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kaialone · 6 years ago

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Yokai Watch Corocoro Leaks (September 2018)

Corocoro leaks have been coming out, so I will translate under the readmore.

Beware of spoilers, naturally!

This month’s issue has some neat new yokai revealed.

It contains information about:

5th Yokai Watch Movie

Yokai Arks & Merchandise (revealing some new yokai)

Some Yokai Watch World stuff (mostly won’t translate that part)

As always, I will do my best to translate any new information I can make out.

Before we start the actual translations, let me mention the Yokai Watch World stuff in this issue.

It probably won’t help anyone who reads this, but it had a map of were in Japan certain yokai are going to appear, from what I understand.

It also showed off a new special dark version of Nyan-kishi (Sir Nyancelot) called Kuro Nyan-shiki. From what I understand, you need a code from Corocoro to get him?

And lastly, there will be autumn-themed variants of various yokai. It’s been a very common thing for the game to feature new variants for any sort of occasion so far.

First we have these pages:

(image source)

They introduce and talk about new “Godside Forms” and the new Watch that can make yokai transform into them.

ともだち妖怪たちが最強の姿へ！！ゴッドサイド妖怪に神变化！！ Yokai friends turn into Godsides, their strongest forms!! Divine Transformations!

映画第５弾の超目玉情報！妖怪たちの究極サイドを目撃せ！！ Super special information about the 5th movie! Witness the ultimate Side of the yokai!!

妖怪ウォッチエルダ神の力で妖怪が”神”になる！！ With the power of the Yokai Watch Eruda Jin, yokai turn into 'gods'!!

(Note: The kanji 神 in the name of this Watch means “God”, and is specifically pronounced as “Jin” here.)

��ンとともに活躍するイツキが使う「妖怪ウォッチエルダ神」。この新ウォッチによって、かわいい姿のともだち妖怪たちが、神々しい最強の姿へ变化するぞ！！神の力を得たゴッドサイド妖怪がくり広げる衝撃のバトルに期待せよ！！ The "Yokai Watch Eruda Jin" is used by Itsuki, who plays an active role alongside Shin. With this new Watch, the yokai friends turn from their cute forms into their strongest forms!! Expect for shocking battles to unfold with the divine powers of the Godside yokai!!

主人公シンは妖怪ウォッチエルダ零でともだち妖怪を召喚！！ The protagonist Shin summons yokai friends with the Yokai Watch Eruda Zero!!

ゴッドサイドに变化する妖怪を召喚するのは、「エルダ零」を使うシンの役目！！シンとイツキの親友コンビが協力して、妖魔界でくり広げられるバトル大会を戦うことに！！ Shin's role is to use the Yokai Watch Eruda Zero to summon the yokai that transform into Godside!! With Shin and Itsuki's best friend combo, they fight in the battles that unfold in the Yomakai's tournament!!

これが妖怪ウォッチエルダ神！！！

神の力をコントロールできる妖怪ウォッチ。カバーに描かれたオオカミの姿に秘密！？

This is the Yokai Watch Eruda Jin!!!

A Yokai Watch that can control the power of gods. The appearance of the wolves on the cover hides a secret?!

(Note: This is just me speculating, but I can’t help but notice that the two wolves seems to resemble the Koma brothers?)

猫又が变化！

猫王バステト

古代エジプト王族のような姿の、偉大な猫妖怪！！ Nekomata transforms!

The Cat King Bastet

A great cat yokai, resembling the ancient royal families of egypt!!

(Note: Name and inspiration seem clearly taken from the Egyptian goddess Bastet)

河童が变化！

河童王サゴジョウ

頼りない河童が、究極の戦闘力を手に入れた姿だ！！ Kappa transforms!!

The Kappa King Sagojō

The unreliable Kappa has obtained the ultimate fighting power!!

(Note: Name and inspiration likely taken from the Japanese name of the Journey to the West character Shā Wùjìng, who is often depicted as a kappa in Japanese.)

座敷童子が变化！

天狗王クラマ

ナルシストな美少年妖怪が、風をあやつる天狗に！！ Zashikiwarashi transforms!

The Tengu King Kurama

The narcissistic pretty boy yokai turns into a tengu that commands the winds!!

(Note: Name and inspiration likely taken from Mount Kurama, said to have been the home of Sōjōbō, the mythical king of the tengu.)

And now we have these pages:

(image source)

These pages introduce a whole bunch of Arks, which will be included with the 3rd Yokai Ark set.

First we go over the upper right, focusing on the Arc of Zashiki-warashi.

黄金&レジェンド妖怪アークを見逃すな！！

お宝ぞろいの第３弾の中でも注目なのがこの２本！！どちらもただ事ではない輝きだ！！

Don't miss out on the Golden and Legendary Yokai Arks!!

Even among the 3rd set that's full of treasures, these two are especially notable!! Both of them are nothing ordinary, they are shining!!

ついに発覚！！ ”最後”の黄金妖怪アーク！！４本存在する黄金の妖怪アーク１つ。「妖怪ウォッチ４」で詠みこむと、スゴいことが起こるとのウワサが？！ Discovered at last!! The 'final' Golden Yokai Ark!! This is one of the four Golden Yokai Arks that exist. Supposedly something great will happen when you use it in Yokai Watch 4?!

座敷童子古い家に住む子ども妖怪と思いきや、実は美少年！！ Zashiki-warashi (Gnomey) Thought to be a child yokai living in old houses, but is actually a pretty boy!!

(Note: Zashiki-warashi is the same kind of yokai that was called “Gnomey” in English. This specific Zashiki-warashi was previously shown off in other pre-release materials.)

Next I’ll go over the upper left side, showing off Bushinyan’s Ark.

伝説再び！！レジェンド妖怪アーク発見参！！

あのブシニャンが妖怪アークになって帰ってきた！！黄金の妖怪アークとは、またひと味ちがった輝きを放つ、超激レアランクの１本だ！！

The legend returns!! Take part in the discovery of a Legendary Yokai Ark!!

Bushinyan himself returns as a Yokai Ark!! It is slightly different from Golden Yokai Arks, it shines and is of the Super Extreme Rare Rank!!

ブシニャン伝説の刀で的を一刀両断するレジェンド武士妖怪！！ Bushinyan (Shogunyan) A Legendary samurai yokai who cuts his enemies in two with a single stroke of his legendary katana!!

DXゲンブ法天斧&妖怪アークセット登場！！

剣と斧の２つのモードを持つ、玄武の妖聖剣！！魁メラメライオンのアークも付属だ。

New DX Genbu Hōtenfu & Yokai Ark Set!!

Genbu's Yōseiken, which has a sword and an axe mode!! Sakigake Merameraion's Ark is included as well.

(Notes:

ゲンブ法天斧/Genbu Hōtenfu means something like “Genbu Lawful Heaven Axe”. Genbu is the Japanese name of Xuánwǔ.

This is the third Yōseiken toy to be released. You can see the images showing off how you can turn the sword into an axe by pushing up the hilt.

Like the Yokai Ark Holder and the Suzaku Sōtenzan, it comes with an Ark that is the special form of a pre-existing yokai.

From what I understand, 魁/Sakigake refers to something like leading, being a leader, charging ahead, etc.

The set will appearently be released around November, for 1382 Yen.)

土蜘蛛

はるか昔から活躍する由緒正しい伝統妖怪。

Tsuchigumo (Arachnus)

A traditional yokai of honorable origins, who has been active for a very long time.

ツチノコ

滅多に姿を現さない幸運を呼びよせる妖怪。

Tsuchinoko (Noko)

A yokai that rarely reveals itself, and brings about good luck.

シブメン犬

イケメン犬が年を重ねシブメン犬に変身！？

Shibumenken

Over the years, Ikemenken (Dandoodle) transformed into Shibumenken?!

寸胴丸

マッチョが自慢な寸胴鍋の妖怪。

Zundōmaru

A stockpot yokai who's a boastful macho.

レオン

カメレオンのように姿を変える！！

Leon

Can change his appearance like a chameleon!!

大ガマ

数百年生きたガマガエルが変異した大妖怪。

Ōgama (Toadal Dude)

A great yokai, who is a transformed toad that has lived for hundreds of years.

コマじろう

コマさんの弟。口ぐせは「もんゲーロー！」。

Komajiro

Komasan's younger brother. His catchphrase is "Mongero!"

(Note: “Mongero!” is a combination of “gero”, which refers to a frogs croaking, and “monge!” meaning something like “amazin’“, which is the catchphrase of the Koma brothers in the original Yokai Watch.)

雷オトン

怒ると雷を落とすガンコ親父妖怪。

Rai-oton (Papa Bolt)

A stubborn dad yokai who drops lightning when he's angry.

フィルムリン

映画館に潜む観客を閉じこめた！！

Filmlin

Lurks in movie theaters and traps the audience!!

イカリン

海で泳ぐ人々を守る妖怪！！

Ikarin

A yokai who protects humans who swim in the ocean!!

That’s it for this month’s issue of the main Corocoro, but I also saw some interesting bits from the most recent issue of Corocoro Ichiban.

You can see them right here, it bascially shows off most of the Arks from the now released 2nd Ark set.

I don’t have the time to translate all of this, it’s mostly old information anyway, so I will just go over points of interest.

Most notably this seems to confirm that some of the previously unseen symbols are indeed meant for tribes.

Shuten-dōji and Dōketsu are both of the “Oni Tribe”, represented by this symbol:

In the past, the term Oni Tribe had been used to refer to oni yokai in general, without it being an actual tribe. But this time around it really seems to be one.

And Kaira is of the “Izana Tribe”, represented by this symbol:

The Onimaro Trio is still classified as being of the “Kaima Tribe”, called “Wicked Tribe” in English. The Onimaro were also called Kaima in the movie and classified as such in Puni Puni.

In this case, this is the symbol used for them:

I think it’s still possible these are going to be “special” tribes with only a few Yokai in them, like the Wicked, Enma and Hagure tribes were in the past.

ロボニャン００ Robonyan 00 (read: Robonyan Double O)

ツクモノ族 Tsukumono Tribe

ロボット掃除機から生まれた妖怪。 A yokai born from a robot vacuum cleaner.

(Note: It could also be seen on the merchandise website, but this Ark reveals that Robonyan 00′s Lightside is indeed another Robonyan 00, instead of Almighty-kun from the episode. Though the robot is alluded to in the description.)

オロチ Orochi (Venoct)

ゴーリキ族 Gōriki Tribe

強敵を求めさすらうエリート妖怪。 A wandering elite yokai, seeking powerful enemies.

(Note: This one could also be seen on the website, but here we get an actual description, plus we get a bit of a closer look.)

メラメライオン Merameraion (Blazion)

ゴーリキ族 Gōriki Tribe

炎と闘志を激しく燃やす獅子妖怪。 A burning lion yokai, with fierce flames and fighting spirit.

And that’s it for this month.

As always, I hope you’ve found this useful and/or interesting!

#yokai watch #youkai watch #yo kai watch #yokai watch shadowside #shadowside #yokai watch translations #my truth #corocoro leaks #yokai watch movie 5 #yokai watch spoilers

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themastercylinder · 6 years ago

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An Interview with John Dods

How did you come to be involved with The Deadly Spawn?

DODS: Well, it was a fairly simple turn of events. My friend Ted Bohus called me up one day and said, “Let’s make a monster movie!” That seemed like a good idea to me so we did it. I’ve known Ted for years and we worked on the (uncompleted) film Nightbeast together. Ted wanted me to be in charge of the special effects.

You are known primarily as the creator/animator of the Grog film series. Will there be any stop motion in The Deadly Spawn?

DODS: We had assumed from the beginning that some stop motion would be necessary to create Spawn locomotion. As it worked out I devised “live action mechanicals” that everyone seems very happy with. It looks real, and avoiding stop motion enabled us to use fluids. The baby “Spawns” are seen swimming around in the flooded basement of the house in the film. There’s also a lot of blood in Deadly Spawn. It’s hard to make fluids look convincing in the stop motion process.

What kind of special effects will we see in Spawn?

DODS: Most of the effects are on the set mechanicals. Simple puppetry was used for many of the shots-manual manipulation of the various sized models from beneath a specially prepared surface. For example, if a spawn is seen on the floor of the basement we had to build a false floor, flood it with water, and conceal the mechanism through a hole in the surface. Sometimes we had eight people lying flat on their backs making the spawn babies “act” their roles. If a spawn had to appear on a chair we would have to get a chair and wreck it-putting holes in it through which spawn controls could be concealed; that kind of thing. The mama spawn is just a big elaborate puppet that is mobilized by six crew members-one for each body part and another to propel it forward on a tracking system. We have some pyrotechnics in the film which Tim Hildebrandt helped us work out. There is a neat effect involving a miniature set that I’m not allowed to talk about. We have a lot of blood effects where we had to mechanically pump fluid through body parts. I’ve always had an ambition to create a monster that wasn’t an obvious “man in a rubber suit,” so from the very beginning designs for the spawns were far from human. I did a series of drawings and we all picked the one we liked the best.

Is it restricting to work within the confines of a low budget film?

DODS: I suppose so but I’ve never worked any other way! We’ve stretched every dollar to the limit and all of it is on the screen. I’m working with a very resourceful group of people. We could make an expensive looking film with the money that Dino DeLaurentiis spends on stationery. I know that our effects budget would be around $100,000 if we had done this film in any kind of conventional way—and I don’t think we’ve spent that much. On the entire picture.

Do you feel that the Deadly Spawn is different than the current crop of low budget thrillers?

DODS: I know that it’s different. We designed it to be different. The Deadly Spawn is presented in the manner of putting on a show, or like a tour through a chamber of horrors. We show the audience series of exhibits in a theatrical manner in the context of a story that resolves itself in a very satisfactory way.

What would you like to do after The Deadly Spawn is completed?

DODS: Work on another film with Filmline Communications, make another Grog puppet film, finish illustrating a children’s book I have been working on.

Dods’ title, as director of special effects, is one to be taken literally-virtually all of the scenes involving monsters and effects were directed by Dods, following his storyboards. In fact, Bohus’ first plan called for Dods and Bohus to collaboratively direct the film themselves. “I was reluctant, at the time,” he recalls. “Though I’ve directed stop-motion films, I’ve never worked with actors, and you see so many low-budget films that are hurt by bad acting, so I was insistent that we get someone who’d had experience working with actors.” The choice of McKeown, who has directed for the New York stage as part of the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater, did not exactly eliminate that problem, however. Dods now doubts that he would be so reluctant the second time around.

Dods does, however, work singularly well with the monsters of Deadly Spawn. One of his primary concerns was the manner of locomotion used by the various critters. “The mother spawn was herself relatively limited in movement,” Dodds says, “but that was okay-she’s supposed to be a huge, lumbering 3,000-pound thing. Her slow movements make sense, so we avoided a whole lot of technical problems right there.”

The film does open with a sequence that shows, in silhouette, the adult monster undergoing rapid growth, shortly after killing a pair of campers; simultaneously, various inhuman schlurping sounds are heard on the soundtrack, as it consumes its human meal (“‘Every sound you hear the monster make came from my mouth,” Dods reveals). The manner in which the illusion was accomplished is one of the simplest tricks we’ve ever come across Using shadow puppetry, monster shaped cardboard cutouts back-lit against a wall.

Yet another sequence shows one of the repulsive-yet-somehow cute baby spawn wiggling through bloody basement waters with the speed of a frightened lizard. “Every monster movie should have one long shot of the monster, showing its method of locomotion,” says Dods, “and so many don’t have that-they try to get by with fast cutting, or some other technique, to give you the impression of having seen an entire creature in motion. Since my background is in stop-motion, I was planning to use that in order to get such a shot. Using a jigsaw, I cut an S-shaped, repeating wave form, a sort of curved slot. I then mounted a flexible, foam rubber baby spawn on a piece of plastic, and was going to shoot that in stop motion, travelling in that S-shaped curve; but then we found that, if you simply pulled it along in that slot, it traveled in a very lifelike, wiggling fashion, so we wound up shooting it in live action. That way, we could also have it speeding through the water on the basement floor-water is just about impossible to animate.”

The swimming spawn, and many of the other effects of The Deadly Spawn, were entirely originated by the effects crew; few were specially called for by McKeown’s script. “Arnold Gargiulo was particularly good at coming up with things,” says Dods. “For instance, it was indicated that the monster would attack Ellisa Niel in the face, but it was figured we’d simply track in, through the monster’s point of view, and then pull back to reveal the damage. Arnold came up with much more than he was asked for in several cases; in that scene, he did something I hadn’t seen before-a two-layered makeup, with a normal-looking appliance, which the monster rips away to reveal some pretty gruesome work underneath it.”

More contributions above and beyond the call of etcetera came from Tim Hildebrandt-including the contribution of his own little spawn, son Charles, as the film’s youthful hero. Wife Rita Hildebrandt served in various capacities as well, including the provision of her own recipe for monster saliva-a concoction achieved by mixing water and corn starch and boiling it down to a syrupy goo. Hildebrandt’s contributions to the effects are seen in the very beginning and end of the film, in the depiction of the spawn’s arrival on earth, and of its final (unless there’s a sequel) appearance. The Hildebrandts even sacrificed the attic of their home, which was transformed into a blood and-debris-spattered mess after the filming of a crucial confrontation scene.

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BABY SPAWNS

When a deadly spawn reaches a certain growth stage it reproduces. Before the movie is half over we introduce several dozen new characters into the story: rapidly growing baby monsters.

In clay, I sculpted four small creatures each representing a baby spawn in a different stage of growth. These ranged from six inches to three feet in length. Molds were made of the sculptures using a mix of 50% Hydrocal and 50% Ultracal; these are plaster-like materials that yield molds much harder than ordinary casting plaster. This extra hardness was needed to insure mold durability during the repeated use the five molds were subjected to to produce over 50 constructions.

R&D brand oven-cured foamed latex was used to produce most of the smaller spawn babies. The plaster molds were greased with caster oil or rubber mask grease paint (which I like better because unlike caster oil you can make about three positives without regreasing). The liquid foam-frothed with an electric mixer-was poured into each mold cavity to the point of overflowing and the mold halves were closed tightly. The excess foam came out through a large hold in the mold’s underside. This method never resulted in the air pockets commonly associated with injection processes.

The largest mold was over three feet long and would not fit into my oven. So a (more expensive) Isofoam “cold foam” process was used for this. This is a two part system that begins to foam by chemical action after parts A and B are vigorously mixed together for about 20 seconds. Effects assistant Sharon Levine and I mixed a series of small batches and gradually filled the large mold cavities almost to the brim. Then a final large batch was mixed, poured quickly, and the mold closed just as the foam was beginning to expand to fill the remaining space. In this process, the mold is not only greased conventionally, but is also coated with a layer of liquid latex “skin” before any cold foam is poured. This provides a smooth surface to the model (the cold foam alone has a very coarse texture) and keeps the cold foam from adhering to the plaster.

After the foam babies were produced, the teeth and mechanics were inserted; certain areas were hollowed out of the foam using scissors and tweezers. Super glue proved to be a good adherent between the rubber lips and the plastic teeth.

SPAWN ANIMATION

From the beginning of the production the method for getting the baby spawns to move was undecided. Most of the effects shots required the spawns to remain in one spot-chewing on body parts usually; this action was accomplished through simple puppetry. But the problem of spawn locomotion remained unsolved for some time. Because of my previous experience with stop motion (the Grog series of film shorts) this animation technique seemed to be a real possibility-yet eventually I decided against it. Unexpectedly, found a better solution to the problem.

I constructed a plywood surface into which I cut a repeating “wiggle” pattern with a jigsaw. I slit open the underside of a small foam rubber spawn and sewed into it a flexible plastic insert; this protruded from the underside of the model and fit into the plywood track. I had intended to move the spawn bit by bit along the track and create the illusion of movement through the stop motion process. I soon realized, though, that this was not necessary. By lubricating the track with Vaseline and pulling the spawn with a nylon cord I had created the effect we needed. It looked real

Hiding the track then became easy. In The Deadly Spawn there is water in the basement where the spawns are breeding; leakage from the thunderstorm raging outside the house covers the floor. I simply made the water (opaque with dirt and “blood”) deep enough to submerge the numerous tracks and we had another set of successful constructions: mobile spawns.

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PLASTIC FLESH

During The Deadly Spawn some scientifically oriented teenagers find a dead baby spawn and decide to dissect it in an effort to figure out what it is. For this sequence a construction had to be made out of a fleshy/jelly-like material that could be cut with a razor blade. After some unsuccessful experiments with alginate material found a supplier of Plastisol—the same material used to make artificial bait and those wiggly spiders seen in novelty shops. Plastisol comes as a white liquid that turns clear when heated on a stove for a few minutes; pigments can be added at this stage to color the Plastisol as desired. I poured pigmented Plastisol into two greased plaster mold halves and quickly closed them together; more Plastisol was poured in through a hole in the mold’s bottom half. After cooling (about one hour in a freezer) the Plastisol had set and was removed from the mold. Permanent Magic Markers were the only form of colorant I have found that will adhere to Plastisol once it has cooled to a solid state, but these do work quite well.

Plastisol again proved invaluable when we needed a shot of a human head being eaten by baby spawns—chunks of flesh were to be pulled off the face by the greedy extraterrestrials. The Deadly Spawn makeup supervisor Arnold Garguilo prepared a mold from the face of the actress whose head was to appear to be consumed. I poured a one quarter inch thick layer of Plastisol into Arnold’s mold to produce a positive “face.” This was super glued onto an appropriately gory plastic skull and a realistic glass eye was inserted. The face was made up with rubber mask and conventional type grease paints.

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THE MOTHER SPAWN

Building the mother spawn began with the sculpture of hundreds of teeth using a material called Sculpey. Sculpey is a lot like clay but when you bake it in an oven (15 minutes at 250°) it hardens. The hardened teeth-ranging in size from 5 inches long to as tiny as a pencil point-were pressed into the gums of three clay spawn skulls.

I then had to duplicate the toothy creations in hard plastic so they would be more durable. Many layers of thick mold-making rubber were applied to the sculptures over a 10 day period. Before removal, the resulting molds were heat treated in a 300° oven for 20 minutes. Rubber that has not been heat-treated vulcanized) in this way can be stretched out of shape permanently; vulcanized rubber will always remember” its original form and return to it.

The molds were removed from the sculptures and scrubbed clean with acetone. Positives were made using Jet Dental Acrylic color #6 (the color most popular with dentists according to the salesman). This plastic material was applied to the insides of the molds in small sections—the fast hardening liquid being worked into the points of the deep mold cavities with a fine wire. I reinforced this thin covering with (cheaper) polyester resin—the kind available at auto body shops with chopped fiberglass mixed into it. Tooth polish and a scrub brush made the teeth shine.

The mother spawn was controlled like a puppet by as many as six people situated low to the ground in back of the construction. The operators were hidden by darkness, camera cut-off, and the bulk of the monster. One operator rode inside of the structure manipulating one or both of the side heads. Others worked the main head, arms, and body movement.

The substructure of the mother spawn looks like somebody had some fun with an erector set; it provides the needed support and control for the heads. The weight of the heads was counterbalanced with springs; gentle pressure would move the heads and necks forward and backward. The jointed mouths would open and close through manipulation of a hand control which also governed the head tilt.

In The Deadly Spawn the mother creature moves almost in slow motion (kind of like a giant slug), its speed held in check by inertia and its own massive weight. The entire structure moved on wheels that fit into a tracking system constructed from plumbers’ PVC tubing. This provided the very smooth movement we needed.

The monster’s skin was built up on top of the metal skeleton in layers. Half-inch foam sheeting was cut and stapled together to form the basic shape. Refinements were added using paper toweling soaked in thick latex mold-making rubber. Fans and hair dryers speeded the drying process. The spawn was painted with latex base wall paint with about 30-40% liquid latex added in order to keep the paint from cracking and peeling as the skin moved and flexed.

During the shooting the mother spawn had to be “made up” before every take. Spawns are very slimey. Initial experiments with children’s toy store variety slime gave way to a combination of mineral oil and rubber cement. This looked good but the oil rotted the rubber and the rubber cement was a nightmare to clean up. Executive producer Rita Hildebrandt suggested that we try thickening plain water with corn starch; this produced the best looking slime of all and at 65¢ per gallon it was super economical too (rubber cement costs about $20.00 per gallon).

THE FINALE

It was a real problem. How were we going to create the biggest effect of the entire production without any money, well hardly any money? It was near the end of the filming on The Deadly Spawn when Executive Producer Tim Hildebrandt and Producer Ted Bohus had their brainstorm. They wanted to cap the film with a shot showing just how big the ever growing deadly spawns really can get as big as a mountain.

Dino D’Laurentis might have spent a couple of million dollars on a mountain-sized construction, but with less than $500.00 to spend we had to think small. So, naturally. we built a miniature Tim Hildebrandt’s production drawing for the shot was our guide during construction as well as our inspiration to do the work necessary to make it happen on film. Tim’s teenage experience as a miniature landscape builder, as well as his more recent work on the 3M TV commercial (the one with the futuristic looking cityscapes), was instrumental in realizing the drawing, Tim in fact did all the landscape detailing himself. The rest of our effects crew for this shot included Glenn Takakjian who built the house, Frank Balsamo-cinematographer. Greg Ramundas-Deadly Spawn chief effects technician, and Robert R. Bohus. As usual, it was my job to build the monster.

BUILDING THE SET

Before doing any actual construction we cut shapes out of cardboard representing various proposed set elements. When viewed through the camera, these helped us to determine how big and how deep we would have to make the set in order to get the depth of field we wanted. This turned out to be about 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep, Plywood cutouts then replaced the cardboard so that the set would have a sturdy substructure Chicken wire covered the plywood and was shaped to Create the basic topography of the landscape. The chicken wire was covered with paper toweling and a low budget substitute for plaster cement. A V-inch thickness provided the strength needed.

Chunks of burnt coal from the Hildebrandt’s coal stove were pressed into the cement to form cliffsides and other rocky looking areas. Coal dust from the same source and flocking-applied with a flour sifter-created areas of texture and color. Lichen Spongy fungus growth was used to simulate areas of vegetation and the treetops. Lichen can be purchased where toy train accessories are sold, though it can be found growing naturally in places having good air quality imported a hefty bad full of it about $300.00 worth) on my way back from a trip to Ontario, Canada. Trees were made of real tree branch endings–sometimes bunched together and taped along the “trunk” section before being painted. A road was cut out of roofing paper and cemented into place. The gravel at the side of the road was kitty litter

Glenn Takakjian’s efforts in producing a scaled miniature house topped that of everyone else on the crew combined. Working 4 5 hours a day for 6 weeks. Glen produced a highly detailed accurate miniature version of the Deadly Spawns primary location; a house. Glen began by taking many photos of the house he was to copy: long shots and many close ups of detailing. The construction began with the assembly of a corrugated cardboard framework with holes being cut wherever windows were needed Proportions were determined by studying the photos. Floor by floor, the cardboard substructure was covered with balsawood “siding” using Elmer’s glue as an adhesive. The window frames were also made of balsa with molding detail being hand carved using an exacto knife. This was sanded with fine grade emory cloth. Clear plastic was placed behind the windows to simulate glass. The large vertical posts of the downstairs porch were purchased from a doll house supplier and modified using an electric Dremel tool. The “gingerbread ornamentation was reconstructed from parts of a doll house gate each “S shaped unit being made of 4 plastic pieces that had been cut glued, and sanded. The smaller posts as well as the rest of the porch construction were simply hand carved using an exacto knife and a great deal of care. The completed porch construction was coated with a plastic spray in order to smooth over and hide the grain texture of the balsa wood. The plastic surface also made it possible to use instant bonding Crazy Glue as an adhesive instead of the slow drying Elmer’s. The chimney was a balsa wood box covered with ordinary wall spackle Bricks were carved into the dry spackle using the end of small rattail file. Covering the cardboard tool with 1,200 shingles was the most time consuming part of the project. Each shingle was individually cut from thin cardboard and glued into place; the completed house was painted with acrylic paints.

THE MONSTER

In the shot we were planning the monster or monster head-had to first look like a distant mountain, and then to rise upwards, tilt up, and open its mouth Since we had determined that the head had to be a rather large construction 3 feet wide 3 feet high, and 4 feet long-it required a very substantial control mechanism to make these movements happen. This was constructed out of wood-2×4’s and plywood. A seesaw arrangement – the head being at one end of the seesaw-controlled the upward movement. A 10 feet long handle attached to what amounted to 2 oversized pairs of scissors caused the mouth to open. This handle also governed the tilt of the head.

The mountain monster’s gums and numerous teeth were cast in hydro hard plaster) using existing rubber molds produced earlier for other spawn constructions in the movie. These teeth-fragile but cheap to produce were wired to the substructure. Many of the smaller teeth were simply painted onto the gums. The bulk of the shape was made of chicken wire and sheets of foam rubber stapled together): the use of these materials helped minimize the weight of the construction. Finally, the monster’s skin was built up out of paper toweling and liquid latex rubber. The creature’s head was landscaped with burnt coal chunks.

Everything we built was backed up by an original Hildebrandt painting: Three panels of masonite were joined together and taped at the seams with gafers tape to provide a large canvas. The sky actually had to be painted three times. The oil based paint first used proved to be too reflective-it was impossible to light. Tim opted for redoing it rather than trying (expensive) experiments with large amounts of dulling spray. The second version painted in flat latex base wall paints-is the one seen in the film. Still another backdrop was painted when we decided to use the miniature-minus house and somewhat modified for the shot that opens Deadly Spawn: a meteorite crossing the sky and falling to earth. Ideas on how to produce stars in the night sky ranged from direct projection, to the use of bits of front projection material of sequins. The first thing we tried worked-almost unexpectedly-so we used it: Tim simply painted them on.

We knew from the beginning that we wanted to film the shot in slow motion in order to suggest great size in the creature as an avalanche of dirt and rocks (burnt coal chips and coal dust mostly) fell away from its rising body at a speed right for its apparent size. We were able to shoot at 64 frames per second(only about half of what I we would have liked.) This rapid rate of frame exposure increased our lighting requirements as did stopping down the lens to increase the depth of field on the set. It ended up that of the money we spent on the shot was spent renting lights about 8000 watts and extension cords. The final bill for the shot was about $360.00.

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A no-sound-look behind the work of “The Deadly Spawn” (1983) directed by Douglas McKeown.

Michael Perilstein ‎– The Deadly Spawn (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

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Source Material

Fangoria Magazine 28

Fangoria Magazine 310

Cinemagic Magazine 22

Cinemagic Magazine 18

The Deadly Spawn (1983) Retrospective Part Two An Interview with John Dods How did you come to be involved with The Deadly Spawn? …

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