Hail to the Chin

by Bruce Campbell

  In the magical land of Oz, it’s not enough to be merely humanoid. Featured characters were given crazy noses, ears, eyebrows and hairstyles to establish the fanciful universe on the other side of the tornado. My role as the “Winkie Gate Keeper” required enough effects makeup that I was glad my two days had been cut down to one.

  The makeup team was composed of Sam Raimi veterans, including Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger. As the “K,” “N” and “B” of KNB Effects, they had been collectively applying toxic substances to my face since Evil Dead II. Howard had since won an Academy Award for his work on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and was my official makeup homey.

  You Winkin’ at me?

  I looked around their giant facility. Rows of makeup stations stretched across the room. “How many Shemps come through here every day?” I asked.

  “On average? About ninety.”

  “Christ. Each with a fake nose or bald wig or facial hair?”

  “Or all three,” Howard said, nonplussed. He had seen a lot since Evil Dead II.

  In addition to the prosthetic nose, eyebrows, handlebar mustache and chin extension (?!), I was outfitted with a forty-pound Cossack jacket (not much exaggeration there), an eighteen-inch-tall hat and eight-inch boots straight out of a Kiss concert.

  I wasn’t on set for long before Sam and I fell back into the same old routine. He prodded, goaded and insulted me in front of his now-massive crew. He even made sure to yell at me when somebody else made a mistake.

  The fun was tossing back an insult, just as loud as his, like, “Sorry, Sam, I was waiting for some direction.”

  After this zinger, the gasp among the crew was audible. This “day player” had insulted the Grand Poo-Bah. It was only when Sam laughed heartily that they assumed we were old pals. Not surprisingly, Sam also delighted in tormenting James Franco.

  “That just means he likes you,” I explained to James.

  It was all Sam’s special treat for the crew – a show for the folks making the show.

  Half of the material in my scene was improvised on the fly by Sam, James, myself and Tony Cox – some of which involved a random fly that would land on each of our faces, to different effect. I thought it was really funny, but this sort of unrehearsed nonsense drives visual effects guys crazy. There were something like fifteen hundred effects shots in the movie and each one needed to function in 3-D.

  “Video Village” is where the director, script supervisor and key camera technicians “watch” a scene unfold in front of one or two HD monitors. It’s like watching television, only you determine the content.

  The Oz Video Village, being both 3-D and very effects laden, needed three different main monitors: one for seeing what the camera sees, a second for “precompositing” the foreground action with what will digitally become the elaborate background scenery. That kind of technology, where you could meld the live with the animated, blew my mind.

  The third monitor was fuzzy for some reason.

  “Put the glasses on,” advised a nearby script supervisor.

  “Okay,” I agreed, putting them on. “Ahh! It’s coming right at me! Oh, it’s 3-D.”

  It was almost ridiculous how well the 3-D effect worked in real time. The on-set camera, with coaxial cable tentacles spreading out everywhere, actually utilized two lenses to create the stereoscopic result. The complicated rig looked like something on loan from NASA. Seeing Sam next to that extraterrestrial camera made me think back to the days of him strapping a camera to his hand to get a desired visual effect.

  Still, shooting Oz was a very intimate experience. Sam was the hometown hero, a big shot Hollywood director with millions and millions of dollars at his disposal, but he was still just an old friend poking me with sticks. I was glad to see that some things never change.

  19

  HARDLY FUNCTIONAL

  Thanks to Mom, I’ve always loved the American West and Western movies. She dragged me to the last of the John Wayne movies when I was a kid and instilled a sense of awe in the West – like it was a mythical place. For those of you who have actually been to the West – it is a mythical, sometimes-mystical place. All the superlatives and clichés apply: thundering rivers, soaring mountains, sweeping, inhospitable deserts. The American West has it all. So, when I got the word about a new project to be filmed in New Mexico, I might have been more excited for my mother than myself.

  In truth, Tom Dibble’s script for Highly Functional was right up my alley. The character Chili Youngfield, a cynical, over-the-hill country singer, was pretty much written for me – aside from the singing and guitar-playing part. I flamed out playing drums for McHale’s Navy and faced rejection by an Elvis impersonator for Bubba Ho-Tep, so my self-confidence in mastering two new artistic skills at the same time was minimal. I was interested in the part – as long as I didn’t actually have to sing or play!

  I met with director Marc Forby and we agreed that, if necessary, the “country-western” part could be faked, so we would instead focus on the story, which was wonderfully eclectic. In it, a country-western singer is kidnapped by a young man with Asperger’s syndrome (nicely played by James Frecheville) and forced to play a song for his dying caretaker, Dan – a song that is loathed by the singer as his only hit, yet it’s also the only song in his repertoire that he didn’t write. Aside from quirkiness, there were elements in the screenplay that very much appealed to me – namely the redemption of a character after enduring a trial by fire.

  Before we got any further along in pre-production, I wanted to offer up whatever I could do vocally so the producers would know which way to go. If my singing sucked, they had time to pre-record somebody else and I would lip-sync to their track. If my vocals were useable, they would know that going in and I could sing to a playback of myself – which would be delightful, but either way was okay by me.

  I enlisted trusted Evil Dead composer Joe LoDuca to help with a demo. Joe had relocated to Los Angeles recently and was keen to jot down some country words and help me record one song. I got a taste of modern musical-recording methods in the process, which is really an art form now. Old-time singers were recorded with the full band or orchestra and they would do the entire take without stopping because there was no “editing” available. Singers had to get it right – and often.

  Today, almost any hack can go into a studio with a competent engineer and bluff their way through a song – syllable by syllable if necessary. In my case, I started by laying down a couple of wobbly takes. Joe then worked with the engineer to fix or repair any glitches, false starts or off-tempo singing. Once they were satisfied with the Frankenstein-ish assembly, I then watched in both glee and horror as they changed the pitch of my voice to put me “on key.” This career-saving/making program would literally bend my notes up or down until they were where they needed to be and voila – I was a country singer!

  There are no Grammies in my future, but the demo was enough to convince both Marc and Nigel the producer to record the songs with my voice, so I happily laid new tracks down with the actual lyrics, written by composer Christopher Bangs.

  Knowing that I had to at least look like I could play the guitar, I was paired up with singer-songwriter Dave Bernal to guide me through the process. Dave was a great teacher with a mediocre student and I clunked my way through chord progressions for weeks. When I think of a guy playing guitar, I see images of a slightly scruffy dude in torn jeans sitting cross-legged, singing Jim Croce songs to all the pretty girls.

  I was never that guy.

  Not pictured: glass shattering and dogs howling.

  I was never musically inclined. The only accessory I took on location was a briefcase, because it was “practical.” Accepting this fact, I announced to all creative types that they should not plan on me “playing for real” and we ended up with a hybrid situation – real singing combined with fake playing.

  Back during my Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., days, I started to listen to country music for the f
irst time. Among the annoying patriotic rambles or liquor-soaked bemoaning, country is a great genre for singer-songwriters to tell a story. I wasn’t a Garth Brooks or Shania Twain country guy – they were too mainstream to catch my attention. I started to listen to the old-timers like Hank Williams and Conway Twitty. George “No Show” Jones became a favorite of mine – as much for his colorful lifestyle “off mic” as his rich, authentic singing style. He got the “No Show” nickname for his propensity to get too drunk to perform. An early hit, “White Lightning” – a song about moonshine – had to be recorded over fifty times because he was so wasted. George had a great look, which I adopted: Long, mutton-chop sideburns, which almost reached his jawline. I combined George’s facial hair with Glen Campbell’s standard wardrobe of jeans, vest and tied neck scarf and I was almost there. A trip to my local Western wear store in Van Nuys, California, finished me off with a sharp hat, a couple pairs of boots and a fat-ass belt buckle.

  Sideburn Notice.

  I had the country-western thing under control. Now it was time to dive into the acting thing. I retreated with buddy Mike Kallio to The Complex, my favorite rehearsal space and we worked the shit out of the lines. This was a fat role. Chili had a lot of colorful dialogue that was really well written. Admittedly, I have shown contempt to lazy writers in the past by butchering their precious words, but I felt like I owed it to the good writing to get it right.

  Learning lines thoroughly isn’t just an admirable acting discipline – it’s also the first line of defense against inexperienced or indecisive directors. Be sharp on every take, every angle and you’ll be okay if you have to go on autopilot with no input – or poor input. Marc Forby was new to the directing game but not to producing and he was very sympathetic to the material. This was an important project to him, so we were both on the same page.

  The prospect of shooting a movie in the West again was exciting. The last time for me was in Utah for Sundown: A Vampire in Retreat back in 1988 and it fueled my love of wide-open expanses. I had passed through New Mexico on road trips a couple times, but never stayed to experience the Navajo lands there. Gallup, New Mexico, was a weird place – a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. Route 66 went through the middle of town and it was founded as a railhead for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Like so many new towns out west, Gallup was named after a railroad official – in this case, David Gallup. When a lumbering freight train eased its way through, you could be stuck at the crossing for a half hour – or hightail it to the other end of town to the solitary bridge over the tracks.

  The Navajo Nation was the principal tribe in this “Heart of Indian Country.” The experience of shooting in New Mexico enlightened me to the fact that you can’t just drive around the Navajo Nation lands and “see what’s going on.” Tribal land is not only sacred – it’s private. Some Navajo sites are open to non-Navajo visitors, but otherwise outsiders are not welcome without a guide.

  One such site I visited with Ida was Canyon de Chelly National Monument, which is managed in conjunction with the Federal Park Service. The monument is unique in that it represents an area that has been continuously inhabited for some five thousand years. Most places with ancient ruins are now barren, with no inhabitants for miles around. In Canyon de Chelly and other monuments on tribal land, Navajo families still lived on the land. At the bottom of the canyon, dwellings hundreds of years old would remain frozen in time, while up on the mesa the ancestors’ modern-day Navajo relatives resided in trailer homes.

  Life in the beautiful canyon wasn’t entirely bucolic. In 1864, Colonel Kit Carson and the Federal Army forced the Navajo into a last stand at the end of the box canyon. After a long winter the Navajo surrendered – ending the last major engagement between their tribe and the Feds.

  In discussions with our Navajo hosts, who were most gracious, you couldn’t escape the conversation about what had happened before any of us was around and the horrible way the Native Americans were treated. Most conversations about the topic usually ended with non-natives looking down at the ground, nodding, and saying, “Yeah, boy, you guys really got screwed.”

  It was ironic that the Navajo, given their size and successful implementation of gas and oil extraction – not to mention casinos on their sovereign land – were considered the “rich” tribe. In the week that we were shuttled around to various locations, I sure as hell didn’t meet anyone who was rich. To illustrate the point, a Native American crew member, hired to drive one of the actor campers, got a little too excited about the weekly paycheck and took off to party with friends – in the camper! It took some back-channel searching, but the woman was eventually located. When she was asked what happened, her excuse was as shocking as it was simple: She had never seen that much money before.

  The location was right up my valley.

  The first half of the shoot was in and around the city of Gallup, but the latter part was on actual tribal lands. Knowing this, I asked the producers to reach out to the Navajo location guides to see if they could arrange for a “holy man” to come and bless our production. To my great delight, the producers agreed and a blessing was arranged.

  The morning of the first day shooting on Navajo lands was shockingly cold – hovering right around eleven degrees. Our van steered into a nearby Conoco gas station. This was the rendezvous point to pick up our shaman – who was also the location guide’s uncle. This small, smiling man hopped in our van and we rode to the location, mostly in shivery silence.

  At the base camp, we gathered the crew around in a large circle and the shaman did his thing, blessing the four directions and passing around a modern-day “peace pipe,” containing a sage-like herb. I took a hit and coughed my brains out, but I was honored to participate in this ancient ritual. I asked the holy man if he could do something about the cold. He said it was already taken care of and the crew shared a good laugh – their billowing breath backlit by the orange-tinted morning sun. Mercifully, each day got warmer for the next three days we filmed at that location, so it seemed our guy did something right.

  Shooting the actual film was mostly uneventful. I enjoyed working with a diverse cast, from James Frecheville to Judge Reinhold to Annabeth Gish. We were all trying to make the best out of an oddball situation. I use that term because the setup of this project was something out of an international financier’s textbook. The main creative types involved – the writer, composer, producer and director – were English in nationality yet were all based in the United States. The rest of the crew came from Ottawa, Canada, yet we filmed in New Mexico. The strange grouping of nationalities and locations must have met some international requirements for funding, so there we were, shivering in beautiful New Mexico in November.

  But then things got even weirder. About four hours after my last day of filming, our director Marc was, to the best of my understanding, “involuntarily removed” from the project. They still had a week of shooting to go back in Ottawa. Why now, after all this? I had no issue with Marc, so it wasn’t any of my doing – it would take a lot for me to recommend the actual sacking of a director, as crucial as they are to the process.

  Shrugging it off to a potential rift between the director and producers – which happens often – I returned to Los Angeles. A couple of weeks later, after checking on the status/results of the project, I was informed that the producer Nigel had also left Highly Functional. That was a first – losing both the director and producer of a project after it was filmed, but before it was completed.

  Who the hell was going to see this through? The caterer?

  These are the times that try one’s patience with “showbiz.” This movie provided a perfect opportunity to strut my stuff doing something that was in my wheelhouse but completely different at the same time – there were no demons, no blood, just good old-fashioned acting and storytelling. What a delight! So, the idea that this movie, after all of our collective efforts, would get held up in international hell was a really disturbing thought.

  Highl
y Functional sat on a shelf from 2014 to the last quarter of 2016, when, miraculously, Marc resurfaced to let me know he was back on board to finish editing and see it through to completion. Some dispute had been resolved and the movie would actually see the light of day.

  Fingers crossed.

  20

  KISSIN’ HANDS AND SHAKIN’ BABIES – THE CON GAME

  In 1967, my hometown of Medford, Oregon, held its annual Pear Blossom Festival parade. This particular year, the grand marshal was Leonard Nimoy, dressed as Spock from the new TV show Star Trek. Though Medford was expecting hundreds, thousands showed up and Leonard had to be rescued by police. This was the first, unofficial, large gathering of “Trekkies.”

  Star Trek conventions took hold in the 1970s and the world of pop culture has never looked back. What was once a “fringe” industry or a “cult” phenomenon is now coming to a town near you almost every weekend. Conventions are the modern-day combination of county fair and traveling circus, with cosplay, celebrities, merchandise, comic books, gaming, tattoo and piercing stations – everything but the bearded lady.

  Conventions have morphed tremendously since my first Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Dearborn, Michigan, back in 1988. I was there to promote Evil Dead II and it was fun to see which actors were in attendance. Early on, cons were full of older guests who had appeared in popular TV shows or movies years ago and now signed keepsakes for adults who were once their childhood fans.

  The biggest change in conventions, aside from their sheer proliferation, is that guests are now actors from both old and current shows. Now, you’ll have convention mainstay Lou Ferrigno from television’s The Incredible Hulk, sitting across from Norman Reedus, living legend from The Walking Dead.

  I have to say, I prefer the new, mixed-bag approach to convention guests – it makes the actors’ greenroom so much more interesting to hang around in. Grabbing a cup of coffee, I might bump into Elvira – who is really just shy and delightful – or share a point and a wink with the Duck Dynasty clan, who seemed completely out of place.