#anyway after i get home tonight ill have to suck it up and budget last friday's paycheck

[six-of-ravens]

okay so uh, just checked my savings account and uh. big yikes!

[rianafying]

i’m sitting on the 51st floor of my friend’s apartment building, it’s a lounge area that looks over melbourne cbd and it is gorgeous, but the lights in this room are blinding. i’ve had a really long day and i’ll probably have an even longer one tomorrow but i don’t wanna leave this building. i feel safe here. i don’t wanna go back home. home is representative of my source of anxiety. home is messy and dirty. home is where the tasks await me. and i just can’t. so with my 48% battery on my phone, i will stay here for as long as i can. it’s already 10:31 pm. but it’s okay my house is a 5 minute walk away. i feel incredibly lonely tonight, like i’ve been craving some sort of romance. and ( very embarrassing ) physical touch. especially when i see or hear about other people in love, it makes me feel so alone. but this is not the time for me to date anyone. and i don’t really like the people i know. i have a therapy session booked for day after tomorrow, basically the day after this assignment is due. so hopefully my brain will be a little clearer by then.

i feel really sleepy and tired even though i overslept the last two days. it’s just that time of the month. pms and psoriasis. causing fatigue. i chopped off a lot of my hair today. didn’t really think it through but it’s fine. idrc. same when i dyed it black. i just do things and it doesn’t matter. it’s just hair.

my friend is really lucky she gets to live in this building. it’s quite a lot more expensive than my apartment. the one i live in is already too expensive for me but somehow i’m managing.

i sat super still for an hour so the motion detector wouldn’t catch me and the lights dimmed down and i stayed by the window for 2 more hours. i really didn’t wanna come back home but i was hungry so i did.

i had one of those chicken curry pies from woolies, i only bought them because they were on sale but damn they are so good, but normally they’re priced at 8$ for 2 pies which is out of my budget :((. but it’s okay i can make my own and freeze them.

2.75+4 + ingredients i already have i can make like a whole bunch of curry chicken pies. but it might not be as good as the store bought ones cause my little toaster that i use as a makeshift oven kind of sucks.

im still hungry, the little pie did not fill me up enough, which makes sense because i only had two tiny pieces of sushi in the last 30 hours. i’m craving another pie but i don’t have any. also something about having food with mayo makes me feel gross and oily. like it’s all over my face. i can’t stand it anymore. i’m so tired. i know ill be getting my periods soon because i have been getting cramps all day.

i finally found the time to open the bag of stuff my uncle dropped off because they’re moving and they no longer need em. there’s a whole bunch of sauces and spices in there. i wonder if my cousin bought these cause these are good ingredients. i’m kinda hungry but there’s nothing to cook at home. there’s pasta but it’s not gonna be substantial enough. i’ve been wanting to buy some parmesan for the longest time but it’s so expensive, and i go through it pretty fast because it’s too good not to. i also kind of like goat cheese, not really in pasta more with like fruit on toast. there’s a thing of frozen shrimp in my fridge afaik, but it’s stuck solid in with the ice layer in my fridge and i wrestled with it but i couldn’t get it out. i’ll just dump it out when i clean my fridge and let everything thaw. it will be okay. it was old anyway.

i’m just so hungry. but i’m just too lazy to make anything or get creative, or eat something i cooked. i wish there was like a sandwich or something i could eat rn. well there’s rice, surumi, wasabi, soy sauce, sriracha, mayo, chilli oil, carrots, and nori. but i just wish i had some cucumber. i’ll go buy some tomorrow along w some cooked shrimp. maybe the frozen cutlets. i kind of miss them.

[flowerhungry]

this is really fucking personal, and maybe i’ll never post like this again, but maybe i will. so here internet, have my thoughts ✨

i want to post more personal things on tumblr, just like on a previous account. i wish current tumblr was more like old tumblr, but even on old tumblr my ramblings never got too much attention. thankfully.

i’m currently regretting purchasing such a loud keyboard. my computer is in the bedroom and justin is sleeping and typing on here is so fucking loud. i’m trying to be quiet. i just looked at him and he seems to be sleeping so... i don’t know, i just feel bad. i don’t want to wake him. strict/maybe abusive mom things when you still worry about being too loud/getting yelled at in your own goddamn apartment!

anyways, with the shifts i’ve been working, i haven’t been able to sleep. so i get off maybe around 3am, get home, eat/unwind, and then i don’t end up going to bed until 5-6am. so then when my days off come around, i can’t fucking sleep. tonight might have partially been my fault seeing as i took a nap at 10pm and didn’t wake up until 1am. (i’m blaming it on the burger and that vodka lemonade i had for dinner) so here i am, at 0230 wide awake.

today i purchased a computer monitor and a gaming keyboard so i can use my macbook more like a desktop computer. i hate using my laptop, but i really like the feel of a desktop, how weird is that? my set up definitely doesn’t look like those clean, minimal setups you see on instagram or reddit, but it’s mine and i’m okay with that. it needs some cord management, a mouse that maybe matches my keyboard, and maybe a different chair? why are keyboards and mice so expensive? (i totally should not have spent money seeing as i haven’t budgeted or even looked at my bank account the whole month of september and i just went to disneyland...) my monitor was like $100 and then the keyboard was $170 and then the mouse is $70. granted the keyboard and mouse are meant for gaming. maybe i’ll give into justin and start playing WOW. maybe that’s what i could do with my insomnia. also because our bedroom is carpeted, my desk like SHAKES with any movement and that’s really fucking annoying. i’ve lived with hardwood floor most of my life and i forgot how annoying living with carpet is. like get rid of this shit. my vacuum canister is disgusting and my desk shakes. BUT my kitchen and bathroom are not carpeted thankfully. that would really fucking suck.

speaking of apartments... i am really fucking thankful for my apartment because i can afford it, and it’s close to work, and it’s just a good apartment. but it’s fucking dated. like this carpet, the cabinets... it’s annoying. i see all these apartments/houses on instagram/reddit/youtube and i can’t make mine look like that. i can’t change the flooring or the cabinets or the countertops. i don’t know. i also just don’t have the motivation to decorate or have fun or enjoy my apartment. like, let’s be real, ever since moving out of my mom’s house i’ve gone into this depressive funk and working swing shifts and working so much overtime has just made it worse. i feel like i’m drowning and slipping and moving farther and farther away from the person i was and the person i want to become. i don’t even recognize myself. i think the only time i recognize myself is in scrubs, and i fucking hate that. i thought that moving out and away from my mom’s house and away from LTAH would solve all these problems and it hasn’t. i feel more lost and more confused than ever. being an independent 20 something really fucking sucks. i just hope it gets better.

i think my mental illness is wearing on justin. he told me that maybe i should think about seeing a therapist the other day. and he’s right. he can’t be my everything and i’ve been having mental breakdowns regularly and i know it sucks for him. i don’t even know how to find a therapist. it’s such a daunting task. but, to be fair, everything, even doing dishes, is daunting to me right now.

i love a good blogging session like this though. i’m listening to music, i’m using my new desk/computer setup; i’m enjoying the fruits of my labor. i love writing like this, this journaling/stream of consciousness flow. i want to write more. i want to journal. i want to create. i like LONG to create. i waste time on tik tok and see all these people creating and i have such a strong desire to be like them. i just want to be anyone other than the shell of a person i am right now. how do i even go about becoming the person i want to be? i can’t even clean up after myself right now.

i feel like the only thing i feel is numb and sad. i listen to these love songs and even though i would say i’m in love with justin, i can’t always relate to them. like i feel what they are saying because i love justin and i don’t want to lose him, but... i don’t know how to describe it. which stresses me out beyond belief. i just hope that doesn’t mean we won’t last. what are you supposed to do with thoughts like those? 

[themastercylinder]

Phil Leakey, the makeup artist who helped put Hammer Films on the macabre movie map by creating monsters for several of the company’s seminal horror films, is not your ordinary, everyday, celebrity interviewee. No, sir, Phil Leakey is full of surprises.

For example, before Leakey gets into any discussion regarding his work in motion pictures, he says up front, “I don’t particularly care for Hammer’s horror films.” (Never mind the fact that he helped establish the company’s reputation for viciousness right from the beginning!) “They leave me absolutely cold. I wouldn’t walk across the street to see one!” He harrumphs loudly in conclusion.

After this renunciation of Hammer, the question naturally arises of how he got started with Hammer in the first place Leakey responds by launching into a detailed and unusual account of his film business beginnings.

“It was strange how I got involved with them or anyone in motion pictures at all,” he comments. “I was working as a clerk in a brokerage office in London, and I was on a two-week holiday when I overheard my father talking about going to a film studio to supervise a boxing match. [Leakey’s father, a doctor, oversaw a number of televised matches.] I wanted to go along too, but he said I’d better check with Joe Grossman first, who was the studio manager. So that afternoon I drove out to the studio and asked the man at the gate, if I could have a word with Mr. Grossman. The gateman thought this was rather amusing; but to his surprise, and mine, Grossman told him to send me on up to his office.

A photograph of Phil Leakey relaxing with colleagues at Bray Studios in Berkshire. From left to right- writer and director Jimmy Sangster, make-up artist Phil Leakey, stills photographer John Jay, Jerry Antiss, and focus puller Harry Oakes.

“When I arrived, a vicious looking secretary stopped me and said, ‘What do you want? What’s your name?’ I told her who I was and she promptly disappeared. A few moments later, Joe’s head popped around the corner of his office door and he said, ‘Hello. Start Monday.’ His head started to disappear back around the corner but I managed to blurt out, ‘Wait a minute! I only wanted to ask” But he cut me off. ‘Haven’t got time to chat,’ he said. ‘I’m very busy. Start Monday. 8:30 a.m.’ I was then ejected from the studio. I thought to myself, ‘Well, I wonder what’s going to happen on Monday?’

“So the next Monday I reported directly to Grossman who said, “What do you want at this time of the day? And how did you get in?’ When I then told him what had transpired just a few days earlier, he looked rather bemused and, after a moment’s thought, said, ‘Right, follow me.’ I did, and soon arrived at the studio’s sound department. Joe said to the head of the sound department, “this is Philip Leakey and he’s starting work with you as of now.’ Joe then disappeared, and a sort of resigned look came over the soundman’s face. I started work, and started from scratch because I knew absolutely nothing about sound or anything else connected with filmmaking!”

An entertaining story to be sure, but there’s just one hitch: Leakey is not known as a soundman he’s a makeup specialist! When reminded of this, he smiles, nods, and happily recites the rest of his tale.

“I did my best in the sound department and slowly I began to learn a few things. In fact, I was actually beginning to enjoy myself when one day the whole lot went up in smoke including the central sound recording room. As a result of that fire, most of us got the sack and certainly a beginner like myself would be the first to go. I picked up my belongings and went to say goodbye to Joe Grossman and he said, ‘Okay, start Monday, 8:30 a.m.” And off I went, wondering what on earth was going to happen next!

“To cut a long story short,” Leakey finally says, “this time I landed in the makeup department.” But Leakey was to discover that, despite Grossman’s good intentions, going to work in the makeup department required more than just an ability to learn new things from scratch.

“It was very obvious the makeup department didn’t want me,” he relates. “I was told to just sit in the corner and watch. So I watched and watched and I got bored out of my mind! Finally a team of American filmmakers arrived, and they brought their own makeup artist who, as it happened, needed an assistant. This perked up the studio makeup people who thought, “Hey this will be a good way to get rid of Leakey!’ And so I was donated to the poor man!

“I can’t remember his name, but I do remember that he was very angry indeed when he found out that I knew next to nothing about the job. Fortunately, after he got over his initial anger, he sort of took me under his wing. By the time he left that studio there were some things I could do better than many of the others.”

Despite strained relationships with some of his co-workers, Leakey remained where he was for another year, until at last he was offered a job at Shepperton Studios, where he distinguished himself doing his first character makeups.

One of the earliest productions to carry the Hammer brand name was The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), known in the U.S. as The Creeping Unknown. It was the first picture which allowed Leakey to explore a wholly new makeup terrain. Its unusual story, about an astronaut who returns from space possessed by alien spores which turn him into a kind of life-absorbing sponge, allowed for some truly creative moments for the first time in Leakey’s career. Hammer cast British character actor Richard Wordsworth in the pivotal role of the astronaut.

“I had some discussions with the producer and director Val, Guest, and we concluded that Richard should not look ugly at least, not to start out with! Instead, he should look sad, ill, and perhaps rather pitiful. After we all agreed on that, the rest was left up to me. The script really wasn’t very specific about how he was to look anyway.

A reference photograph of artificial radiation blisters on Richard Wordsworth’s right hand, created by Phil Leakey (1908-1992) for Hammer Film Productions’ ‘The Quatermass Experiment’ (1955). This photograph is from the Ashton & Leakey Collection. Roy Ashton (1909-1995) and Phil Leakey worked for Hammer Films during the 1950s and 1960s. They were pioneers of special effects make-up – using cosmetics and prosthetics to transform an actor’s appearance. Hammer Film Productions was founded in 1947. Initially, it made low-budget movies based on popular television and radio series, such as Quatermass. In 1957, it released the first colour gothic horror film, ‘The Curse Of Frankenstein’, which was an enormous succes. During the 1950s and 1960s it went on to produce a series of popular gothic horror films for which it has become renowned.

Leakey placed a light above the actor in the makeup chair and then worked on accentuating the shadows cast by his eyebrows, nose, chin and cheekbones. The makeup was a liquid rubber solution mixed with glycerin to give the impression of sweat. Leakey’s job was made easier by Wordsworth’s natural high cheekbones and hollow temples and he also worked closely with cinematographer Walter J. Harvey to ensure the lighting in each shot emphasized Wordsworth’s features. When in the movie Wordsworth smashes a cactus plant with his fist, we later discover that his flesh has absorbed a part of the cactus. Leakey mentions that this, and much of the rest of the makeup, “was invented using simple items corn flakes, rice, cotton wool, rubber and latex. We had no laboratory in the studio at that time, so I had to make everything at my home! The cactus arm was a wraparound piece made from rubber, cast from a plaster mold, which was attached to a lady’s stocking so Richard could slip it on and off easily. Likewise, the hand piece was built onto a cotton glove.” The shriveled corpses of Carroon’s victims, glimpsed from time to time in the film, were also made by Leakey.

“Richard remained in the hands of the makeup department for as long as he maintained humanoid form.” says Leakey, pointing out that once Wordsworth’s character became too inhuman; it was time for the special effects team to take over.

“Hammer had no laboratories or ovens or anything to cook rubber prosthetics with. I had to take them home and do it. I used to ring up my wife and say: don’t cook anything tonight dear, I’ll need the oven to bake a rubber head.”

For X the Unknown (1956), Hammer’s next venture into the realm of sci-fi/horror. Leakey was called upon to create a hand which caved in on itself as “X”, the title monster, sucked out the body’s life force. “For that effect I built a sponge rubber hand, and into the hand was set thin plastic tubes with perforations along their length,” explains Leakey. “These tubes entered the forearm through the wrist to each finger, and all the ends were attached to a specially adapted pump, at the director’s signal, a special chemical mixture was pumped into the flaccid hand piece, which immediately began to swell up and discolor. It was quite a good effect.” Hammer then took the effects footage and reversed it to achieve a deflating effect on screen.

Philip Leakey created an interesting Special Effects Make-up as the radiation giving off by the creatures in the mud affects a person. We see their thumb swell up and then their flesh starts to melt off.

Leakey registers a little surprise when asked about Hammer’s follow up to The Quatermass Experiment, known in the U.S. as Enemy from Space (1957) but entitled simply Quatermass II in its homeland. It takes some prodding, and mention of Quatermass II’s story line involving extraterrestrial creatures growing in huge domes at an oil refinery, before he allows, “That’s right; I did apply a substance to Tom Chatto, to make him appear burned in his death scene. He came out of one of the domes. As I recall, that was filmed at the Shell Refining Plant. I used a mixture of industrial soap and oil for “The food that burns.”

Hammer hit upon the idea of making an entirely new version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The company envisioned a fairly elaborate production that would be the first color Frankenstein film. Leakey recalls the time period:

“I do hate horror films, especially of the type that Hammer and other people like them made. And to make matters worse, Hammer suddenly decided they wanted to go into production on this picture in a matter of weeks but nobody had any good ideas yet about what to do with it in terms of story, character and makeup! I even asked around the studio myself to see if anyone had any good ideas and no one did. Not a single person! What would the Creature look like? Obviously, that’s a major concern whenever you’re making a Frankenstein film and yet, all anyone at Hammer really knew was that there was a strict order not to copy the Hollywood version, because lack Pierce’s makeup had been copyrighted!

Restricted by the legal necessity to construct a Monster totally unlike Boris Karloff’s 1931 copyrighted incarnation, Hammer, turned to make-up designer Phil Leakey. Very much a pioneer in his field, Leakey created the make-up department at Bray Studios and was the first person to receive an on-screen credit for special make-up effects. He opted for a more biological, organic approach to the assignment. Early tests – of which there are many – included an animalistic design, akin to the beasts from H.G. Wells the Island of Doctor Moreau. Eventually, after several rejected notions, Leakey was forced to improvise the makeup at the eleventh hour, the very evening before Lee was first needed on set. “They tried me out in a variety of unbelievable and, in some cases, totally irrelevant make-ups and tests,” Christopher Lee recently recalled. “One made me look a bit like the Elephant Man – very unpleasant to look at and very unconvincing. The other was more like some sort of werewolf with the nose tilted up at the end to make you look slightly pig-like.”

“Finally, largely due to Christopher’s input, we decided that, as the Creature was being constructed from bits and pieces of other humans, which was how his face should look: made up of bits and pieces, all stitched together.

Working straight on the actor’s face, Leakey built up a collage using wax, rubber and cotton wool, once memorably described as looking “like a road accident.” The make-up itself took two-and-a-half to three hours to apply. The pressure of time meant that Leakey was never able to make prosthetic mask-pieces of the face, as he recently recounted: “I think it was Christopher Lee who said ‘Let’s do a mock-up in clay to see what it looks like.’ I used mortician’s wax and started shoving it all over his face, adding a patchwork of various stitch-marks. It was really a trial to see if I could make it out of plastic and put it on fairly quickly.” Much to Lee’s chagrin, the Creature’s face remained every bit as uncomfortable to remove as it was to put on in the first place.

“In the final analysis I don’t think my work on The Curse of Frankenstein suffered from the restrictions imposed upon it by the copyright considerations as much as it did from our lack of experimental time.”We really needed months or at least weeks to experiment with different materials and try different approaches,” Leakey feels. “But we just didn’t have that amount of time, and as a result I was not very happy with the end product. I would have liked a much neater stitching job, made from a mold. However, it just wasn’t to be; we were stuck with rubber and wax, which I thought looked crude, though other people have told me that’s what such an operation might have looked like.

Those who have seen it consistently agree that Hammer’s film production of The Abominable Snowman (1957) is far and away the best film of its type. Although he has never seen the finished picture, Leakey admits that there was more than the usual amount of thought put into the creation of the picture, especially during pre-production phases.

“When the time came for us to make it,” recalls Leakey, “I had another get together with Val Guest, Tony Hinds, art director Ted Marshall, and myself. It was generally agreed that the Yeti should be of a more sympathetic nature than the people who were hunting it, with the exception of Peter Cushing, who was playing a far more sympathetic part than his companions.

“Ted Marshall and I made a few drawings, and one day Tony Hinds, while looking at them, remarked, ‘You know, that looks a little bit tike Peter!’ Everyone had a look at it and they all agreed that the creature’s face did have an inkling of Peter in it, and everyone thought it was a good idea to carry the resemblance over, as a sort of sympathetic link in the film. To tell you the truth, I never could see this ‘resemblance’ which everyone else seemed to see!” Leakey chuckles. “But since they did, that was the way we went ahead and made it.”

Though never as budget-conscious as American International had been during the 1950’s, it is true that the British company cut corners whenever they thought it was within the realm of possibility. And so on The Abominable Snowman, they refused to hire anyone to help Leakey with the makeup chores.

“Hammer was rather reluctant in letting me have an assistant to help out on that picture,” he remembers. “As a matter of fact, I had to enlist the aid of the wardrobe department to get the snow creature completed on time! It was the wardrobe department that ended up supplying the creature’s outfit. They took a lot of furs and sewed them together to fit the actor and that was our Yeti!”

Probably the best known motion picture on which Phil Leakey worked, and also Hammer’s most famous film, is Horror of Dracula (1958). “Compared to Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula was far easier to work on,” Leakey remarks. “Christopher Lee’s height, face, and hair were half the battle! By the time the wardrobe department had fitted him with the right clothes, plus a little fiddling with his hair and a set of appropriate choppers, we had ourselves a vampire!

The filming of Dracula’s destruction included a shot in which Dracula appears to peel away his decaying skin. This was accomplished by putting a layer of red makeup on Lee’s face, and then covering his entire face with a thin coating of mortician’s wax, which was then made up to conform to his normal skin tone. When he raked his fingers across the wax, it revealed the “raw” marks underneath.

“I do believe, although I can’t be certain, that I was the first to use the bloodshot eyes. It was my brother who, like my father, was a doctor, who put me in touch with an optician who specialized in doing false eye jobs. He fitted Christopher with these contact pieces of my design. Christopher hated them. He would not keep them in for a second longer than the shot made necessary. If he had left them in, the discomfort would have been much less as opposed to continually taking them out and putting them in again.”

Leakey left the Hammer fold shortly after the Dracula film was completed to accept offers from other production companies whose films were more to his liking. He had become frustrated with the direction in which Hammer was heading as the new specialists in horror and violence.

“I wanted to leave Hammer to get on with other kinds of pictures,” he says. “Although I liked all the producers at Hammer, and the crew and casts who played a part in the making of those films they were some of the best people I ever knew in the industry still, 1 just really hated those kinds of films! And frankly, I doubt if Anthony Hinds [a main Hammer producer and screen author] liked them much either!

“I enjoyed working on pictures like Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), Only Two Can Play (1962) with Peter Sellers, The Belstone Fox (1973). Like everyone else in this business. I’ve worked in more average good, average bad, bloody bad and indifferent films than I have worthwhile films! But that’s the public for you. Shooting, stabbing, punching, sex and violence of all kinds, laced with screeching automobile crashes it’s what makes all the money! “That’s why I got out; I retired. Occasionally I’ll make up some of the neighborhood kids for one of their parties. But I gave away all of my makeup equipment to the daughter of an old wartime friend, and it’s all in Australia somewhere right now. I never thought any of these things would be of interest to anyone for more than a few months anyway that’s why I threw away all my notes, sketches, and stills years ago.

Phil Leakey Filmography The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) Horror of Dracula (1958) The Abominable Snowman (1957) Enemy from Space (1957) The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) X the Unknown (1956) The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

Greasepaint and Gore The DVD

2 Feature length documentaries on 1 DVD

Two superbly detailed documentaries about the masters of special effects make-up: ‘Greasepaint & Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Phil Leakey‘ – 80 minutes

‘Greasepaint & Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton‘ – 72 minutes.

References

Fangoria Issue 50 1986 Randy Palmer

Hammer Horror Issue 1 March 1995

Philip Leakey – Reluctant Monster Maker Phil Leakey, the makeup artist who helped put Hammer Films on the macabre movie map by creating monsters for several of the company's seminal horror films, is not your ordinary, everyday, celebrity interviewee.