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| Tom Sullivan Interview | Page 1 : 2 : 3 : 4 |
| An Exclusive Interview with Tom
Sullivan (Referenced in the Evil Dead Companion) CLIFF: Hey, Tom. TOM SULLIVAN: Hi CLIFF: How about some information on yourself? TOM SULLIVAN: I am a tireless and hardworking professional, I have been a professional Illustrator since 1980. I've done lots' of H.P. Lovecraft inspired cover artwork for Chaosium Inc. in Oakland California. They produce role-playing games. I worked on the "Call of Cthulhu" and many other games until recently. My favorite book to illustrate was Petersen's Field guide to Cthulhu Monsters. It presents Art and descriptions of Twenty-Six of the most commonly encountered entities of H. P. Lovecraft's mythos. It has full color oil paintings and pen and ink drawings by me. I also was a sculpturer, and mold maker on The Fly Part 2, the sequel to the Jeff Goldblum version. That was for Chris Walas productions in Marin County, Calif. I am now starting a company with my partner Pat Reese called darkageproductions. We are going to create and sell replicas of some film props I have created for films, Art prints of my artwork. As well as lots of other stuff. Check out our website http://members.aol.com/darkageprodu. CLIFF: Do you know any personal information on the cast of the Evil Dead? TOM SULLIVAN: Bruce is the greatest physical comedian from America working in films, and an incredible trooper. He is genuinely a good person and the real deal, multi-talented as well, and did I mention how funny he is? I have not talked to him in years though. Scotty, played by Hal Delrich, not his real name, was and still might be a Professional Diver. He travels around the world entertaining folks with his incredible high dive show. I have not seen him for too many years. I hope to see everybody at the twenty-year reunion, if there is one.I am afraid I don't know too much, as we have all gone our separate ways. The last I heard Sarah York (Theresa) who played Shelly was a very successful D.J. in L.A., Ellen Sandweiss (Cheryl) was married and a mom back east. I believe Betsy Baker (Linda) is happily married as well. She had performed in a T.V. movie called "Word of Honor." This was out before Evil Dead was released and starred Karl Malden and I seem to recall a very young John Malkovitch. I'm sorry but this information is about 15 years old. CLIFF: What was it like working with Sam and Bruce? TOM SULLIVAN: Both are tireless and hard-working professionals. They have wanted to do what they are doing since they were little guys. Sam is fine to work with. He's very even tempered and it's a fun set despite the long hours and volume of work before us. Because of circumstances beyond any control, the exception would be the lack of preproduction on the Evil Dead. Three months would have been nice, but I recall Sam was very secretive about the script. I got the script about three weeks before shooting began. I had time to buy supplies and do some face casts that weren't usable for what I needed them for. So the latex face castings I made from them went on the very first version of the Book of the Dead. It's Ten Commandment size, which Sam told me later was too big for Ash to grab with that necklace. Ironically the Army of Darkness book is just a little smaller than the first one I did. And still have. Preproduction would have eliminated a lot of time wasted. Sam does preproduction now. CLIFF: What was your favorite part of making the Evil Dead films? TOM SULLIVAN: The opportunity to do what I have always wanted to do. Fortunately, The films have turned out to be far more successful than any of us had expected. At the time of the "Book of the Dead" production we thought we'd be lucky if it played in Southern drive-ins. It's been kind of like winning the lottery without getting the money. CLIFF: What is your personal favorite of the trilogy? TOM SULLIVAN: The first, not because I worked on it, it has an amazing intensity, I've never seen audiences react so expressively to a movie like it before or since. On a personal level it was the most satisfying as an artist. I had the chance to use every skill I had taught myself. I survived it and succeeded at it. CLIFF: How did you shoot the blood geyser scene from ED 2? TOM SULLIVAN: That was accomplished by the practical special effects man Vern Hyde, a wise, fine man and one of the tops in his field. Sam's worked with him since. As I recall, he had a local fire truck pump out colored water that had been mixed in make shift swimming pools. After the flood had taken place, the entire crew was enlisted in mopping up the spill. Remember, in ED 2 the interior cabin was actually the second story of a set built inside the gymnasium of an unused school, and there are no drains in a gym. Humans don't sweat that much. CLIFF: Where did you get the idea for what the evil force should look like? TOM SULLIVAN: I think you are referring to "old rotten apple head," the huge monster head that bursts through the door and tries to swallow Ash in ED 2. That was designed and built by a Los Angeles FX company. Sam had me draw a bunch of variations of themes for the project but they were not used. I still have my drawings though. Sam's ideas were for some kind of personalized demon for Ash as it had the faces of his comrades absorbed into the beast. Sam had me do drawings of a giant Evil Ash head bursting through the cabin door as well. CLIFF: How did you make the evil hand? (From possession to dismemberment) TOM SULLIVAN: In ED2 Ash becomes possessed after Linda's head bites him. I animated the infected hand shot in Detroit with Bruce. Sam had wanted some movement in Ash's hand, as it becomes gross, so I built a stand that Bruce could set his hand on and the platform could rotate incrementally while I painted and animated the blackened veins. Bruce slightly moved his fingers giving them that supernatural energy. The make up hand was done by Mark Shostrum's crew using prosthetics. The severed hand had been a combination of Rick Catizone's Stop Motion hand and a production assistant Named John Walter, a really decent and hard working guy who was thrilled to be working on an Evil Dead movie. He is the guy who gives the finger wearing the prosthetic stump. CLIFF: What went into the making and filming of the work-shed scene with the possessed Linda in Evil Dead 2? TOM SULLIVAN: That sequence was done by Mark Shostrum's crew. The volume of work in that one sequence is massive. It has character make-up, an elaborate full size puppet being puppeteered by a crew, a stunt chainsaw and lots of uncomfortable acting being done by the actress playing Linda in a vise. As for who did what and how, specifically, I can't help you there. CLIFF: How was making the Evil Dead different from making the Evil Dead 2? TOM SULLIVAN: The money, the food, and the size of the crew. In ED 1 about 17 of us from Michigan made it to the Tennessee location. And on ED 2 there were more than a hundred from all over the country. Making movies usually mean extremely long days and grueling conditions. Both of these films qualified at that. CLIFF: As an aspiring makeup artist, what materials did you use in the making of the Evil Dead films? TOM SULLIVAN: I only did make up effects for the first film. I wanted to do stop motion and being a make up person does not allow for much sleep. You have to get up very early to put actors in their masks. While as an animator on ED 2, I got to sleep into 5:00 A.M. As far as materials, I used modeling clay, latex rubber, cotton, rubber mask grease paint, alginate, hydrocal for the molds and a simple foam rubber for the castings, crepe hair and powder for the grease paint, and the contact lenses were made by a professional. If you can work well with these materials you'll have a good basic background of the skills needed. CLIFF: What advice can you give me on how to become a pro SPFX artist? TOM SULLIVAN: Start telling everyone that you are a SPFX artist. This way everybody will expect results. Get a good library of make-up books, which is essential. I'd try libraries, Cinefex magazine, American Cinematographer book lists, surf the net, Bookstores and write to your favorite make up professional. Richard Corson's book on Stage Make up is a great place to start. Practice on friends and then photograph or videotape your efforts so you can get used to seeing how it transfers to the screen. Then get out there and network and find others making films, chances are they are looking for you. Then you get a good portfolio start writing letters and knocking on doors. Good Luck! CLIFF: As a makeup artist, who influenced you to get into the business? TOM SULLIVAN: Sam Raimi. I always wanted to direct, but unlike the collaborative group of Sam, Rob and the Detroit guys, I was all alone, so I taught myself Art, Writing, Photography, Film making and the wide world of Special Effects. Sam had the confidence in me that I could do it and gave me the chance. I'm grateful. I wanted to know it all, and did just in time for the digital revolution. I'm a good designer and film and art will always need good ideas and designers. In the area of make-up my influences would be the legendary Dick Smith, Rick Baker, William Tuttle, and Rob Bottin. In stop motion Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Pete Peterson, Jim Danforth and Karel Zeman. CLIFF: Was the clay stop motion animation idea all yours and Bart Pierce's or did Sam Raimi have any input on it? TOM SULLIVAN: Good Question . . . The script was very sketchy. It says on page 66 (the bottom of the last page) of my "Book of the Dead"(original title of "The Evil Dead") shooting script (Copyright Renaissance Pictures LTD. 1979) And I quote: "The fireplace poker slips from CHERYLS hand and sticks into the wood scarcely an inch from ASHLYS head. The bodies of SCOTT AND CHERYL then begin to cave inward upon themselves collapsing to the floor in smoldering heaps. Finally, nothing is left but the burnt clothing and a blackish grey ooze on the floor where their bodies once were."Damn, if that Sam isn't a poet! I had always wanted to shoot the meltdown sequence in Stop Motion. I think Sam's idea was a deflating clothing and smoke effect, sort of fast. As it was, that short paragraph took two FX guys three months to create and film. In Sam's super 8-movie experience, he was always focused on telling stories and I was obsessed with animating stuff trying to be Harryhausen Jr. or O'Bie 2. It was more my area of interest and experience so I had to sell Sam on the idea of Stop Motion. As an example for what I had in mind for the meltdown I discussed with Sam, the animated Morlock that decomposes rapidly as Rod Taylor escapes in time in George Pal's "The Time Machine." Sam had seen my super 8 stop motion films at some of our film festivals at his and Rob's M.S.U. apartment I finally convinced Sam I could do it in clay animation and got the go ahead. I did eight drawings to represent the meltdown action, which Sam saw and liked. I was going to need a cameraman and fortunately Sam and Rob knew the perfect guy in Bart Pierce. Not only an experienced cinematographer but an animator as well. Not to mention he worked at Producers Color Service in Detroit so we could get our film back quickly. Sam got us together. We met when Bart picked me up in his van as I had a pick up shots shoot to do with Sam and crew north of Lansing, Michigan and this would give us a chance to get acquainted. This was in the early summer of 1980. Bart and I hit it off really well, as we both loved the original "King Kong" and all things Harryhausen and Danforth. That was until it came to how to approach the meltdown sequence. I wanted to do animation, but as much as Bart loved stop motion he felt that with all the new advances in make-up effects like the work of Dick Smith, Rick Baker, and Rob Bottin that audiences might might not go for it. |
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