MONSTERPALOOZA 2015 OVERVIEW

I have to be honest.  Prior to this year’s Monsterpalooza, held on March 27th thru March 29th, the only conventions I had ever been to was the small, but lively Bellingham, WA Comic Con and the Western Washington University’s science fiction themed Viking Con…and I was present at both of those only because I was a panelist.  Genre conventions have never held much appeal for me…I generally dislike large crowds and my genre interests are very narrow.  I’m not much interested in comic books and super heroes and I’ve always felt that the artificial meeting of “celebrities” in a convention atmosphere was weird, awkward and intrusive.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m not knocking people who enjoy these things…I’m just not one of them.  My thing has always been MONSTERS.  As a child, they were my friends…as an adult I make a meager living out of making them.  So, with that in mind, I guess it makes perfect sense that my first real, big convention would be something called Monsterpalooza.

            Eliot Brodsky first put on an event on the East Coast in 2008 called Maskpalooza, which gave birth the following year to Monsterpalooza:  The Art of Monsters, held in sunny Burbank, California.  The Burbank Marriott Convention Center has been home to Monsterpalooza every year since, as well as The Son Of Monsterpalooza, held in September for the past few years.  It is important to note the subtitle of the event, The Art of Monsters, as that truly describes what proved to be one of the most amazing events I’ve ever been to. 

            With gas prices down, it proved to be cheaper to drive down from my home town on the Washington State / Canadian border, rather than fly.  More than once, I was told that I was crazy at the convention, but actually, the 18 hour drive wasn’t that bad.  I was very excited at the prospect of going.  After seeing photos from the past several Monsterpaloozas, I knew I would either come away very inspired or I would curl up in fetal position on the floor, sobbing, “I’ll never be that good!”  You know what they say:  Artists are people with huge egos and extremely low self esteem.

            The Burbank Marriott is perfectly positioned for a big event like this.  The Bob Hope Airport is literally right across the street and the I-5 runs right past it.  This made it incredibly easy to get to and traffic was also no problem.  Additionally, the Marriott itself was beautiful, with a great staff and rooms.  If you haven’t been and plan on going, it is worth the expense of reserving a room at the Marriott itself.  Not only does this make convention attendance super convenient, but gives you more access to people, which we’ll talk about later.

            Technically, I was going to the convention to work.  I wanted to gather some interviews, photos and tags for the various enterprises I represent:  The Bonus Material Podcast, The Bleedingham Short Horror Film Festival and John Ikuma’s Stop Motion Magazine.  And, despite my previous statement about meeting “celebrities,” I was greatly looking forward to meeting some of my heroes:  the men and women who work behind the scenes, providing conceptual art and Practical Effects to some of the greatest genre films.  In the end, I was able accomplish some of my mission, but I could have done so much more.  I found myself largely wandering around in  slack-jawed amazement more often than not, recognizing opportunities only after they had passed me by.  This element of being “art struck” also contributed to my losing an interview and a tag.  As it turns out, being awe-struck is not a good state to operate electronic recording devices from.

            The convention center itself has over 20,000 square feet…but even with all that space, the event spilled over into the hotel lobby itself, with most of the celebrity signings taking place either in the large meeting spaces of the hotel or a series of rooms located between the hotel and the convention center.  It’s a good thing too.  While Friday evening was comfortable, the Saturday crowd grew so large and loud that it was literally difficult to walk or talk in the convention center itself.  As it turns out, a LOT of people love monsters!  The celebrities booths were well attended as well, with long lines of people waiting to get an autograph or a photo from/with folks like Sybil Danning, Linda Blair, Sonny Chiba, Lance Henriksen, Cloris Leachman, George Romero and many, many more.  While I did not approach their booths, I did have the pleasure of bumping into Linda Blair, Sara Karloff and the amazing artist Basil Gogos at different times in the hotel lobby and had pleasant conversations with all three of them.

            There was no wasted space in the center itself.  Over 200 vendors’ booths lined the walls, selling everything from T-shirts and posters to original works of art to the latest products for the Practical Effects artist.  It is this, more than anything, that I love about Monsterpalooza:  It’s not just a convention where collectors come to find old issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine (although you certainly could do that there)…more than that, it is a trade show.  If you are an effects artist, this is the place for networking.  It seemed that all the conversations around me started with “I’m a makeup artist, what do you do?”  Filmmakers of all levels were walking around, talking about current and future projects; business cards were being flung with the ferocity of ninja throwing stars.  It’s safe to say that several artists came away with new gigs on their horizons. 

            Of course there were homemade cosplay outfits scattered throughout, but even more amazing were the subjects of various make up demonstrations, who, when completely transformed, went out to wander and spread weirdness amongst the crowd.  It was a joy to see Cinema Makeup School transform suit performer Mick Ignis into the beautiful Lunah’la, The Moon Goddess and then watch men in the crowd gaze longingly at “her,” as she danced on the convention floor.  There were amazing demos going on all the time, highlighting either makeup and prosthetic products, schools and services or individual artists.  Bruce Spaulding Fuller and Dave Woodruff turned John Ames into a fantastic aquatic monster for European Body Art, the PPI booth had demos by an entire roster of makeup artists, including Oscar winner Greg Cannom, the Stan Winston School of Character Arts had a prosthetics application demo by Joel Harlow, Adam Beane demonstrated the use of his revolutionary sculpting material CX5, so on and so on.

            Amazing artists who had their own booths, either displaying or selling works of art and signing lucky people up for classes included Casey Love, Jordu Schell, Norman Cabrera, Chet Zar, Tim Gore, Steve Wang and so many more.  Casey had his wide line of life-size and miniature busts on display, Jordu was showing off a brilliant statue inspired by the 9-11 attacks, Norman had a group of beautiful masks, Chet was surrounded by his creepy paintings and a large sculpt called “Hearbroken,” Tim was painting and displaying his group of disturbing horror props and Steve had a gallery of some of his most beautiful works, including a Creature From The Black Lagoon that might be the best I’ve ever seen.  It was an amazing collection of some of the greatest artists working today and they were all very approachable and really seemed to appreciate their many fans and all the questions thrown at them. 

            Every year, sculptor Mike Hill blows everyone away with one of his life-size (or larger) silicone sculptures.  This year was no different, as he unveiled his interpretation of the classic Aurora Wolfman model kit.  This was one of those pieces that you can stand inches from and still swear that it is absolutely alive.

            Many of these artists have been spotlighted teaching lessons for The Stan Winston School of Character Arts, run by the son of the late, great Stan Winston, Matt.  It was extremely gratifying to have Matt Winston come up and recognize me as one of the students of the school.  In my opinion, the efforts of this school are largely responsible for the current popularity of practical effects in general, and they have helped to make Monsterpalooza the success that it is.  Their booth was full of projects from their various lessons, including two amazing Kaiju suits that watched over the all the shenanigans, silently judging us all the while.

            Some of the most amazing things were to be found in the museum.  From a large display honoring the late, great Dick Smith to various Rick Baker props, it was all incredible to see in person.  Nick Marra had two jaw-dropping pieces…a Walter White bust that looks even more real than the live character (if that’s possible) and a Yul Brynner WESTWORLD gunslinger, complete with an automated removal face plate.  Vincent Guastini’s VGP Effects and Design had a whole section populated with a menagerie of aliens from a recent project that made you feel as if you had entered a cantina in the STAR WARS universe.

            As mentioned earlier, there were plenty of collectible and product vendors as well.  Shawn Lewis’s Rotten Cotton Graphics stayed busy selling some of the coolest genre themed T-shirts one could ever hope to find.  Other booths were selling T-shirts, books, dvds, posters, dolls, model kits, dioramas…you name it, it was there. 

            Puppet master Scott Land was in attendance, displaying his collection of celebrity caricature marionettes.  Right next to him was the always amazing Chiodo Brothers, along with one of their incredibly life-like baby dinosaurs, various Killer Klown themed items and an amazing genie sculpture by Stephen Chiodo.  If you see him, ask him to explain the genie’s backstory…it’s awesome.

            One of the coolest things for me was simply running into many friends, some of whom I only knew through Facebook or emails.  I had the honor of running into Fon Davis, who stopped and spoke to me about his developing “mecha” project.  I sat and had an entertaining conversation with horror host Joe Flynn.  I finally got to meet one of my “bosses” in person, John Ikuma, the publisher of Stop Motion Magazine, who was present with his lovely daughter.  Webster Colcord, animator of everything from clay to pixels (and who is finishing up work on TED 2) spoke with me for quite some time concerning stop motion, the industry and his past jobs.  It was a real pleasure to run into my friend Garo Setian from Lions Gate Films and my buddy Ryan Banfield, even Jerry Lentz all the way from Tennessee (and working on a cool documentary about professional monster makers).  James Fairley from MastersFX hung out for a bit…I even ran into a couple of fellow Washingtonians:  Director of the WEEPERS web series Thomas Tierney and The Twisted Beanstalk Nursery (from  my home town, no less).  It was wonderful seeing all these friends.

            There were many panels to attend, with the largest crowds drawn to The American Horror Story panel and the Cinema Makeup School Face-Off Challenge…but two of my favorite panels were the Tribute to Dick Smith and the Art of Creature and Character Design panel.  The Dick Smith tribute panelists included the legendary Craig Reardon, Todd Masters from MastersFX, ADI’s geniuses Alec Ginnis and Tom Woodruff Jr., the amazing Kevin Haney and Andrew Clement, Linda Blair and Stephen Lack, all of whom shared their wonderful memories and stories of Dick Smith, the Godfather of modern special makeup effects.  Dick’s caretaker in the latter years of his life was Jill Rockow, whose efforts and emotional remembrances brought a standing ovation from the audience.  Matt Winston moderated the Creature Design panel, which not only spotlighted Sandy Collora’s new book on creature design, but addressed character design in general, as discussed by Sandy Collora, Steve Wang, Lee Joyner and Jordu Schell.  They covered everything from the elements of good design to why Hollywood doesn’t seem to be producing iconic creature designs as it did in the past.  Unsurprisingly, it comes down to studio executives who really don’t know anything about creativity or filmmaking, for that matter.  The work on display certainly showed that iconic designs are still being made…but the studios gut them before they get to the screen.  Designers like Sandy Collora are combating this practice by making their projects, outside of the studio system.

            It seems that every Monsterpalooza has a “star” for that particular year.  For example, last year it was Alec Ginnis and the buzz over his project HARBINGER DOWN.  This year, the “star” is undoubtedly Sandy Collora.  Sandy’s new Kickstarter funded book THE ART OF CREATURE AND CHARACTER DESIGN was one of the fastest moving products at the show.  That, coupled with the above mentioned panel AND a screening of BEHIND THE MASK, a documentary about Sandy and his struggle to create projects entirely under his control, helped to make Sandy the stand-out in this year’s convention.  Sandy proved to be a warm, gracious man who is truly inspiring.  Keep an eye out for Volume 2 of the book and his upcoming production SHALLOW WATER. 

            Despite the length of this overview, I’ve only scratched the surface of all the wonderful things at this convention.  From Hiroshi Katagiri’s Kickstarter drive for the truly scary looking GEHENNA to Doug Jones’ patented hugs to Richard Stanley (HARDWARE, DUST DEVIL) just hanging out and talking to people, there is so much I’m forgetting.  And while we all might look scary or weird, I found everyone there to be very friendly…one big, giant family.  I did not encounter one rude person the whole weekend, including the hotel staff and security for the event.  As many convention goers know, the real chance to hang out with your heroes comes in the evening, at the bars and restaurants.  The Daily Grill proved to be a great place for this…as did the open area in front of the hotel, complete with its circular seating around fire pits.  It was like sitting around a camp fire with some of the only people in the world who really understand you.  Everyone there, fans and artists alike, was bound together by their enthusiasm for monsters…those misunderstood creatures that we love and who haunt our dreams.  So, if monsters are your thing…well, you know where to go.

            

~ Langley J. West