Work experience at Lifecast LTD.
When I was working on my unit 7, the character sculpts project, I needed some advice with my Alien casting. I did not know which silicone would serve the best my project, so I called John Humphreys, who directed me to his former college John Schoonrad. I took his advice and when I finished my piece I showed some pictures to him. He said it's pretty good and he wants to buy it. Well, I said I make a cast for him for free because he helped me. When I told him that his Alien is done, he offered me if I want to do some work for him. I was very happy and I said it would be great If I could do my work placement with his company, Lifecast at the Elstree Studios.
Elstree Studios is home to some of the top shows on British television today; The Crown, Strictly Come Dancing, The Voice, The Voice Kids, Celebrity Juice, A League of Their Own, The Chase, Pointless, Room 101, Have I Got News For You? and many more.
Known as the birthplace of Star Wars, some of the most famous films in the world have been produced at Elstree Studios; the Indiana Jones and Star Wars trilogies, Superman, The Shining and Labyrinth to name just a few from an endless list. Most recently, Elstree has been home to The Danish Girl, Suffragette, The King's Speech, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, World War Z, The World's End and Paddington.
In the mid-1920s the young British film producer Herbert Wilcox and the Hollywood producer named JD Williams were looking for a site to build a new motion picture studio.
They were aware of such a facility already operating in a small village called Boreham Wood called Neptune Studio, which had opened in 1914. The attraction was easy to access by rail and road to London and away from the famous 'pea souper' smogs of the capital City.
The first feature film to be completed was Madame Pompadour starring silent screen actress Dorothy Gish. However, Williams fell out with his South African investors resulting in the departure of both he and Wilcox and the facility passed into the hands of Scottish cinema owner John Maxwell. He named the studios British International Pictures and signed up new talent including the up and coming director Alfred Hitchcock. John Maxwell greatly expanded the facilities and today his contribution is recognized with one of the admin buildings named after him. The Studio itself tended to take 1927 as its official opening date as Maxwell's first production The White Shiek was actually produced that year and released before Madame Pompadour.
Hitchcock went into the record books by directing Blackmail at Elstree, which is generally credited as being the first British talking film. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Studio was involved in many motion picture breakthroughs including color production and multilingual films. The film Atlantic was shot three times with English, French and German casts in order to widen its worldwide appeal. The story was based on the ill-fated Titanic voyage and then the Board of Trade protested that the Studio was opening up recent wounds by choosing such a sensitive subject.
In the 1960s, as the home of ABC Television, Elstree Studios became used for more television production including such international hits as The Saint and The Avengers. In the early 1970s, the facility went 'four walls', hiring out its sound stages for other producers to use and manned with freelance staff. Just prior to this move Bryan Forbes had been appointed Head of Production by new owners EMI. He green-lit several movies the most successful of which was probably The Railway Children. Stanley Kubrick also produced The Shining at Elstree Studios.
Murder on the Orient Express brought a galaxy of stars to Elstree including Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman and Tony Perkins. In 1976 from a Galaxy far far away a young American decided to base his new science fiction movie at Elstree. His name was George Lucas, the movie Star Wars and the rest is history. During the next few years, he produced two sequels and also invited Steven Spielberg to Borehamwood to direct the Indiana Jones trilogy. A new large silent stage was built to accommodate this extra work.
The multi-million-pound development of Elstree Studios is now underway to provide new media facilities at the Studios to accommodate the extra film and TV work the studios are now generating. Two new 'Super Stages' will be built on the area previously occupied by the Big Brother House. Big Brother came to a finish in 2018. This work will increase the size of the studios by 25% and is the first major development at Elstree in over 15 years.
Who is John Schoonrad and what is Lifecast Ltd.?
Well, he is another legend.
John's career has spanned over 35 years. He has supervised on such films as Kick Ass, Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan, Rambo IV, Black Hawk Down, Beyond Borders, The Wolfman, Troy and many more, creating excellent quality of realism on prosthetics props & makeup, and practical effects.
Whilst here at Elstree Lifecast has been involved with such films as X: Men-First class as a big part of the design team for “The Beast,” and many main stream UK based and International TV clients.
John started his career working on films such as The Dark Crystal, The Flintstones, Never Ending Story, The Muppets & Storyteller with Henson's creature shop & such classics as Farscape, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Star Wars and many more.
Schoonraad was part of the Oscar-winning creature crew for The Wolfman with Rick Baker and Dave Elsey. The 2011 Oscar was awarded for "Best Make-up."
Schoonraad has often worked with his sons Tristan, Max and Robin on various projects. They joined his company as technicians and mold makers. Tristan has showcased his work at notable art 'car-boot' sales including Brick Lane, the Big Chill, Mutate Britain's "One Foot in the Grove", Tate the Biscuit and the Urban Art Show in Tokyo. He had his own exhibition of Boy Soldiers in London and has worked with Art Below involved in exhibiting in Parliament Square on the Plinth of Peace. Robin has been a key figure in the molding of many of the creatures for Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire as well as special effects in The Last Samurai.
Tristan "Schoony" Schoonrad
Tristan's career in SFX started when he was just aged 15 & has now been working in the film industry for 25years, taking him across the globe to film to almost every continent. Tristan developed some ground breaking molding techniques at the renound WETA studios in New Zealand. Tristan's career does not stay within the realms of film. His contemporary art has been gaining countless accolades & fame since his break into the industry with “Boy Soldier” - displaying outside Parliament, album covers & Kick Ass 2 (Evil Lair) & galleries across the UK & globally. SCHOONY's solo show debuted at The Ivy in 2013.
Life3D's scanning & 3D printing has been a heavy feature in Lifecast's work since it's launch in 2013. Tristan has used this new leap in technology to produce pieces for Paloma Faith, HRH Prince Edward (Earl of Wessex) and several of the principal actors & stuntmen for “The Secret Service” for various prosthetic fx & costume needs here at Lifecast.
My first steps
I was very excited for this opportunity. Actually to go into the Elstree Studio and meet someone like John, it was a privilege.
First things first we went trough some Privacy Statement. I could not take picture of anything at the workshop or in the studio or about (most) of my work what I did.
I was dealing with the situation in the same way as I would do at a new workplace as a new starter.
My goal was:
- act as a full team member, not a student on workexperience
-demonstate that I can work alone and with the team
-try to solve all the problems alone, and ask for help only when I could not solve the problem by myself.
-be always busy: at a workshop/workplace there is always something to do
-Learn new things
I started to work with the mouldmakers. Monday to Friday 8am - 5pm.
We made bodies and bodyparts for productions, but I don't know for what productions. We didn't get that information. I learned how to work with some new material (new to me) such as resin, gel coat and fiberglass and foam. This job is something that anyone could learn. You don't need any creativity or artistic attitude at all. You don't need to go for uni or you don't need any qualifications, as none of the permanent moldmakers has. You have to know how to make molds and casts. That's all.
Basically more than less this is what I was doing for 10 days and I feel now, I can handle these materials or this kind of jobs now. I was always busy, I stayed longer if they needed me, I was working as good as I can, I did my 100%. I did not have permission to taking pictures of the work that I did this time, so unfortunately I can not show them.
On my 8th day, I was approached by Tristan. He asked me if I would be interested to stay a bit longer on a work placement for a paid sculpting project. Wow! YES! On my last day, John was working on a body cast, and he needed to change the leg of a dummy Well, he decided to cast my leg and use it for the dummies. It was a fun day, he was telling me stories from his life and his previous projects. I wish If I could make an interview with him.
The best part of my work experience started when I was on the project with Tristan.
The Project
Tristan has got a job which was to create a lifelike, lifesize sumo wrestler (in Madame Tussauds style) for a fancy restaurant called The Ivy Asia in London. The deadline was the end of June, however, I had only 8 days to sculpt the body because I had to go back to Uni.
He gave me the task to sculpt the body of a lifesize sumo wrestler from clay. His plan was to create the head with Zbrush, 3D print it, scan the hands and feet then 3d print. My role was the sculptor, who creates the body from clay. This was the biggest project I did so far.
Tristan gave me permission to take pictures and use them for uni purposes.
The client gave this picture above as a reference. Thats all that I have got to work with.
First of all, Tristan and me we made a fiber glass cast of a general "skeleton" then we bulked it up with a plaster bandage.
Tristan said that the reference is just like an idea, it doesn't have to be very accurate, but this is the style of what the client wants. After we made the bulked skeleton, I asked him what is the next step.
- "You can start to sculpt it" - He said.
I tried to remember what Geraldine and John were teaching with the previous project. I tried to remember or think what John would say what to do. So Before I did anything I was really really just observing the reference picture, and I tried to understand it.
Then I started to sculpt it. Alone. Tristan was watching me how I am doing then, he left me to work alone.
I used all the knowledge of what I learned from John and Geraldine. From the beginning, I was working on the entire sculpture and developed every body part at the same time. I wanted to sort out the basic shapes and the body mass. My anatomy knowledge was extremely important. More than less I have used only my hands on the first day, no tools.
I could not believe it, but before lunchtime, the sumo was already there! And Tristan liked it!
When I reached this point, I knew that I will make it.
A couple of days later, Tristan sent some pictures to the client. They said that they want the forearm in a different position, more close to the body, more like in the picture.
I had to remove the clay from the forearms and cut off the fibre glass. Then change the position, then fibreglass it again.
After this, I resculpted both of the forearms and the client was happy about it.
In the meantime, the 3D artist was working on the sumo head in ZBrush. He wanted to do a quick scan of the clay sculpture, to see how will the head match with the neck. He had to make sure that if they print the head then they can install it on the body and they will 100% match
After scanning, the 3D artist checked how he will insert the head into the body
Then he scanned my foot and hand. He modified them, print them and install them on the sculpture.
This was a very useful tool
Man at work
On my last day, Tristan asked me to do some alterations to the body. He wanted a bit "slimmer" hips and more defined muscles on the arms. I had no option, but to speed up and resculpt them.
I found his belly a bit larger than it should be, so I made an alteration on that too.
Now he had slimmer hips
I was very happy, because I delivered the job on deadline, in the quality that I wanted. But more important that Tristan was happy with it.
Although my part was done on this point, the guys where continue the work on the sumo wrestler. Since I have left, the mould it and cast the body, 3D printed and installed the head and hands. Tristan sent me a picture of the current status.
I think it is awesome!
Conclusion
I think the work experience worked out quite well. I have learnt some new techniques, I saw the professionals, and I learnt some new things about myself too. So far I was working on projects and sculptures for month and month. And now, for some reasons, I was able to sculpt a massive sculpture in 8 days. I would not believe this. However, during this work, I have felt that the previous project, the skull with Geraldine and the portrait with John where extremely boosted me. Probably after my 50th head portrait, I will be more confident and I could work to higher standards in less time. Although John and Tristan said that they will call me back if they would have another job for me, I think the next step would be to find another work placement to gain more experience and start to get to know people in the industry.
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