Howard Berger & Marshall Julius talk about Making Monsters

In this episode we talk with Howard Berger & Marshall Julius about their book, Making Monsters, and special effects tips and stories. Check out their book Making Monsters: Inside Stories from the Creators of Hollywood's Most Iconic Creatures.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today, we're lucking if to be joined by award winning
makeup designer Department Head and the B and KM b
EFX Howard Berger, as well as ventures Geek Central's professional
geek writer, collector and quiz master Marshall Julius as we
talk about their book Monster Making and special thanks.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Go on kill Bill Now he's the first blood gag.
We had to shoot with Sophie's arm getting chopped off
one numacats or armoff, and I'm like, let's change this up.
Let's do two fire extinguishers charged to two hundred PSI,
both with two gallons of blood, and let's see what happens.
And we did it, and that shit shot thirty feet
and hit the walls and the ceilings and all I

(00:41):
heard is Quinton laughing behind the camera, and at that
point I knew we had succeeded. And he came up
and he's like, that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
You were now listening to the podcast for Geeks and
the Stuff they Love, where each week we'll talk about
everything from anime to movies, games and prop collecting with
the people who create and love it. I'm Jeremy, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Vince, I'm James, I'm Howard, I'm Marshall, and vich is
you got some editing to do? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Once because last for the last book, we were on
Doug Bradley's podcast and he didn't do any editing. I said,
I've got to stop and go to the toilet. The
whole thing is on the podcast. The whole thing was.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Your mic on when you went in there, I mean
the toilet.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
We can leave this in there if you want as well.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Was rather talk about just general geeky stuff about makeup artists,
and it doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
It's it's really yeah. I mean, you know, whatever you
want to talk about. Okay, Yeah, I figure at some
point we'll tie into the book, because the book is
not just with makeup artists. It's it's it's really yeah.
People within the entire film industry. Well that's that's yeah,
that's making the Monster, that's Masters, which has all makeup
effects people. For the most part, the new book is

(01:59):
a combination, an amalgamation of writers, directors, actors, visual effects
artists make up of course, but yeah, it's a big
slathering of a lot of different disciplines. And because everybody
loves monsters and movies, so that's kind of what we
went for. And everybody talked about, you know, what monsters

(02:23):
meant to them when they were a kid, and what
they you know, what they still mean to them now
they were adults and in the industry working on films
that have monsters or monster theme or horror theme or
what have you.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
So, yeah, backstory on this. I mean, you mentioned, you know,
when we're kids and.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Stuff, which what's for you guys? What's your backstory for me?
I mean, I was I grew up in Los Angeles
in the San Fernando Valley, and my dad was in
the industry. He was a post production sound editor and
he loved movies and he got me hooked on movies
right out of the gate. And you know, the movies
I gravitated to were monster films. You know, I loved it,

(03:00):
and I always was curious, you know who made those monsters?
You know, and my dad's people called makeup artists. So
at that point it clicked, and I'm like, that's what
I want to do when I grow up. I want
to be a makeup artist. I want to work on
these movies. And you know, listen, I was fortunate to
grow up in a family that was super supportive and
also film centric, and as well as growing up in

(03:20):
the valley in Los Angeles where they made movies, and
that my dad worked in the film industry, so I
had it was all the perfect storm. And you know,
early on, I just started sculpting and painting and molding
in my bedroom and making masks and using my three
sisters as experiments. You know, there were my subjects. And

(03:41):
then you know, I reached out to people I idolized,
like Stan Winston and Rick Baker and Dick Smith, and
you know, they all wrote back and I got to
meet them all when I was very young, and that
just was the beginning of it all, you know, and
I knew, like, this is what I'm going to do
when I grow up. And I'm doing it and it's
and you know, it's been this is my forty second

(04:02):
year being in the film industry. I'm tired, but it's good.
But I love it. And I wake up every single
morning and I look forward to going to work. And
it's a combination of doing the work, but also I
really love the camaraderie that we have. You know, it's
all about being with your friends and working together, and
you know, like currently I'm in New Mexico and Albuquerque,

(04:22):
New Mexico doing a show, and I've got a lot
of great friends on my crew. But I've done gigantic,
enormous shows where I've had, you know, thirty forty crew members,
and it gives me an opportunity to employ all my
friends and who are great at doing their job. It's
just not that we're friends, but they deliver. And that's
really what I find so much fun about it. And

(04:43):
as you meet people in your industry, no matter what
they are, who they are, it all comes back to monsters,
you know. And I've you know, spoken to actors who
bring it up. It's like, oh, you know, I love
monster movies. Or if I wasn't a an actor, i'd
be a makeup artist. You know, it's really kind of cool.

(05:04):
And when you hear that, because I would never say, oh,
if I wasn't a makeup artist, I'd be an actor.
Never in a million years. I think it's a terrible job.
I feel terrible for them all the time. But you know,
like I worked with Gary Oldman years ago and we
were talking about it, and he's a huge makeup enthusiast,
and he said if I wasn't an actor, I'd i'd
be doing what you do. I love makeup effects. I
just love being in makeup. And you know, when you

(05:25):
see Gary and a lot of those movies, those makeups
are perpetuated mostly by him. You know, He's really like,
I want to be in a makeup even if there's
nothing in the script that requires it. It helps his car, yeah, seriously,
and he wants to develop the character and he uses
it to as a tool, you know. And that's also

(05:45):
when we're working, that's what we look for, you know,
we're like, Okay, how can we help the actor build
his character? So we're kind of a you know, an
instrumental part of that. Same as costumes. You know, when
an actor puts on his costume or he or hers
costume or their costume, they start to feel the character
and come to life. As they're sitting in the makeup
chair every morning, you can start to see the change

(06:06):
in the actor as they start to develop. Like I
did this movie called Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins, and so
Tony would sit in the chair and it was Tony
and then through the course he would start to change
and become Alfred Hitchcock and by the end of the
session he'd go and get dressed and put you know,
all that stuff, and he was Alfred Hitchcock, not that
he was like in his mind like please call me
mister Hitchcock. I please. Right. It wasn't like a method thing,

(06:28):
but it helped. Yeah, no, no, no, Andy Kaufman, you know,
or Jim Carrey or whomever it was. He just he
used that to his benefit, you know, and we work
together as a team. So you know, that's what's super cool.
That's what I love doing. I love working with the actors,
you know, more so than anybody on the show, you know,

(06:50):
just because they have a clear vision of what they
want to do and we're there to help them facilitate that.
And it's nice to see when a character works on screen.
You're like, okay, I was a part of that. That's
really really fun. So but anyhow, I diverted off the question. So, yes,
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. I love monsters.
I love making monsters. I still love making monsters.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
So what's the project that took you into I mean, like,
how old were you and what was the project that I.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Was I was like, well, I was like eight years
old when I really realized this is what I was
going to do. And there was a makeup store in
the valley called Friends Beauty Supply, which is still there
a matter of fact, and my grandfather had taken me
there and one of the people that worked there name
his name was Namy, really helped me. And he gave
me a book written by Mike Westmore, which I still

(07:37):
have and supplies to like do a life cast, and
do this and that is in clay and everything I
needed to start. And I went home immediately and did it,
and that is it just never stopped. But you know,
I mean I was really influenced by the Universal Monsters.
You know, Creature in the Black Lagoon is my favorite,
of course, and and still is. And uh, you know,

(07:58):
then I discovered Godzilla and you know, all that stuff,
and it just grew and grew and grew, and I
still have a massive fascination with all of it. You know,
I really love it a lot. So yeah, I know
it's it's cool and so but when I I you know,
I did a lot of different things when I was
growing up. In high school, I did all the makeup
for the plays for play production, and I did a

(08:20):
ton of stuff on my own. I did Halloween things
for like, you know, different events, even down to like
being at the mall with a little kiosk faint painting faces,
you know, to earn a couple of bucks, you know,
instead of mowing lawns for the summer and yeah, just
to buy supply. So but really what happened is in

(08:41):
my relationship with Stan Winston, who did you know the
terminator in Jurassic Park and Aliens. He had I had
met him when I was about twelve and he had
he watched me grow as an artist or what have
you and my enthusiasm, and he said, when you graduate
in high school, I'll hire you. So the day after
I graduated high school, I called Stan and he's like, okay,

(09:03):
start tomorrow. And that was on Aliens. Well, which was cool,
but I mean I was a grunt and that was
great and I loved every second of it and the
fact that I got to work on this movie that
was a sequel to a film I really loved, with
a bunch of friends that we're working on it in
Stan Shop and the new friends and you know, it's

(09:23):
a really cool community, you know, that we have. You know,
we're all still great friends. We've been friends for forty
some years. That all started working at Stan Winston or
Rick Baker's or Kevin Yaeger's and it's cool. It's just
everybody stays tight, which is nice, you know, But then
you can also borrow things. Like one of the shops
called me yesterday looking for a head cast of Brian

(09:44):
Cranston and I'm like, we have that. It's like, oh god,
we need it so much and we want to save
Brian from coming in for a new head cast or
a scan. And I said, yeah, yeah, no, we can
certainly lend that to you because you know, we're friends
with Brian, so I don't want Brian to have to
go through that again just because we don't want a share.
But it's it's it's part of the camaraderie and the
friendship and the professionalism of you know, sharing things. Dick Smith,

(10:07):
who's the godfather of makeup, who did Amideis and you
know Exorcist and Little Big Man and the Hunger, Dick
was big about sharing all his secrets. You know. Prior
to that, they the other guys weren't. It's like, nope,
it's a trade secret. You know, they were protecting their
their livelihood. But Dick didn't see it that way. And
when I would write him, he lived in Larchmont, New York,

(10:30):
he would write me back, and he was he was
known for writing everybody back on his little typewriter, and
you know, you'd have his letter head and I say,
to every single letter he ever sent me. I have
it in a big giant book in my office and
it's really really cool and it's what do you call
that book? It's called Howard's Great Book of Knowledge? Oh yeah,

(10:50):
and it is. It's filled with all this stuff from
Dick Smith and from Chris Whalers who did Gremlins, and
stuff from Rob Botein and Michael Westmore's paint uh color
mix formulas. And it's wonderful. I mean it does. It's
just awesome, you know. But that's so I I you know,
bounced off of that as far as uh, you know,

(11:12):
not keeping any secrets, because nothing's a secret. It really isn't, right.
And you know, so whenever I get an email or
something or a whatever, uh call, or I'm always take
the time to answer it and answer all the questions
because I think it's very important and also just to
pass the baton. You know, I'm not going to do
this forever hopefully and uh and uh you know times

(11:34):
it's coming to the two and end for me as soon.
But uh, it's it's great to pass on that information
and then you know, plant the seed, same as stand
did for me, or Rick Baker did, or Dick Smith
did for me. So I think it's it's important to
just keep keep that going, you know, as long as
we can, especially you know, in the in the the
face of how technology is changing in the world and

(11:56):
in filmmaking with you know, digital effects of course, but AI,
I think is a very huge tool that is uh,
you know already here. It's not even on the horizon,
it's past the horizon. I mean, it's incredible what they're doing.
But but you know, it's it's it's gonna be. It's
a different playfield now, totally different than when I started.

(12:17):
And and I'm glad I started. I started at the
right time. I got in just at the right time,
and I had the greatest experiences and I have the
best stories and the best memories. And now the people
that are getting into it, they're not going to have
those they'll be different, but there's it's just a different mentality,
you know, and different different experience. It's not at all

(12:38):
what it was. We were really like you know, the
outlaws or what have you. It was just shoot from
the hip. We didn't know shit in the eighties, you know.
I mean we were all just monster guys that you know,
would loved you know, heavy metal and stuff like that.
And you know, I had all mullets and all that stuff.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
But I guess with that you get the really original,
creative sort of effects absolutely nobody had seen before.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
So and also filmmaking was different. There were singular voices.
So like you had worked with a director, that director
was the singular voice. There's one producer on set who
was there to you know, facilitate the needs of the
director and the crew. Now you have directors who don't
have a plan, don't have a vision, they don't know
what the hell's going on, and you have producers, multiple

(13:24):
producers who all want to have their two cents, which
just waters everything down, and you just know every decision
they're making is the wrong decision and you try to,
you know, do your best you can. So it's it's
it's changed the entire film industry has changed, you know,
not just our industry but everyone. I was on set
talking to the effects supervisor last night and he said

(13:46):
the same thing. It's like, I sure, I'm glad I
was here when we were building models. You know, I
got to work on Return of the Jedi and work
on this and work on that. And now they think,
you know, oh, it doesn't even matter because Marvel kind
of like, you know, destroyed that world by just making
it just bloated with visual effects to the point where
the audience it's there's no bar like the bar, there's

(14:07):
no bar to set because it's just there. Yeah, no
more saturated. Yeah. I mean if you watch, if you
watch any Marvel film and then watch Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters and
infinitely better the effects wise, You're like, that's so cool.
It's such a combo of things. But if you watch
you know whatever Marvel, you're like, it's just a barrage
of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, there you go, there's your there's

(14:29):
your trap. Yeah. So it's it's a big thing, you know,
and it's it's hard for all of us, but it's
but we're really glad that we had the opportunity to
really be a part of when it all was when
it was a born and watching this baby grow and
you know, now it's now it's and I don't I
don't mean to sound like negative or what have you.

(14:49):
It's just the reality of it, and you roll with it,
and you know, as new technologies reveal themselves, you figure
out ways to utilize them. I mean, when Jurassic Park
came out, we all want to see it and we
looked at each other and we were like, we're all extinct,
but we weren't because we found a way to work
with the visual effects department, you know, be at ilam
or rhythm and hues or you know, wow, you know,

(15:11):
whatever it was, and we just kind of like formed
an alliance with them, and they needed us, we needed them.
There's things we could do, there's things they couldn't do,
vice versa. And so we just kind of found the
happy medium with AI. It's we use it as a tool,
you know, as far as other options for for concepts
and designs, and you know, we'll have a barrage of

(15:34):
designers doing this traditionally, some still work with pencil, uh,
some prefer you know, doing it with photoshop, but there
are times where we'll go and we'll you know, write
a couple of prompts to see what the what the
what AI is thinking and there might be some interesting
options that come up. We would never produce a full

(15:55):
AI piece of art, right, submit it, write our names
on it, and submit it. That's this morally corrupt And
you know, oh yes, you were saying.

Speaker 5 (16:04):
Yeah, it's also very ephemeral because it's a prompt and
it's interpreted by absolutely something. So there's no artist mark
on it, not at all, except for a watermark. Yeah,
except for a water mark.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
And that's the thing. It's like, there's something to be
said about human effort, you know, and and when that
doesn't exist, it's noticeable to me. And I think, you know,
people going like, oh, there's going to be you know,
aren't you afraid of full AI movies? Absolutely not, because
one they'll be dog shit and two, you know, go ahead,
please spend money on making AI films and let's see

(16:40):
who doesn't go it'll be a dead in the water.
If you remember that movie Final Fantasy, yeah, yeah, which
was all the first CG movie. It came out. People
went to see it and were like, man, that was awful,
and that was it that was the end of like
those full CG like realism movies. You know, it just
didn't work. Or Roberts and Meckis's canure venture into doing

(17:01):
motion capture movies, which people just didn't catch on to.
It just looked weird. You know. I feel like it'll
be the same thing if they do AI movies. I mean,
I could be wrong, but I don't. I don't think so.
I think my instincts are still people people are interested
in human effort.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
I will say that there's been a couple of projects.
Do you've done that that? I? Uh, I honestly, I
didn't know until I saw the making of and and
they were interviewing you actually uh that. I even I
thought it was all done using computer generated you know
the stuff. But it's all practical. One of the characters

(17:39):
names is the Skinny Devil.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
I think it was oh for for Legion.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, and I mean to see that. I just even
the way it was just just the makeup. It looks
it's unbelievable that that was all done practically, or look.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, it was all practical. Well. Noah Hawley, who was
the creator of that show, who's brilliant and has Alien
Earth on right now, which is pretty cool too.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
You know loves practical stuff, you know, he doesn't want
to do the CGI is the fallback, you know. And
but again, you know, like I said, we work hand
in hand. I love working with the VFS department because
you can create things that that you might not be
able to do practical. You know, if you want to
squish an actor, you know, like maybe make them a
little thinner or whatever. But yeah, for for the you know,

(18:30):
yellow eyed thin monster or whatever it was, devil, there's probably.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
One way to do it. You're going to get one shot.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, and you have you
also have you also have you know, happy accidents that happen,
you know when you're shooting it real in real time
and practical. You know, if you were going to do
something all ai, there are no happy accidents because it's
just going to give you what it is, right. You know.
You find things in performance as actors changing their performance.
Uh the way you you know this is shot or

(18:59):
maybe the sun Chaine, you know, while you're shooting outdoors,
and that gives you a whole different field. Maybe it's
it becomes golden hour while you're shooting and that gives
you a whole different feel of what the film is.
But you can't do that, you know. I mean, you
can create Golden Hour, but it's just you know, it's
just not it. It's just it'll be no there will
be heartless, soulless movies. And if that's what people want,

(19:21):
that's you know, knock it out, then that's it. We
also have to keep in mind, I know this is
a rant, and poor Marshall's like, but what about me?
But I started but but but but you know, there's
there's uh was I just gonna say, oh, darna, hell,
lo's my train of thought. Sorry, but anyhow, it's it's

(19:42):
it's really about people want to be entertained, you know.
I mean, look at the movies that are hitting it,
like that movie Weapons came out and people are digging it,
you know, so you know, I mean the review Yeah,
the reviews are oh my god. And I've talked to
a few people like I just loved it, and I'm like, okay, well,
you know, sounds great. But the thing is, it's a

(20:03):
simple movie. It's all you know, it's people and you know,
human effort or whatever, and so yeah, it's like people,
people want a variety of things. The studios have have
certainly misjudged the audience like incredible in the sense of,
you know, you've got somebody over at Warner Brothers running

(20:24):
that into the ground until recent when the studios or
the shareholders probably went, this guy has really screwed us
big time. Let's whatever find a way to get rid
of him. Eventually by we'll just reduce his salary every
week until he just like I'm out of here. But
it's like just one bad idea after another. And you know,

(20:44):
I not too long ago that studio head was saying
We're only going to do IP and sequels, and then
last week it's like, we're only going to do original
things and do these movies and do that. You know,
there's a guy at Warner Brothers, Mike de Luca, who
I've known since since the eighties. You know, Mike started
off at New Line Cinema. He was kind of like,
you know, the super genius kid, you know. And anyhow,

(21:09):
he's the guy that greenlit Sinners, which I love that movie.
I think Sinners is super cool. And though it's very
similar to Dust Till Dawn, which we did at K
and b it's a really really awesome film. I really
dug it. And he had a lot of resistance getting
that movie made because the studio didn't want to make
it because it wasn't a sequel or IP. And it's
now turned out to be a huge film. And you know,

(21:32):
all these films that are different, that are original, we're done.
We're everyone has fatigue of Marvel fatigue. We know that
they have sequel fatigue, they have IP. It's just just guys,
make original films. Go back to the seventies. Watch movies
from the seventies. Those are all amazing original films that

(21:53):
brilliant filmmakers made. Now we just churn out really pretty
much barf. And it's just like you go.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Just Hollywood though that's afraid to make.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's just afraid to you know, make new things.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
I mean, like so our first book masters and makeup effects,
the idea to make it plug ego, just quote just stories,
right and to cut sort of us out of the
of the reading process. So like you you know, like
you went for a dinner party with all these guys,
you probably the next day remember three or four really
good stories. And that's the stuff that we wanted to include,

(22:28):
not the stuff that would be you know, would just
fade from your memory. We wanted all the best, most
memorable stuff. So the book comes out. It was really
well received, which was very gratifying because we worked our
asses off on it, and then we spoke to our
publishers about doing a follow up and they said, yeah,

(22:50):
we definitely want to do a new book with you.
We were surprised actually how well Masters of Makeup Effects did.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
And it was like, what what are you saying?

Speaker 3 (23:00):
You know, that is the most backhanded sort of compliment ever.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
It's like, you know, I said, well, we didn't really
have any faith in it working.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
We thought, what the hell, you know, I had to
have some tax right off. But it turned out really well,
and so we were like, well, okay, you weren't expecting
that to be successful. But it was so why do
you trust us to do something new? But now they're like,
oh no, we want you to do the same thing
that was. That was you know, it was enough that
they trusted us once, and it's like, well, if you

(23:28):
trusted us to do this once, let us do something new.
That said, Making Monsters is not just a retread because
we approached it in the same format, but we did,
you know, change change the subject to some degree because
Masters is all about specifically make up effects across all
the genres, and because of that, we felt like we

(23:51):
couldn't actually include things like digital effects. So we couldn't
really talk about Jurassic Part We couldn't really talk about
stole motion effects.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
People could we.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
We we shoehorned ray han Housen in the first book
because he inspired so many people, but we wanted to,
you know, get into it more and into stop motional.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
We couldn't do that in the last book.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
And so now we're we're not just talking about the
one discipline that go in movie making, but all the
disciplines that go towards making making monsters. And we've got
our own spectual Ray hair Housen chapter, which were very pleased.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
We loved that chapter.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a
matte painter. Really, yeah, which I don't think. I don't
think that. I don't know, maybe it does.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
I don't think it doesn't exist any but you know,
I mean where those days go. Uh yeah, yeah, No,
it's very it's very sad it doesn't that doesn't exist anymore.
So yeah, speaking, that's an that's an art in itself.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Speaking of these kids. Like, you know, I grew up
in the VHS era of every time something came on TV,
those are behind the scenes kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Or whatever else.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
I pop into VHS and I had like back to
back recordings of all these right the people. Do you
guys have something someone?

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:02):
So yeah, yeah, And I remember my grandpa gave me
a can of latex and uh, and I I learned
on my hand, I did that what do you call it,
like stretched and flex the you know, getting that stretch, stretching, stiff. Yeah, yeah,
and so I and I did that on my face.
I decided I'm going to do my face. It looked
really great. And it did. It looked really good. It

(25:24):
was the taking it off that was the was the
learning curve, the problem that came along, Like what are
some of the what are some of the getting back
to the basics, Like what were some of the things
that you kind of learned early on or that you
played around with that they were kinds of things that

(25:45):
you continue to use for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Well, you know, I go back to the old techniques
all the time. I'm currently back to doing what I
started doing in terms of how I do makeups. And
you know, you have when you're starting off, and when
the industry was young, you had just a limited amount
of resources. You know, you use makeup. It's called rubber
mask grease paint that's specifically for foam, rubber appliances or

(26:11):
latex or what have you. You know, Dick Smith invented
this really great adhesive paint called Pax paint PAX, and
he invented it for Tutsie because Dustin Hoffman's five o'clock
shadow came in so heavy halfway through the day and
Dick's like, I have to figure out a way to
just cover this. So he would shave him pretty tight

(26:31):
and then he would do his base and Pax paint
and you couldn't see through it. So Pax is a
big thing. Anyhow, As things develop and the industry becomes
big and profitable for manufacturers of supplies and so forth,
they develop all these other materials. If you know, you
go instead of using spirit gum for glue, there's all

(26:51):
these silicone adhesives and medical adhesives that you know, and
everything's derived from the medical community. You know, by the way,
we would find, you know, oh this works for this.
If this works for this, I bid you I can
adapt it and use it for this, this or this.
So there's now more specific supplies and tools and so forth.

(27:11):
But I go back to what I started with. I
still do makeups and rubber mask, grease pain I still
do them real simple. And you know, I use an
airbrush and it's the same airbrush that I've used, not
the exact same one I got when I was a
kid from my mom for Honika, but uh, but it was.
It's the same Pasche Pasche h, which I think is

(27:32):
a super simple, inexpensive airbrush that works great for everything.
It's a great utility. You know, there's and a cost
like nothing. You can even buy them on eBay for
thirty bucks. But you know, there's all these other airbrushes
that are super high end. They're hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
I don't know any of them. And that's just my preference.
I mean I have people, you know, people like Steve

(27:52):
Wango with Master Painters, and they have everything they need
to do with the intricate stuff. But yeah, I kind
of like remind myself, like, oh, I used to use
this in this I used to use like water based
makeup for this or he said, why am I not
doing that anymore? What's wrong with it? So, you know,
I'm a strong believer in just because it's it's new

(28:13):
doesn't mean it's good. You know, you have to take
a look and see what the project is, you know,
what you're shooting in at, what the elements are, how
your actor reacts to things. I mean, you can have
there's these alcohol based makeup paints and they're great, but
you may have an actor who can't be near alcohol.
So you have to rethink and like, okay, so I'm
going to use a water base even though it's different,

(28:35):
you know. And then you just find ways to do it.
You know, people, I think because of the schools people
went to a lot of the schools in you know,
the past two decades or whatever, that that's the only way
to do it, because that's they teach you how to
do it, but they don't really tell you, like there's
a hundred other ways. I always say, there's one hundred
ways to make a hamburger. But at the end of

(28:56):
the day, it's a hamburger. So as long as you
get to the where you have to go That's what's important.
And uh, you know, like I said, I just I
just go back to the techniques I used to use,
and they work great. There's a reason why Rick Baker
did it this way, or Mike Westmore did it this way,
or you know, Dick Smith did it this way and
it still works. I mean the thing that's changed is

(29:19):
digital photography, because no, we you know, certain things don't
look so great in four K, but you uh, you know,
you justin figure it out. And so for saying with
the materials, like I'm a big foam rubber guy. You know,
there's silicones and all this other stuff. Silicones are huge.
When silicone prosthetics first of kind of developed, you know,

(29:40):
that was it. It's like everybody used silicone, but it
didn't mean that you should. Just because you can doesn't
mean you should. Yeah, and you have to take a
look again. It's like, okay, well how is this going
to play? You don't want to use a silicone makeup
if you're shooting in Atlanta in August because the actor
is just going to sweat it off. But you can
use foam rubber, you know, or if you have a

(30:00):
very heavy a big makeup. You don't want to make
that all in silicone. It's just going to be super
heavy on you. You want you want it to be
lightweight and foam rubber, you know, and all that good stuff. Yeah,
there you go, like little little little spock airs, but
you know, and those were all all, you know, foam
rubber that John John Chambers had made for Star Trek

(30:21):
for Fred Phillips on the original series. What about wax, Yeah,
as a kid, as a I would never use it
on a show. No, because it's it's not stable.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
No, it's not stable at all those lamps and everything else.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, no, no it's not. You don't you don't want
to foil yourself. No, that was a good idea. And
the noses drooping off.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
The makeup, wasn't it wasn't it? Didn't they use wax?

Speaker 2 (30:48):
And oh you mean the original one. Yeah. Yeah, Well
that's different though, because that was before the world of prosthetics, So,
I mean it was before sculpting moldy. That technology didn't exist.
That technology didn't come out until the thirties. On Wizard
of Oz because they had characters that had to be
in full continuity and you couldn't do that with build up.
You know, the original Frankenstein's Monster that Jack Pierce did

(31:11):
on Forist Karloff, that was all built up. There wasn't
a prosthetic, like I'll just sculpt this and run it
in foam rubber and paint it every day. That's not
how it work. So those days, the construction days are
are long gone. I mean they went away in the
in the late forties.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
You've got a mold for everybody, and you go.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, you have to but that's it's just that's just
that's that makes sense to me. So it's like there's
a process and it's like, yes, of course that makeup
has to look the same every day, so and take
this amount of time to apply. You know, the build
up is a very long, extensive way to do it,
you know, and and doing it, you know, with a

(31:52):
prosthetics and so forth. You can there's a there's a
speed you can find. You know. I'm a very fast
makeup artist. Some people take hours and hours. I really
kind of limit myself because I think of the actor
and I try to be production friendly, but also I
want to do a really good job, and you know,
but I think I can. I can manage all three
aspects when I look at a makeup and design a makeup,

(32:13):
it's very important.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, you did the Orville makeup design and stuff. I
know you mentioned that for Bortis, you had like eighty
molds that you just were getting ready.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, we had because Bortis played all the time. Yet
Peter Macon, who plays Bortis, Yeah, he's a lot of
makeups every every day he worked almost so we had
a lot of duplicate molds, you know, the head, cowls
and the faces, and that's that. Ortle is a good
example of like understanding Seth McFarland's sensibilities. Like he loves
Star Trek, he loves Next Generation. It's like his ultimate,

(32:46):
most favorite thing. And so we designed the makeups to
have the flavor of what Mike Westmore designed for those shows.
And I made sure any big prosthetic makeup was really
three pieces. It was a cowl, which you know, like
the batman cowl, and then there'd be a chin piece
and a full face piece that glued on top. And
you had about an hour and a half to do

(33:08):
the makeups. So yeah, it's very fun. I could do them.
Like in forty five, I would just around like, okay,
next next, I'd be on the walkie, give me the
who's next next alien? And you just get speed and
you know how this goes and you can do it quickly.
But you know, that's an example of like it could
have been silicone all those pieces, but I would never
want to put Peter through a makeup where there's like

(33:32):
ten pounds of rubber on his head. Instead, I did
it all on foam rubber. That show is primarily all
foam rubber. And then we started I started painting my
characters with rubber masks, grease paint. When I started to
see there was certain issues with some of the materials
people were using, like cracking around the mouth after lunch.
And those were very long days of shooting. We would
do ninety hours a week, and so makeups were tough.

(33:52):
Like Peter could be in a makeup for fourteen hours.
That's way beyond you know, makeups are good for about
ten hours, and then after that you're like, because they're eating,
they're talking, they're drinking, they might be smoking, you never know,
and it just stuff goes to custard after a certain point.
So you know, you take a look and you figure
it all out and and Seth loved the look of

(34:14):
everything because it felt like Star Trek and you know,
you know, it was fun.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
He just had his name's on on one of your
books because.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
It is on. Yeah, he went and he wrote his
name on every single book he found and I was like, Seth,
what the hell? No Mark? When Marshall and I were Yeah,
when Marshall and I were doing Masters makeup effects, we
talked about like we had our wish list of who
should do the forwards and the afterwards, and we reached
out the set I mean, I just finished working with

(34:44):
Seth and and so he was more than happy to
do it. So he wrote a really.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Great he's a pretty major geek.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, he's a huge geek. Yeah, he's a
huge geek and thank god for that. And he's awesome,
he's fantastic. Seth MacFarlane is wonderful to work with and
he was super creative and yeah, he's excellent guy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Do you have any nightmares stories as far as makeup
stuff goes?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Sure? Always, But you know the good no, no, no,
the good outweighs the bad always. You know, there's like
a one or two actors I'm not fond of that.
I would never work with again. But that's out of
thousands and thousands, you know. I mean, it's probably my
biggest nightmare was I worked on Austin Powers Part three.

(35:36):
Oh yeah, and myself in a really talented make of ours.
Chris Nelson, he's dynamite, and thank god he was there
with me because he was my saving grace. I just
had a really hard time with Mike Myers and the
characters he wanted to play, which he wrote, and he
was very agitated, especially with fat bastard and really unkind

(35:56):
and I said, I said, then don't write the characters.
He's like, but everybody loves it and wants it, and
I have to give him what they want. And I'm like, yeah,
all of the entire crew's expense. So that was really tough.
That actually sort of destroyed my confidence for a little bit,
and it took me a while to get back on
the horse. And uh, it's just because I thought we
did a really good job and Mike just was really,

(36:21):
really really difficult. Yeah. I mean I've heard he's changed,
so that's great, you know, Uh, good on him, And
I mean I think the guy's talented and super funny.
But that was really heartbreaking because I was so excited
to work on that movie and get to work with
Mike Myers, and you know, but wow, well, I've met

(36:45):
my heroes and they're all wonderful. He's just somebody. He's
somebody that I wanted to work with. He was on
my list because I just enjoyed I enjoyed what he
did on SNL and I really thought the first Austin
Powers movie was brilliant and I was like, oh man,
this is going to be so fun. It's going to
be a great opportunity, and then it ended up being
like definitely one of my worst experiences, if not the worst.

(37:06):
So but yeah, but what about just I mean.

Speaker 6 (37:08):
Gold members from my country? Actually, oh no, smoking pancakes,
that's right.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
What about like just I mean, because everything is kind
of an experiment a lot of times too. I mean,
just something that once when you got into it turned
out to be something that didn't quite work out the
way that it seemed like it was going to, or
it turned out better even because it.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Just happy accident. Yeah, It's it's both ways, you know,
it's really how you deal with it. Sure, there's tons
of times that will do something we think is going
to work and it doesn't and you're like, oh shit,
they got to rethink this. And sometimes you have to
rethink it on set, you know, sometimes when you do
like blood gags, you have to rethink it. Like I'll
give you a reference. So I'm kill Bill, Oh yes, yes,

(37:52):
or in Beijing again with I'm with Chris Nelson and
another guy, Jake mccannon. It's just the three of us
doing everything and that we do the first thing. We're
doing some tests and I can see Quentin's just not
digging it, and I'm like, oh, so I go to him.
He's like a Howard. It's just not happening for me.
It's like not big enough. And I was like, God,
all right, well he's the last person I want to disappoint.

(38:14):
So Chris and Jake and I got together and we
started talking. I'm like, well, maybe we're we're really going
like it's It was big. The first blood gag we
had to shoot with Sophie's arm getting chopped off. Manuma
cuts are armuff and that's what we were testing, and
the blood just was like it was like a shps
And I'm like, no, what, let's really do a full

(38:35):
Monty here, Let's do it so that he says that
was too big. And so instead of like I like
to use fire extinguishers with like a good like two
gallons of blood charge tore like you know, I'll say
a hundred psi and it's hooked up to tubes, and
you know, you hit it and then blood sprays out,
and I'm like, let's change this up. Let's do two

(38:55):
fire extinguishers charge to two hundred psi, both with two
gallons of blood, and let's see what happens. And we
did it, and that shit shot thirty feet and hit
the walls and the ceilings and all I heard is
Quinton laughing behind the camera, and at that point I
knew we had succeeded. And we and he came up

(39:17):
and he's like, that's what I'm talking about, and I'm like,
all right. So the rest of the show, we we
we doubled everything, we doubled down on everything. We couldn't
make it big enough, you know in my mind, and
you know, we keep reinventing and reinventing. The thing is,
if you're the sort of personality as I am, who
cares and really gets gutted. When something doesn't work, you

(39:40):
find a h you find a solution. You don't make excuses.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
It's like, oh, well, but Quentin, it's because of this,
this and this. I'm like, hey, I'm going to figure
this out and just give me some time. I'll remedy it.
I will remedy this, you know, and with brainstorming, you do.
And but it happens to everybody, you know. I Rick
Baker I once said, like, you never fail, and he's like,
I fail all the time, you just never see it.
So he's like, I'm not going to show you my failures,

(40:06):
but there's tons of them. I'm like, okay, that makes
me feel a little bit better. So but yeah, no,
it's it's there's always times when you you're doing something
it's just doesn't look right, you know, if there's something
wrong with it, and you're like, I got to go
back and revisit this and figure out and you pull
your team and you're like, guys, take a look at this.
Let's talk about what works and doesn't work. Because I

(40:27):
don't have the answers all the answers. I don't I
don't want to be the singular voice. I mean I
will be the singular voice at the end. Ultimately it's
gonna be my decision. But getting there, I need other
people's points of view. They say, may see things differently
than I see and it might be better idea, you know,
And I'm open to that.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Without naming any names of like movies or shows and
stuff that you've worked on, is there anything that you
would say that you sadly had to let be as
something that wasn't living up to your expectations?

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Oh yeah, I'm sure you.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
Can't watch without saying I should have done that better.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Oh yeah, absolutely, there's stuff. I look at photos of
stuff we did and I like, how did that get by?
That's terrible? You know. There's sometimes I see some really
dodgy shit that I did, or I'm like, how did
I think that was good? Name on this? Yeah, well
it's more me. It's not so much them. It's me,
like I could have done a better job. It just

(41:22):
doesn't look right, or I see I recognize like I
paint things a very specific way, but it's always the same.
For some reason, I can't seem to break my way
I paint, and I'll see things. Maybe that's what it is.
I look at it and I'm like, God, such a
me paint job. I wish I had mixed it up
a little bit, you know, tried this or try that.
It's mostly a creative thing for me, not always being

(41:46):
super happy with it, you know, And something I might
think is like this is so cool, and then I
look at it again years later I'm like, God, that's
so crap. It's so bad. I'm embarrassed by Like, we're
gonna destroy all the photos now so nobody ever sees this. Uh.
But yeah, I mean there's certainly shows. There's some shows
you work on that you have a great time doing

(42:07):
and then the movie or the TV series doesn't turn
out as well. You know, it's more fun to work
on it. Then there's times where you have a miserable time.
You're like this hate working on this movie. This sucks,
and it comes out and you're like, hey, that turned
out really, really good. I'm really surprised. Scream was one
of those movies where I hated working on it. I
hated it more than anything. I despised every day I

(42:28):
had to go to set. And then when I saw
the movie, why is that I hated the script? I
thought it was a hack job, and I thought it was.
It was derivative. It was a rip off of everything.
You know. We had just come off an interview with
a vampire and not interview the vampire, sorry vampire in
Brooklyn with Eddie Murphy that Wes Craven directed, and that
was that didn't do well at all, and so we
were all like, Eh, what are we going to do?

(42:49):
Wes and West is like, well, I think even Wes
was like, I think this is the last nail in
my coffin. This movie is just I don't know what
it's going to be. And then the movie came out.
It was great, and it did great and spawn it's
phil spawning sequels. But Wes was able to take that
story in that script and really do something with it,
and it had to do with this. The people he

(43:11):
cast were really good. His post production I thought was
really good. You know. I thought the music in the
film really drove the momentum of the film. It became
a really enjoyable movie to watch. And I was shocked
because I was like, it's just going to be the
worst film ever. And I was really thinking Mirramax was
dumping it because it was bad. Because they released it
like on Christmas. I think it was December twenty first,

(43:34):
and I'm like, who releases a horror movie on December
twenty first? And then it just kept climbing and climbing
all the way up to like three hundred million dollars.
It never fell off the box office as number one
during Christmas and into the new year, and it was
pretty incredible, you know. I mean, they tried that again
and that was a fail of course, Like you know,
really they released The Faculty that's like same slot, and

(43:55):
it's like that's not really a film, you know, it was.
It just didn't work in that time slot. It should
have been a summer movie. But anyhow, you just never know, man.
And it's like, but all through these years, I've learned
to separate myself and not be disappointed. And I realized
I did what I delivered. I did my job, and

(44:17):
now it's up to the filmmaker to deliver. You know. Again,
I use a lot of food analogy, So to me,
it's like we bring all the ingredients and the chef
can make a too flet that rises or collapses, and
sometimes it does rise and sometimes it collapses. So you know,
when you get disappointed, you're like, oh wow, we you know,
you sit there and go I had so much fun

(44:38):
making this movie. But it's way more fun making it
than I was watching it. Right, That happens often.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
I know that there are certain situations though, where even
though the plots might not be good, or the ways
that the director has shot certain scenes, I know there
are like multiple people that still enjoy like the visual
effects or the makeup of like certain characters, most etcetera.
So I mean, it's always worth putting the effort in.
Like it's never like people appreciate it like they will

(45:05):
appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
You never half asset. It's not like this is going
to be shit. We don't really, it doesn't matter. Every
show that CA and B gets, that's the most important show.
And any client we have, they're the most important client.
And that's how Greg Nikotaro and I have dealt with
it for thirty eight years. And that's how can B
has been around for thirty eight years. Because we give
such personal attention. We don't just like it's fine, or

(45:29):
screw those guys or they didn't pay enough money. That's
the other thing too. We don't discriminate against budgets so
we'll do Michael Bay two hundred million dollar movie, and
then I'll do another movie for you know, Cabin Fever
for twenty million, twenty thousand, because Eli had no money.
So we did it for because we liked the script,

(45:50):
we like Eli, and we thought it'd be fun. And
you know that worked out really well. That's not great.

Speaker 6 (45:57):
You're making a movie as well.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Aren't you not? The Yeah and makeup of Accident. I
wish it did, but yeah, and you've worked with like
speaking of I mean list of movies. I was, I
was going through your IMDb last night, and it's like
if you just looked up like movies from a certain

(46:20):
age forward, is almost every single movie is in here.
But and you see a lot that makes sense why
why you're involved with them? And then you get to
those movies like Father Stu and stuff like that, like
like what did you.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Do in that movie for Father Stu? Yeah, Well there's
a sequence where Mark Wahlberg he gets this disease and
and he puts on a lot of weight because he
becomes a paraplegic and he gets heavy. So Mark I
had worked with Mark for years and years, and Mark
always knew how to utilize me. And so he called

(46:53):
me and he's like, Howard, I'm doing this movie, father
stew It's a true story, you know. I said, well,
send me photos of the real guy. And I looked
at it. I'm like, okay, well, this is a you know,
a heavy set makeup. And I said, would you be
willing to shave your head because I think that needs it.
I said, I don't want to bald cap you. I
think that you're going to be miserable. It's going to cut.
That's going to cut like an hour off the make
because Marc Hat's sitting in the make a chair and

(47:15):
he's dead. He shaves his head and we designed a
really nice makeup and all that stuff, and that's what
I did for Fathers to do. So I don't G
and B has been very diverse through the decades. And
it's not that we just do horror. We started off
just doing horror because that's made sense. But you know,
we worked on dances with wolves, and we built all

(47:36):
these mechanical buffalo something we had no idea how to do,
but we did it. We worked on City Slickers again,
mechanical puppets and animals. Little Norman was a puppet in
the birth scene and some other sequences. You know, it varies.
It's whatever comes in that interests us, you know. And
again we can and be the studio, which is a
twenty thousand square foot facility in Chats where is filled

(47:58):
with people that do all different and things. You know
do we do miniatures, we do specialty props, we do
specialty costumes. You know, I'd like to said creatures. Whatever
it takes, you know, I mean, it's pretty cool. And
that's why I think we've been also around for a
long time because we're just not focusing on one thing.
We didn't we didn't pigeonhole ourselves, Greg and I and yeah,

(48:21):
it's just it's just we just like doing a lot
of different things. So but yeah, there's a lot of
you know, there's a movie coming out with that I
just did with Mark called By Any Means, and I
think it'll it'll probably be on next year. But it's
another true story. We shot it really fast, and Mark
wanted a character makeup, and so I designed and went
to a lant and applied this makeup on Mark for
fifteen days and and you know it's it's a subtle makeup,

(48:43):
but I was so so excited one to be back
working with Mark because I thoroughly enjoy working with him.
He's a good he's a good partner to have and
and it was just a fun makeup and it was
something different. He was trying something different and I really
appreciated that. And again, they had no money, but I'm like,
i'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. So and
we did, and it worked out great, and he was
really happy. And I think it's going to be a

(49:03):
really really good movie. Yeah, pretty intense. So but that
you know, that's another thing. I work on a lot
of shows. I mean the show I'm working on now
virtually has no prosthetics. I'm department heading, which means that
I oversee all make up and you know, makeup and
prosthetics and so forth. And I love doing it. That's
what that's where the rest of my career is going

(49:24):
to be, is just department heading. And you know, it's
it's a faith based series for Amazon, and you know,
the monster guys on set dealing with you know, biblical
figures from seventeen hundred BC, so you know, go figure.
But it's something that interests me. It's a period of

(49:45):
time I never did, and I'm like, you know, like
I did American Primeval that was a you know, on
the cusp of the Westerns, and that was incredible and
amazing to do. And yeah, it's just you kind of
mix it up. You know, I'm not always going to
do war or monsters or makeup effects. There'll be times it's,
you know, just I just do a movie, you know,

(50:06):
which is perfectly fine.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
If you only had one tool, what would it be?

Speaker 2 (50:10):
The tool? The tool, your favorite tool that you ever.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
I'm gonna have the same question for Marshall hearing a
little bit, but uh, like yeah, it would be Marshall.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
The words. Yes, yes, he is a wordsmith. Matter of fact.
Every time I write something, I send it to him
and then it comes back like polished, like nobody's business.
Like you know, it's in crowd, like geez, who wrote this,
Abraham Lincoln? This is great? Uh but uh, gosh, one tool,
one tool, that's a that's a that's a hard one.

(50:46):
I don't know, man, h ah, Well, I can do anything. Well,
I don't know. Maybe there's God, I don't know, man,
that's hard to say. It's it's I don't know, if
I could get away with one tool. Yeah, yeah, I don't.
I don't mean you need Yeah, I mean maybe my airbrush,

(51:07):
although I'm using these days that airbrush.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, you must have really cleaned that well. I don't think.
I haven't had an airbrush last morning year for me.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
No, I don't clean it. I don't clean it. That's why.
That's why it works so well. That's why, because it's
not I mean I clean it once in a blue
moon when it clogs, but I like that every time
I drop it on the ground, it works better. And
that's how that airbrush has survived. It's like, oh my god,
you know the splatter now I can really splatter into it.
The needle's bent and I'm like, this is great, happy accident.

(51:38):
Uh But yeah, no, I don't. I don't know. Maybe
maybe my airbrush. I really I love the airbush. Yeah,
that would be my big tool. Perhaps.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
How about what's your what's your recommendation for people that
are wanting to do now in this era they want
to go into you know, makeup design and special facts,
things like.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
That machine somehow. Yeah, Marshall's one hundred percent correct, go
back in time. I can't tell you the truth, and
I know this sounds crappy. I can't consciously encourage anybody
to go into this because I don't know how viable
it is. We have after between the pandemic and the

(52:22):
strikes and the studios streaming everything in the universe and
burning everybody out, the industry is in a very very
it's in very bad health and it has been for
five years and people there are a lot of people
out of work that have been out of work for
I don't even know how they're surviving. So to get
into this, it's just not going to be something you're

(52:45):
going to make money at, make a living at, because
there's already tons of people that are professionals that can't
get work currently until the studios pull their heads out
of their whatevers and figure out what you know, how
to get back to work. But it's hard, man. I
mean you can do it, that's great, but I just
you know, with.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
The indye, the indie people and the cose players out there, well,
that's a different universe I want to do. Yeah, yeah,
Like I.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Mean, if you want to be like, oh, I want
to be a makeup effects artist for film, that's a
that's a that is an extinct art I'm sorry. It's
sadly where we're relics. Uh, And that is the truth.
And I've never felt that way up until recent I think,
you know, if you want to make this stuff and
do Halloween haunts and cosplay, yeah, man, rock and roll,
then just do it. Get into it. People are so

(53:35):
afraid to take a chance. And there you know, because
I get hundreds of letters a year from people and
asking that. It's like, well, how should I start them? Like,
just do it? You know, what do you There's no
secret words? Oh yeah, there you go. See you look
at that brilliant You're ready for the world. But there's
there's no secret word to get you in to make it. It's

(53:57):
it's just hard work and being good. And you have
to have perspective on yourself, like you got to look
in the mirror and go, am I really good at this?
And take a look at who was in the industry
and the types of people and the quality and the expertise.
And if you think you can compete with them, great,
But don't say. All I want is I feel like
I can sculpt in one of the main rooms and

(54:17):
you're you know, you're just gonna be sitting next to
Norman Cabrera and Dave Gregiro and John Wrights, and they're gonna,
they're gonna run. I mean, you can't compete with their
toenail on the floor, you know. And that's the reality.
Like you really have to have perspective, and a lot
of people do not. I get all tremendous amount of
stuff sent to me and I'm like, holy mackerel, Like
I applaud the effort and the uh, the interest, but

(54:43):
the reality is really really rough. Oh. I mean it's
so far off there's no bar to be seen, so
you know, the bar's so underground. It's like in China,
So I don't know.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
And the book that you guys would say, we're kind
of doing this again, we're doing this in in a
couple of pieces, uh, for for the next episode. We're
talking a lot about just general geek stuff and and
and a lot of Marshall.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
I was gonna I was gonna say, that's that's the
realm of too, that's the realm. Yeah, that's the realm
of Marshall. Marshall is the king. I mean, I know
a lot of collectors like Greg Nikataro is a massive collector,
but Marshall is is you know, is the Grand Collecting.
So yeah, there you go, even even a book.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
So but the book that you guys would would say
to that people should go out there tomorrow or today
or right now while you're on your phone and I'm
watching this, go ahead and order uh which which are
just the things you have the other book too?

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Right? Mean? Ok?

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Yeah, there you go, hold that one up.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
There we go. H yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
So so now that how long go did this come out?

Speaker 2 (55:57):
This came out like.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
In twenty twenty two, twenty two September twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Okay, And and people can get it just about anywhere,
right like I can get on so yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, yeah in the Netherlands and.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
They don't even yeah.

Speaker 6 (56:15):
We don't even have boats.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
They don't even read. There lots of pretty pictures. There
are lots of pictures.

Speaker 6 (56:26):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
If you've enjoyed this podcast and want more, to stay
tuned for that, but also check out our channel join
the community on YouTube that goes by the same name.
In your geek fix, be sure to check out Vince
on Twitter at massive dmg Underscore and on his YouTube
channel Massive DMG. Check out James at mister Malto four
on Instagram and the Replica prop forum.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
To learn more.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
About Howard Marshall and their books, be sure to check
out the description below. In the meantime, this has been
your deep Fix.