Monster Makers

If you are like me and love the old, black and white UNIVERSAL MONSTER films you must know who Janus Piccoula was? or you might remember him as Jack Pierce.

He was born in Greece May 5, 1889  he imigrated with his family to the U.S. in his teens.

He was a cinema manager, stuntman, actor, even assistant director—which would eventually lead to his mastery of in the field of makeup.

 

Creating ICONIC monsters, such as the iconic makeup worn by Boris Karloff in Universal Studios (1931) Frankenstein or  The Mummy (1932),Lon Chaney in The Wolf Man (1941).

A stubborn man, continually resisted to change his old ways. Pierce was eventually let go from Universal in 1946 after over a decade of creating make-ups. It had become difficult for him to adapt to more modern and less costly methods. Jack was a man of tradition to his own executed designs. In the 1950s, things took a turn for the worse as television broadcasting came onto the scene. The Hollywood studios saw television as competition. Universal started the process of cutting their costs by selling needless studio assets, and trashing the unnecessary things they thought at the time were questionable.

Jack Pierce died on July 19, 1968. He won no Oscars, he has no star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Jack Pierce´s Legacy goes beyond that. He is remembered by his creations, he influenced some of FILMS most brilliant make up artists such as RICK BAKER (11 oscar nominations and 7 wins) and TOM SAVINI.

Jack Pierce changed make up for horror movies forever. 
Just remember how many times Make Up Artists
help a character....

(Stewart Freeborn)

 (John Chambers)

 (Dick Smith)

(Rick Baker)

Pierce's final credit as makeup artist was for the TV show Mister Ed.

The Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling is the Oscar given to the best achievement in makeup and hair-styling for film. This category was created until 1981.

 Usually, only three films are nominated each year rather than five as in most categories.
This year,  when you WATCH  the Academy Awards and hear..." And the nominees for BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING are..."

FOXCATCHER
Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard


THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier


GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White

Remember the work of Jack Pierce, I can only hope the Academy Awards, some day could do the proper tribute to the Original MONSTER MAKER ...JACK PIERCE.

IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

I can´t recall when exactly i saw for the first time STAR WARS. I know my dad took my sister and me to see Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to the movie theatre. But what i can recall is the mark it left on me. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker with my GREEN lightsaber. When the toys came  out i wanted everything, all the bad guys, the monsters, the ships and the movies.My love for STARWARS has grown all this years. I don´t know how many times we´ve watched them(A new hope, Empire and Return) over and over again, until scenes become our memories and quotes become vocabulary.

If you are like me, you watch at least 10 times the STAR WARS EPISODE VII trailer everyday.

Probably NOT. But you´ve watched it. And you are waiting for that movie as i am. 

Episode 7 The Force Awakens will mark the return of the original cast and hits theatres on December 18th 2015. 

That gives us a whole year of speculations and plot theories. Basically every fan has that date marked on the calendar.Wether you like, love or religiously practice STAR WARS everyone is expecting to see it. This movie continues the story of Luke Skywalker exactly 32 years after the destruction of the Death Star on RETURN OF THE JEDI.

WHAT WE KNOW

1. 1. The force  has been awakened
2. The Return of the Skywalkers, Han Solo , Chewbacca, C3PO & R2D2
3. 1.  Episode 7 is a J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan STORY.

From the TRAILER 

• Tatooine
• A 3 blade lightsaber
• X WINGS
• STORMTROOPERS
• MILLENIUM FALCON
• TIE FIGHTERS

A voice saying:

"There´s been an awakening..." 

"Have you felt it? "

" The DARKSIDE and the LIGHT........."

WHAT WE CAN EXPECT

• A better movie than EPISODE I, EPISODE II and EPISODE III
• The Star Wars SOUNDS(J.J. is very intelligent and if you listen carefully the trailer again its full of OLD Star Wars sounds)
• A NEW TRAILER... probably in AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON featuring the returning cast members.
• THE JEDI vs THE SITH
• The John Williams SCORE. 
• Luke using the force or teaching as KENOBI the ways of the force.
• Han calling Chewbacca some name like " LAUGH IT UP...FUZBALL"
• Space battles involving the MILLENIUM FALCON
• new characters with old characters
• practical effects less CGI
• A REAL STORY 
• An epic final scene
• EPISODE 8 and EPISODE 9.

We shouldn´t FORGET

Making a STAR WARS film is extremely difficult. Not only to film, but can you imagine the process of PRE and POST PRODUCTION of the story, the screenplay, the special effects, the actor rehearsals, visual effects, audio effects it must be a maze of confusion.

I for one, admire J.J. ABRAMS for taking on THE SINGLE BIGGEST RISK in Hollywood TODAY.

After rebooting STAR TREK taking the STAR WARS FRANCHISE 

and  trying to fulfill everyone´s hopes and dreams.

And selling it to todays SPOILER OBSESSED social networking audience.

The Force Awakens teaser trailer was released on November 28, 2014,  on YouTube generating a record 58.2 million views in its first week, surpassing trailers forAvengers: Age of Ultron (50.6 million views) and Jurassic World (53.9 million).

J.J. and KASDAN must´ve written something good so that original cast members would return and reprise their LEGENDARY ROLES.

By far EPISODE 7 is the most anticipated film event of 2015.

I can´t wait to see EPISODE VII.

Lets just count the days  until we see the lights DIM and those blue letters appear 

on the BIG SCREEN :

BREAKING the fourth wall

"Lowry ... stood across the road from his subjects and observed. Often enough there are a number of individuals in a crowd peering back at him. They invite us momentarily into their world, like characters on a stage sometimes do, breaking the fourth-wall illusion."

- Sir Ian McKellen

What is the fourth wall? Surely you´ve noticed in theater, in TV and in film the background sets are 3 walls and the fourth one is an imaginary one. Because the audience or the camera is placed there. Ever once in a while an actor or character will notice there is an audience out there becoming aware he is in fact a fictional character. But one that can interact with us by joking, explaining something or just saying whatever he or she is thinking.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet´s "Amelie" made Audrey Tautou an INSTANT ICON by staring at the camera with a smile and a spoon.

In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, one of Ben Affleck's characters says, "A Jay and Silent Bob movie? Who'd pay to see that?" At which point all three of them turn and glare at the audience.

  Have you ever noticed when suddenly a movie  character stops everything and looks at the camera to talk to the audience?

 That is called "BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL". It has no genre, no limitations, it can be in any sort of movie.

Disney´s THE EMPEROR´S NEW GROOVE made its main character, emperor Kusco explain the plot and letting us know who´s the victim of the story.

At the beggining of " Lord of War "Nicolas Cage as talks directly to the audience to set the tone of his character.

In  Annie Hall, a puffed up character: Man-In-Theatre-Line, spouts nonsense about Marshall McLuhan's theories of media. Allen's character Alvy argues with him, and then pulls the real Marshall McLuhan into the shot to back up his argument. Once that is done, Alvy faces the audience and says "Boy, if life were only like this!" He does this on many other occasions too.

Tyler Durden explains prologue and plot as we join David Fincher´s journey in FIGHT CLUB.

Dates back to the Lumière brothers and the first films made for public viewing in 1895—specifically, The Photographical Congress Arrives in Lyon, in which several of the photographers wave or doff their hats to the camera.

Alfred Hitchcock made the most freightening scene as Anthony Perkins last gesture in Psycho is stearing back at you.

Richard Donner´s Superman at the end of the movie just flying away. 

  In

 Sam Wiseman´s 

GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE it is used as a comedic device.

Steve Pink´s  

Hot Tub Time Machine has the scene where the characters realize that the hot tub time machine has, indeed, taken them back in time. When this dawns upon one of the characters, he says, "It must be some sort of... hot tub time machine," and then turns to stare at the audience.

In John Landis TRADING PLACES Eddie Murphy is asked if he knows ...what orange juice is? he responds by staring to the camera.

Quentin Tarantino´s  Death Proof.  

Martin Scorcese´s  Raging Bull.  

Johnathan Demme´s The Silence of the Lambs.  

Richard Donner´s  The Omen, in which five-year-old Damien, attending his adoptive parents' funeral, looks directly at the audience and smiles.

Breaking the fourth is not only for characters it can be also elements that touch the screen or interact with the actions in the movie,such as water, dirt or blood, intentionally sticking to the camera as it aknowledges the existence of that camera. Lens flare can also be considered as breaking the fourth wall. Alfonso Cuarón does this in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and so in GRAVITY.  

In movies as in literature, writers often break the fourth wall of a story by having their narrator or characters address the reader either in footnotes or other literary devices, thus having the film or novel itself recognize what it is (a story).