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Page 5
(Thanks to Christian Hanson for some great
additional questions)
 LMC:
Artists at some point may stagnate in their designs, merely
imitating what's come before. How do you prevent this and keep your
designs so fresh and original?
JS:
Sometimes
I have cause to think that my designs are getting kinda stale
anyway, no matter what I do to keep that from happening. However, I
get inspiration from the damndest things sometimes, and this can
often lead to the creation of something new and fairly original. I
can’t stand people who say, “Duh, what’s the point of trying to do
something original? everything’s been done…” That’s like saying that
every nook and cranny of the Earth has been charted, that every
corner of the Universe has been explored, every facet of the human
brain. It’s bullshit, and it is a very uncreative, close-minded
attitude to have. There are limitless opportunities in
design. Just think of all the animals on Earth. Now think of the
infinite number of mix-and-match possibilities. Now add to that
various degrees of distortion, different character traits and
coloration. Imagine an insect
 monster with elephant-like skin that
has a metallic blue color with orange spots(!). You can now start to
see how the innovative designer thinks. An excellent designer I know
named Carlos Huante seems to be able to tap into this design ethic
astonishingly well. I worked with him on Men In Black and a lot of
other stuff. (By the way, if you don’t think the ‘elephant-insect
monster’ idea could ever look cool, I have taken a stab at it just
for the purposes of this here interview (look right)….)
LMC:
If I handed you 10 million dollars, what would you spend your days
doing?
JS:
First
of all, I WOULD MOVE OUT OF L.A., maybe the U.S. The values,
attitudes and celebrity worship are completely out of hand. I don’t
know about you, but I don’t give a flying fuck who Jennifer Lopez is
screwing, or how ‘great’ a guy Ben Affleck thinks he is. I am sick
of the nonstop barrage of Holiday
 Spa
ads we are subjected to, and I want to throw up when I look around
at all the wealth folks have and know that people are dying RIGHT
NOW in South Africa---among other places. So to start with, I would
donate at least six or seven million dollars of that money to relief
efforts for the less fortunate in this world. And this isn’t
bullshit—I already contribute quite a bit of what money I make to
several charities and relief programs. It’s just the right thing to
do. Three million dollars would be way more than I needed to live
the rest of my days in total luxury, buy a cabin in a forest
somewhere, sculpt whatever I wanted, make a film or two, relax. By
the way, if you do intend to give me ten million dollars, could you
make sure that it’s soon?
 LMC:
Do you
think that fX artists get the proper amount of credit for the
characters they create?
JS:
The growing popularity of makeup and creature effects has definitely
led to improved recognition of the artists who do this work.
However, the names that are well known are usually the shop owners,
not the guys working for them. Most often, the guys who actually
do the work get very little credit indeed-- sometimes they
don’t even get a credit on the movie! But by far the worst oversight
is the ridiculous situation with the Oscars and Emmys. The folks who
design, sculpt, mold, run foam, seam and paint the stuff GET NO
RECOGNITION AT ALL. Who does? The folks who apply it to the actor or
actress on set. That’s it. THEY are the ones who win the awards,
THEY are the ones who get the pats on the back on set, THEY are the
ones who stand on the podium and get the glory. To me, this is
outrageously unfair. By no means am I saying that the folks who
apply makeup don’t deserve credit—of course they do; makeup
application is an art in itself, and a good makeup artist can make
an appliance look like life, a bad one like crap. My point is that I
think there ought to be shared credit with the folks slaving away in
the shops.
 LMC:
Are your designs ever stifled by the
production side of films, or do they bring out your best work? Can
you discuss the difference between designing for a personal
project and for a film?
JS:
It
would seem at times that the job of producers and directors is to do
nothing but stifle the artists working on a show. Then there
are a few who really seem to know what works and what doesn’t, and
who make decisions based on artistic esthetics and not an ego-driven
need to put in their two-cents worth. Obviously, the latter is the
rarity. Generally, it is very important to remember that you are
a commercial artist when you work on a film, not an artist.
There is a big difference. Although it is very frustrating to see
great opportunities go down the drain, you must remember that what
you are making is part of a much bigger machine. I think the worst
moments are when you design something that you know is good, and
some production guy says, no, we prefer it cuter with bigger eyes
and pink fur….and you have to change it. That really sucks.
But it is the reality of working in a commercial venue, especially
one like Hollywood where the stakes are so high. There is a growing
tendency in the industry to go with the tried-and-true as opposed to
the original. It seems that no one wants to
bank on a new idea anymore, and that
is tragic; just look at all the sequels, remakes and movies based on
bad old television shows. It’s depressing. On the other hand, when
designing for yourself, the sky’s the limit, and that is a ton of
fun. It’s interesting to realize that the artists who get
‘discovered’ are usually the ones doing something new. Don’t be
afraid to do crazy weird stuff that doesn’t make sense; someone
somewhere will get it.
 LMC:
Do you ever get the urge to get a camera and crew together and make
a movie (and a budget of course)?
JS:
Yes. These plans always fizzle though because the amount of
coordinating necessary to get a bunch of folks to commit to a
certain block of time at once is very difficult. I would like
nothing more than to make a film. When folks these days are scared
by crap like ‘Scream’, I have a feeling that my friends and I could
make a film so upsetting and frightening that people would go into a
catatonic state after seeing it.
LMC:
What
do you find inspiring in other artists’ work? What do you dislike
(generally)?
 JS:
Well,
like many other artists, I suppose I find originality among the more
inspiring aspects of another person’s work…A certain daring that is
particular to their work and their work alone. I love artistic
styles that show a clear mastery of technique to the point where
they can break the rules without the work looking ‘wrong’. There is
a certain rightness to some artists’ work that is
hard to quantify, yet you know it’s right somehow. This
rightness is one of the harder things to explain as far as why some
things work and others don’t, especially to students or non-artists.
When it comes to what I do not like, that is much more readily
measured. It seems that a great number of fantasy artists working
today decide to mimic the style of another’s work so precisely that
they are hard to tell apart. For instance, there are numerous Brom,
Phil Hale and Frazetta copiers whose work is not simply inspired by
these artists, but is a complete rip-off. I find this to be the very
antithesis of art. While some of these mimics may have tremendous
talent, it saddens me that they don’t even try to bring their own
style to the work; it becomes almost a mechanical endeavor at this
point--- a nearly scientific breakdown of lighting styles, color
theories and composition. The same can be said of artists in the
effects business. Granted, there are many trailblazers and true,
original talents. But somewhere along the line, it seems as if a
certain style was established (one I associate with a certain
mediocre effects house) that a lot of guys seemed hell-bent on
aping. Mozzarella-cheese stretchy skin, big, cartoony eyes and
teeth, and lots of blood. I think that it is this ‘style’ that I
hate the most.
 LMC:
Where
do you see your career heading?
JS:
I am
in the process of a transition of sorts away from makeup effects and
more into pure sculpture. Like many others in the business, I would
like to move towards a fine art approach with the kind of work I
like to do--utilizing the same techniques and materials that I have
in the industry, but with a more conceptual basis. Imagine fantasy
art that actually has some meaning beyond just looking cool---that
should give an indication of the sort of thought process I’m in. I
can imagine that some folks may be disappointed with the kind of
work I end up doing, but these same types are among my foremost
reasons for wanting to get out of this industry: a pervasive and
generally ignorant attitude that my friends and I refer to as the
‘model-kit mentality’, which consists of the belief that if it
doesn’t have every little pore, isn’t a bitchin’ monster, and
doesn’t have blood squirting out of it’s eyes, it isn’t of interest.
Obviously, that attitude is far too narrow-minded for true art. I
will always love great monster stuff---I definitely don’t intend to
sound elitist---but I do feel the need for my work to have a greater
emotional impact on the viewer beyond the initial viewing.
 LMC:
Is there a market for the type of work you would like to do? Enough
to keep food on the table?
JS:
This
is the GREAT UNKNOWN, and the big risk of trying to break out of one
profession and into another. I honestly don’t know what will happen,
but I do know that almost anything is better than working in some of
these effects shops full of toxic chemicals, egos and bad art
direction.
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