends to be highest.  But I really enjoy the speed of TV and commercials.
 

VH: On LOTR I did lots.  I made tons of molds, ran lots of foam latex, painted thousands of items and did quite a bit of application.

Some of the stuff I painted was: all the hard contact lenses for the orcs, Uruk-Hai and goblins; I designed the colour/paint scheme for the goblins; I painted about 99% of the ears for the four lead hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry); I painted literally hundreds

LMC: What is your opinion of the movie itself?

VH: I’ve only seen it once, at one of the many cast and crew screenings.  I thought it was pretty good.  It’s really hard for me to see a film “clean” until many years afterwards.  What I mean by that is that when I see a film I remember making the stuff, being on set with it, any of the problems that we ran into, etc.  It takes a few years for all those memories to sink into the background of my mind and let me see the film as anyone else would who hadn’t worked on it.

LMC:

VH: I like romantic comedies, regular comedies, suspense films, thrillers, sci-fi (well, good sci-fi), dramas.  There are some horror flicks I like, but in general I don’t really watch them much as I just don’t enjoy them.  Like I said, I’m kind of a rarity.

LMC: On some films you did some really different work, rear ends, death scene nudes.  Talk about some of those and showing up on set with Jason Alexander’s butt.       

VH: Well, the “death nude scenes” weren’t actually nude in the shot.  They had clothes on.  And although I assembled, painted and haired the butt for Jason Alexander in the film “Shallow Hal” I never was on set with it.  I worked on it in LA and then shipped it North Carolina where our crew put it on Jason and puppeteered it (the little tail was cable controlled).

LMC: What about Army of Darkness.  That is a cult favorite among mask collectors.    

VH: That was fun.  I painted the Skeletal Ash puppet.  I made all the miniature clothing for the mini-Ash figures.  I also molded, cast and painted the armour that Skeletal Ash wore.  The armour Bruce Campbell wore was steel and very heavy, too heavy for out puppet (Skeletal Ash) to wear and still work properly.  So, I molded the armour and cast it in epoxy and Kevlar, using vacuum bag technology.  This made it extremely strong and fairly light.  I painted it using acrylics.  When Bruce saw it and felt it he said he wanted a set, so I made a second set for him to wear.  He never wore the original steel armour again.

Working with Sam Raimi was a good experience.  He’s a great director to work with, from an effects point of view.

LMC: What is vacuum bag technology?  Is that the same as vacuforming?

VH: No, it’s nothing like vacuforming.  What I did for the armour was to make silicone molds with Ultracal 30 jackets.  I made sure there were no sharp edges on the stone molds.  I then laid up the epoxy and Kevlar into the silicone part of the mold.  I then laid perforated plastic over the layup, then put Dacron on top of that as wicking.  I then put the mold into a bag I had made up beforehand that was the proper size.  I next hooked up the bag, via a tube, to a vacuum pump.  This sucks all the air out of the bag, compressing it down against the epoxy and Kevlar, forcing all the bubbles out and making a very nice, tight, bubble free casting that doesn’t have too much epoxy in it (this would be called “resin rich”).  The perforated plastic lets the excess epoxy flow through into the Dacron, which soaks up the excess.  When I removed the mold from the bag I peeled off the Dacron (which is now stiff with cured epoxy).  The Dacron peels away from the perforated plastic.  I then peeled the perforated plastic away from the actual piece.  I then pulled the piece out of the silicone, clean it up by Dremeling and sanding the edges (and maybe a light sand on the back) and then painted it.  This process takes a bit of prep time and you need a vacuum pump, but the results are worth it.

VH: “Hercules” and “Xena” were great to work on.  I worked on both those series for many years.  We got to make some pretty cool stuff and didn’t have to labour on with the stuff forever.  We’d get between 2-4 weeks to make the stuff and then we’d fly up and shoot it.  It was a good time.  It was our “bread and butter” job for a long time.  Both Kevin Sorbo and Lucy Lawless were great to work with, too.

We got to make tons of stuff for those shows, lots of different and varied things.  I made makeups, puppets, teeth, some props, just all sorts of things.  Some of the teeth I made were some fangs that actually grew in Renee O’Connor’s (Gabrielle) mouth.  They had a tongue activated mechanism.  She practices over a weekend to get the movement down nicely.  Did they shoot them?  Of course not!  At least I got photos.  Oh, but get this….I wasn’t on set when they were supposed to shoot them.  It was just before the yearly winter break of a couple of months.  When they started back up and I was back on set I took the teeth so I could have Renee put them in for some pictures.  The colour was close, but not as close as I remembered making them.  Renee then told me that over the break she’d had her teeth cleaned and whitened!  So it looks like the teeth I made for her weren't a good colour match.

Actually, that reminds me of another funny story.  One day I was on the set of “Hercules”, puppeteering Obie, which was a little, squid-like creature.  It was supposed to be play wrestling with Kevin.  He was laying on the ground on his back.  I was laying between his legs with my arm up under his shirt.  My hand came out the top of his shirt and into the puppet.  He was holding the puppet, pretending to wrestle it while I wrestled back and made it lick his face.  He couldn’t believe the position we were in.  Neither could I.  At least there are no incriminating photos of it, at least none that I know of!

LMC: Anything else to add from other movies?

VH: On LOTR, sometimes we’d put the stunt guys into full body makeups as Uruk-Hai.  They’d sit around all day, trying to keep cool.  We (the makeup people) would try and keep from getting too bored.  I’d always have a book with me.  After a 12-14 hour day they’d wrap the stunt guys…..without having shot them once!  Talk about frustrating.

LMC: How does someone break into the FX business?
   

VH: That’s a hard one as just about everybody’s story of how they got into the FX biz is different.  I’d say practice and get good.  Then take some really good pictures of your best work.  Send these pics out to the shops you want to interview with.  Don’t send tons of pics, just a few, select really good ones.  Send them with a cover letter and a résumé.  Don’t worry if you have little or no work experience.  It’s what you can do that will get you work.  Make a follow-up call a week or two after you send your stuff out.  Be polite and don’t take a “no” personally.  Remember, these shops don’t know you at all and they probably get lots of fans calling.  Just keep plugging away.  If you’re good….you’ll make it. 

LMC: How is CGI affecting the creature shops?

VH: In the last couple of years CG has really taken a bite out of what FX shops used to do.  I think CG will take care of more of the creature stuff now.  FX shops won’t be doing as many creatures as they used to (i.e. suits and puppets). I don’t think makeups on actors will be affected for a while, but who knows…?  This past year and a half has been the worst ever for makeup effects.  There’s very little work out there.  Lots of people have been out of work for a long, long time.…

LMC: Do you have plans if the scene gets too bad?

VH: Well, I’ve done some web design stuff.  I would like to move more into the production side of film making.  I also have some side projects (manufacturing), non-film, that will make me some money (once they take off).