Phantom Harbor's Captain Speaks

Shannon Shea shares his excellent journey through the world of Makeup Special Effects

Special Effects Artist Shannon Shea as "the Captain" of Phantom Harbor

By J. Jekyll
July 2009
Goremaster.com

Mr. Shea is a verteran special effects wizard and creator of Phantom Harbor. He took some time out of his busy schedule to chat with GoreMaster about his experiences working in the film industry. He got his start during the 1980s golden age of practical effects and embraced new technology as it has developed in the field. His film resume includes Predator (1987), Jurrasic Park (1993) , House on Haunted Hill (1999), The Mist (2007) and most recently Drag Me To Hell (2009). He has risen through the ranks of KNB Effects Group and is the creator and Captain of his own realm in Phantom Harbor a website where the Captain leads you to stories of Monsters, Ghosts and the Supernatural.

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GM: How did you make your decision to enter the field?

SS: You know it’s interesting, I think that the turning point was the movie Star Wars (1977) . But I will tell you that before that I was a huge dinosaur fan as a kid. I grew up in Gretna, LA and was father was a film critic in New Orleans and so we went and saw tons of movies all the time. I remember seeing the original King Kong (1933) when I was a kid and just being enamored of the dinosaurs and stop motion.

But I hadn’t really thought about making a career of it, I thought about being a paleontologist. I really thought I was going to study dinosaurs. Until I saw Star Wars (1977) then I said okay that’s it my mind is made up I really want to get into special effects that’s what I really want to do.

When I was about 16 or 17 I found out about a college called California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). I want to say that it was in Cinefantastique Magazine I was reading about one of the Rotoscope artists… I think his name was Adam Beckett (he is no longer with us) He attended Cal Arts. It was interesting, when I ordered my course catalog from Cal Arts and of course Star Wars was huge in the late 70s and so I went there. I thought “Wow this is a special effects college.” I was 18 and have literally never been further West than I think Dallas Texas. I got in the car and drove out to California. Never having been any further West than that. I went to school at Cal Arts and got a huge education. Not just in film but in life …pretty quickly and I got plucked out of Cal Arts by a makeup artist named Mark Shostrum. I got to the school and started learning more about stop motion and cell animation ‘cause that’s the Disney School Cal Arts. Although I wasn’t enrolled in the Disney School I was in the experimental film graphics program by Jules Engle and I realized that I don’t have the patience to do this. I really wanted to do more tangible things and produce effects that were happening in real time in front of the camera. So I started doing more puppet and monster stuff and I met Mark Shostrum who saw my work and invited me to come down to his studio in Pasadena. And I remember walking into his house and it looked like photos I had seen of the Makeup Artist Dick Smith who did the Exorcist (1973) and Godfather (1972). He’s kind of universally accepted as the “father” of contemporary makeup effects. But his house looked like Dick Smith’s basement. I was just like “oh my god” I’ve died and gone to heaven. There are molds all over the place and sculptures in some sort of finish and some sort of mask and things lying all over the place. I just struck a friendship and started producing stuff. Before I knew it was working on my first feature Supernatural back in 1984.

Shannon Shea and Dick Smith

GM: What’s one of your favorite early special effects memories? Is there a particular scene that you can think of? You mentioned King Kong is there something that made you say “I really want to do that?”

SS: Yeah I can still remember clearly seeing it on the old black and white TV the stegosaurus making his appearance in King Kong and just being blown away by that. But I also remember that my father took us to see 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) when it first came out. So what was that ’69? So I must have been 7? [laughs] I mean 7 years old and seeing that or Planet of the Apes (1968)?? I mean all those things …One Million Years BC (1966), I saw that in the theater and Valley of the Gwangi (1969) of those things all left an indelible mark in my head. Those were all the early influences. I would say that primarily the stegosaurus scene in King Kong and I think the roping scene from Valley of the Gwangi those things still if you look at them in the context of the time line they’re amazing…its amazing Ray Harryhausen had the career that he did. When I think about Ray Harryhausen, sitting by himself in a little studio someplace, producing all these effects primarily by himself for decades…that’s amazing. That one human being can do that…that’s pretty amazing.

GM: I know this will be tough to answer, but what are your top 5 special effects movies?

SS: Okay I would say my five top makeup effects films would probably be:

John Carpenter’s The Thing (1981) because again to me that was the zenith of contemporary pre-CGI makeup effects. Rob (Bottin) was doing stuff back in those days…. that was 1981, he was building all that stuff and I know that because one of the people I met at Cal Arts a guy named James Cummins who hired my wife and I on her first film my second film called House (1986). He was working for Rob Bottin, very talented sculptor and designer, and he was coming up after work up to Cal Arts and hanging out with us and he would have Polaroid’s of all the sculptures and stuff they were doing. We saw all of that stuff a year before that picture came out and it was jaw dropping. The amount of stuff they were doing. So The Thing is number 1 number 2 is…
Aliens (1986) because I worked for Stan Winston the first job I did for him was Aliens and I was in the mold shop. I working in the mold shop making molds of the original H.R. Geiger suit and all those molds were being shipped over to England then Stan and the crew went to go work in England and I went on to work on films like From Beyond (1986) and the Evil Dead 2 (1987) and all that stuff. But when he came back and he hired me back to work I’ll never forget seeing pictures of the finished queen alien. I literally just dropped into a chair I couldn’t believe what I was looking at that’s an amazing thing.
The 3rd one I would say is JurassicPark (1993). JurassicPark was a landmark to me it was the beginning of a very successful relationship between makeup effects and CGI. I could go on and on with stories about JurassicPark. It was a tremendous achievement
Then I would say The Howling (1981). I loved The Howling. To this day, I don’t think anyone has produced werewolf puppets that have been used as effectively as in that picture. I know you don’t see much and it’s always in shadow and Rob Bottin was really careful to make sure they were lit in specific ways. But what’s so great is that he had such an influence over how they were being filmed. Where today you’re at the mercy of about 6 or 7 people who will tell you what they want from directors to producers to visual effects people to production designers. I mean Rob had so much control over what he was doing that was tremendous.
I really think that again in context the original Planet of the Apes (1968). If you think about what that did back in 1968 in terms of creating characters and a population. A population of characters in makeup it’s huge. So those are my top five makeup special effects films.

My top five visual effects films would be:
- King Kong the original 1933 without a doubt.
- 2001 a Space Odyssey (1968)I watched that again on High Definition recently still amazing…absolutely amazing.
- Blade Runner (1982) I think is a tremendous thing.
- The original Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977)
- Close Encounters of a Third Kind (1977)
Those are like what I just described to you those 10 films I think are the hallmark of really what you can achieve with visual effects.

Shannon Shea with triceratops for Jurassic Park

GM: Who is your favorite Special Effects person of all time?

SS: I will tell you that there are so many. I think that in some ways Ray Harryhausen is a big one even though when I was a kid… this is true, when I was a kid I drew a picture of Willis O’Brien, which is so weird when you think that there’s a kid in Louisiana with an art pad and pencil looking at pictures of Famous Monsters… of this middle aged guy in the 1930s, manipulating rubber puppets and I was drawing pictures of him so I’m not just drawing pictures of the dinosaurs and King Kong (1933) . I’m drawing pictures of the animator because I thought he was just the coolest. It wasn’t until years later that I read what a tragic life he led and I think someone could do a bio pict Willis O’Brien. So I’d say Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen. Stan Winston was like a father to me at a very early time in my career.

Shannon Shea and T2
Shannon Shea working on Terminator 2 (1991) (liquid metal)

GM: Whose current work do you admire?

SS: You know again that’s tough, I think I really admire what Mike Elizalde is trying to do at Spectral (Motion). I don’t know if you know he’s the one that did the work in Hell Boy 2 (2008) and the new Land of the Lost (2009) film. What I like about Mike is he’s just holding the ground where it comes to keeping things as traditional as possible. It’s not an easy thing to do. I think one of the reasons why KNB is so successful is because Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger work effectively with filmmakers, producers and directors and we will build whatever they ask within the limits of what they are asking for…
GM: Sharing the vision.
SS: Yeah, Sharing the vision and if we’re talking with a visual effects person saying for instance “all I need is a mouth”. Like we did for Drag Me to Hell (2009). “All we need is a mouth that I’m going to paint green that you guys can push your kitten through.” “So this character could vomit up a cat.” Where I think Mike would say “Listen, I can do that but I can certainly show you a puppet that can do that same thing. And you don’t have to resort to a visual effect. And he would push his artists to go “old school” and do whatever it would take to make that “old school” effect. I can’t remember the last time I saw and original monster suit head to foot on the big screen like I did in Hell Boy 2. I was like “I can’t believe it!” Cause now-a-days we’d go “Ahh… that suit would just be CGI” but boy he stuck to his guns and that character “Wink” in Hell Boy 2 was probably one of the most beautiful contemporary monster suits that I’ve seen in a long time. So I’d say Mike Elizalde.

Shannon Shea as Fooglie
Shannon Shea as "Fooglie"

GM: How did you get work initially in the industry?

SS: Well like I said I was kind of found. It’s interesting, I was discovered by Mark Shostrum. I’ve been asked by a lot of people “how do I break into the industry?” and I’m going to tell you the truth of it. The truth of it is be awesome… I mean your art work has got to be awesome. I would say that the disadvantage that people have now that I didn’t have (pauses) good lord 25 years ago… is that everything is so accessible. I mean with the internet and books and behind the scenes things on DVDs. We at KNB and specifically me because I go through tons of portfolios, if you don’t wow me with an image, I cannot in good conscience recommend you for work. I just can’t. There’s certainly two ways to go about it. The one way is the same way in Hollywood you can become a P.A. and you can come in and you can work for $200-$300 a week and suffer living in Los Angeles and do grunt work for months and months and months and then while you are there learn something and then work your way up. And it takes a long time and it’s not very glamorous and you sacrifice a good portion of your life doing it. And then you have to be lucky enough that you know somebody or you somebody who knows somebody that can get you into those positions. Recently I had someone say “hey do you guys take interns at KNB?” and my answer was “no” or “rarely”. And it’s a shame because at KNB our schedules are so tight and our budgets are so small that we don’t have a lot of time to train people. We rely on everyone to know their job and do it really well. Because you don’t have time to sit there and over think and doubt yourself or go “gosh I made a horrible mistake” because making one mistake in contemporary motion picture special effects production is tantamount to a disaster. You almost have to come in being a master of what you want to do. So what I would do, if I lived in Los Angeles, there’s a sculpting teacher named Jordu Schell….probably the only sculpting teacher I would recommend. He teaches sculpture and he is a tremendous sculptor tremendous designer some of the best aliens I’ve ever seen. I can’t praise this man enough the guy is incredible. I have never taken any of his sculpting classes I have always wanted to I just never have the time. But I would recommend to anyone go to his school and Jordu is a perfect conduit. If Jordu thinks you are talented you have a lot of ability Jordu will call one of his many friends at any studio and go “hey you should look at this guys work” “he’s really tremendous” and we’ll look at the work and coming from Jordu (bing bam boom) we have an opening you’re in. If you can keep pace and run with the big dogs the sky is the limit.

GM: What was your toughest job?

Shannon Shea and Predator
Shannon Shea and The Predator

SS: I think when I was heading up Predator (1987) at Stan Winston’s and that was a really tough job. Because I was young and the circumstances were difficult because all of Stan’s main crew were finishing up Monster Squad (1987) and starting up Pumpkinhead (1988). There were two really tremendous artists, Steve Wang and Matt Rose, who were in charge of the artistic aspects of Predator and they were younger than me… I was in my early twenties at the time. But Stan knew that I was a hard worker and knew that I was going to push and do what it takes to make that film happen. So he put me in charge of making sure the job got done, which is not an easy position to be in. It was really rough. We busted our behinds in Mexico. But we were young. You’re young and you’re indestructible you can be in Mexico in the jungle literally and survive and come out on the other side. None of us had high hopes for that film, none of us on the makeup effects crew, and when we saw that, it was such a reward. It was tremendous …it was a lot of hard work. And there have been other films too like the build list for the original Chronicles of Nardia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005). When I saw that build list I just went “I’ve never built anything like this before…” We’re talking about 22 Minotaurs and 35 Centaurs and 2 dozen dwarfs and 30 fauns and you’re going you’re building an army. The numbers were insane and it just kept coming. I’d be like, “okay we’re done with the fauns now we have boggles.” You’d go “What?!” “Okay!” I can’t remember we had over 100 people working on that show. Because there were so many people working on that picture it was really difficult. It wasn’t the only film we were doing at KNB we did Chronicles of Narnia (2005), The Island (2005) for Michael Bay, a film called Desperation (2006) for television for Mick Garris and Land of the Dead (2005) for George Romero and all were happening at the same time so that’s were it gets challenging …oh ,I almost forgot, we were doing House of Wax (2005) at the time as well. So, you’re doing 5 pictures that’s really difficult and challenging. Like now we’re doing the new Piranha film in 3D …we’re building that and we’re starting building on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader then we’re doing some R&D work on some films that I’m not at liberty to discuss right now. And what happened is there is this incredible amount of work that has to happen in a very short amount of time and that’s when it gets challenging. It’s the cliché, feast or famine. Either we have 5 shows going at once or we absolutely have nothing going on and we’re sitting around building dummies for our stock and that’s a whole other conversation. One of the reasons I admire Mike (Elizalde) is because Mike always seems to get a lot of custom work. I can’t tell you how many times I get phone calls from a prop master or from a special effects person saying “Hey do you have a dummy? I need a loosely jointed dummy of a man mid thirties, Caucasian, blonde hair, etc “and I have to go to the shelf put them together and they rent it and the bring it back 2 days later and say “thank you” I mean that is a real substantial portion of what we do at KNB, because nobody wants to build anything. Literally they’ll go “do you have a gorilla suit?” “No?” “Goodbye!” (laughs) You didn’t even ask me if we could build a gorilla suit. Of course we could build you a gorilla suit! A tremendous gorilla suit, if you give us the time and the money. I mean that’s the new Hollywood you know. We have a stock of things that we keep in repair. Because when someone says “do you have a goat puppet”? We do have a goat puppet and the next day we’ll be on set for some TV show or some movie with our goat puppet. That’s just the way it is… horse, cow we have it all. It is kind of crazy.

Shannon with Decapitated Head
Shannon with actor Peter Gallagher's decapitated head for House on Haunted Hill (1999)

GM: What was your favorite job of all time?

SS: My favorite job recently was Drag Me To Hell (2009). Out and out, Drag Me to Hell has been the best contemporary experience I have had since probably the year 2000. So from the year 2000-2008 I had projects that were interesting and challenging, but they didn’t really get me excited …but Sam Raimi…we did work for him on Spiderman 3 (2007) and I hadn’t worked for Sam since Evil Dead 2 (1987) and to be on set with Sam and see this guy and remember that he has managed to maintain a appreciation of the horror genre and his understanding of practical vs. visual effects through his work with Spiderman. He really made everyday on set a joy. I’m telling you any time Sam wants to make a movie and I can be involved I would be there in a heartbeat. He is a tremendous inspiration. He’s got a great vision. He’s an incredible director and one of the nicest human beings I know, he’s just a great human being, tremendous, tremendous person. So (my favorite job is) Drag Me to Hell, how does that sound?

GM: Excellent! How do you pick out materials to use for a project?

SS: Well I’ve thought about that question too. So that’s interesting because there are staples that we use obviously. It has to do with the final look. It’s really important that the look is correct. Each material that you use seems to have some benefits as well as limitations. Right now we use a lot of silicone. Silicone is the material of the day. But it’s not always the best material, I mean sometimes we go back to foam our old standby foam latex. We buy our foam latex from a company called Monster Makers. One of the foam runners at KNB, works with Monster Makers so that there is a KNB formulation. So they literally formulate foam latex specifically for KNB and (then) there’s silicone appliances. There are some real challenges with the material, but it looks great when it is applied correctly. So I would say if anyone was interested in starting out, I’d say the best thing to do is to contact a company called Burman Foam in Van Nuys California. The prices are pretty good and their products are pretty stable and it good for beginners. Certainly a great place to start. It’s good to get a catalog and they have everything from foam latex to fake hair to sculpting tools to clay to plasters. I know they do mail order. That’s where I would start. I would start with Burman Foam.

Shannon Shea doing makeup

GM: Are there any new breakthroughs or ideas in the industry that really excite you?

SS: Yeah, I think that there are, I get excited about this really sly marriage between digital and makeup effects. Not that I’m becoming a digital guy but I love the marriage with contemporary digital effects with makeup effects. What I’m trying to do is walk that line between visual effects and makeup effects. My creatures are all going to be puppets or people in makeup but I use digital effects (to) put it all together. That excites me… it really does. I mean all my light houses and miniatures (for his Phantom Harbor project)…I just built a cargo hold which is a miniature that I’m going digitally put the creatures and me into those sets. That to me is something that I think that was a step that I think Hollywood stepped over pretty quickly and pretty horribly. I still think there is a look that comes with practical stuff … CGI it gets close it really does ..(but) your eye subliminally goes “this isn’t real”. I’m excited about marrying practical things with digital effects. I’m doing a new character now for Phantom Harbor that I’m working out digital eyes. So it won’t be contact lenses because I want the eye to actually be larger in the creature’s head. So I’m working out that the creature will be practical, but the eyes will be digital. And hopefully that will be enough that people see that and go “wow! That’s really cool!” and on top of it I’m doing it on a shoe string, no money budget, which I think is also cool because it is an example to young filmmakers, and I don’t mean young in age I mean young in terms of inexperience, that if you just use your imagination and all the information I found on the internet, its all there. You just have to look around and find it. “How can I apply that to what I’m doing now?” “What can I do?” It’s amazing, it’s tremendous! The information is all out there. Just go get it and start making your stuff. You show me a film that you did the makeup effects and digital effects for I’m going to be blown away. Say I built this and this and this I’m going to go “Holy crap! This is amazing!” I mean its there, just do it!! Where I will say at the same time I’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of ZBrush work. Pixologic ZBrush and Autodesk Mudbox are two digital sculpting programs. I would highly recommend to any of your readers out there who want to get into creature design that you’re going to have to learn one of those programs. You’re going to have to learn Autodesk Mudbox or you’re going to have to learn ZBrush. You have to. It’s no longer even a question. Now, if you are going to throw your hat in the ring of creature design, that’s who you are going to be going up against. Even Rick Baker, who is kind of like semi retired, all he does now or pretty much all he does now is ZBrush work. I mean you can come in and you can actually circumvent places like KNB and ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics Inc.) and Spectral Motion and go straight to producers with a portfolio of ZBrush or production designers. That’s what a lot of people that used to design within our industry have done. They have actually moved up a tier and they actually do the designing directly for producers and directors. Those designs get submitted to places like ADI and KNB for refining or they get changed do to practicality or whatever. It is an emerging market. But if you are going to do that, you’ll have to learn one of those programs and you have to be really proficient. Now I’m going to tie that into what I said before, one of the best ways to get proficient with ZBrush or Mudbox is to go to someone like Jordu Schell and learn to sculpt in clay first. Learn what makes a good character first in clay and then using that knowledge, turn to the digital brush. Because nothing will make your designs look better or be more appealing to productions then if they have a level of reality…a level of…this is going to sound crazy…but a level of real life sincerity or integrity. I think that if you can do it in clay you can do it digitally. You can refine your skills in clay and then take that knowledge over…you’ll be unstoppable.

Shannon Shea sculpting "the Goblin" puppet

GM: What’s the best advice or training that you ever received along the way?

SS: Well a couple of things. I met Tom Burman back in the 1980s and Tom said “don’t ever get lost in a makeup effect.” I know what he meant by that. What it means is that if you think about the camera as being a window (and) don’t worry about that stuff that you can’t see through the window. It’s gotten more difficult over the years because with things being as liquid as they are in the motion picture industry it’s difficult to bring something on set and you’re basically looking a director into a shot. But the upside of that is those are things that are most effective. We are basically magicians. It sounds crazy but it’s true. The minute you turn around and go behind the curtain and see the guy behind the curtain the whole effect is blown. What gets harder and harder is that they want more angles. But you really need to concentrate when you do a makeup effect on what the final product is going to be. What are you going to see? Build for that. Don’t waist your time building stuff or thinking about things that are not going to be on camera. We are a commercial art that’s really what it is. I’d say that’s one of the first things that weeds people out of the makeup effects field. They come to makeup effects thinking that it’s going to fulfill them somehow artistically. You know what I’m saying… like its going to fill that little “ache” they feel that they need to produce something… their piece of art …their “statement” and that’s not what we do. The reward you get is when you sit in the theater and you see something “Holy crap! That was cool, that was really cool!” The reward has to come from knowing that you are part of that big picture.

GM: Living or dead who would like to have a long lunch with? It doesn’t have to be someone in the industry or maybe it is. Is there someone in particular you’d like to sit and pick their brain?

SS: Anyone alive living or dead. Can I separate that as well?

GM: Absolutely!

SS: I would say in the motion picture world without a doubt Bill Castle. If I could sit down with Bill Castle and have a long lunch with him. William Castle for your readers who don’t know was the guy who produced a lot of films in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He produced the original House of Wax (1953) and House on Haunted Hill (1959) with Vincent Price. He did The Tingler (1959) with Vincent Price. He did the original 13 Ghosts (1960). His daughter is one of the people that runs Dark Castle and they’ve remade a couple of films like House on Haunted Hill (1999) and some other ones. But Bill Castle I loved his notion of showmanship and I salute it and I don’t just salute it, I’m emulating it in a way because it was all about gimmicks, which makes the motion picture experience more profound. Just too kind of give you an example and again this is for your readers who don’t know who Bill Castle is, for the movie 13 Ghosts the original movie posters he boasted that it was in “Emergo!” (speaks in a booming voice) “The motion picture experience Emergo!” What it was...there was a scene where there is a skeleton that rises up out of this acid pit and starts chasing this woman around and he just flew a plastic skeleton through the theater. In the 1950s when you are sitting there watching a movie and this skeleton comes rolling by the people were screaming and throwing their popcorn into the air. But that was all it was it was just a skeleton on a wire. And it becomes “Emergo!” I love that!!...it’s amazing! And I will tell you I am doing the same thing! The Phantom Harbor t-shirts all come with 3D glasses so it’s not only a t-shirt is a 3D experience on your chest. I don’t know who else out there is putting out 3D t-shirts. But there you have it. The beautiful thing is you don’t need the 3D glasses to appreciate it. It’s a colorful t-shirt you look at you say “ahh that’s kind of cool” (and) you put on the 3D glasses (and) bam! Look at that! 3D experience! I love that so I’d say Bill Castle other than that who else would I want to talk to? All sorts of people I think I’d like to sit down and have a conversation with. Earnest Hemingway would (have been) interesting … I would have loved to talk to Kurt Vonnegut before he died. These people are incredible writers. I really love great writing so I can’t name all the authors that I would like to sit down and have conversations with.

Check out Shannon Shea's Phantom Harbor website:

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