From ' X-Men' and ' X-2' to ' Alive', ' Near Dark ', ' Platoon', ' JFK', ' Johnny Mnemonic ', 'Virus' (no, not that Virus, read on) and ' Jacob's Ladder ', Gordon smith has shown that he, along with his shop, FX Smith , are indeed some of the most highly sought talents in the special effects makeup industry. Recently I had the delight of speaking to Gordon Smith about his team and his fascinating career.

NE-FX: Thank you for finding time to speak with me. Let me start by asking you some of the basics you probably get asked a thousand times...Call it a warm-up question. Whom did you learn from and how did you get your start?

GS: I have a classical education in the theatre as an actor/Director. I had my own theatre at the time. I did a lot of specialty designing and prop building to help friends in the film industry but how I got started doing this work was by being asked to do it because no one was willing or able to do the job. Neither was I but I was willing to try. The job was to reproduce 5 different forms of open-heart surgery for a film called THRESHOLD with Donald Sutherland and Mare Winningham. There were no materials at the time to do the job so I invented them. It worked and here I am today.

NE-FX: Being willing to experiment and invent seems to be one of the recurring themes to successful FX artists. What was the hardest/most complicated effect/character etc. you ever did, and why was it so difficult?

GS: THRESHOLD. Because there were no practical materials available to reproduce live tissue at the time.

NE-FX: Is there any effect during your career you wish you could go back and re-do again to correct or improve on/change?

GS: No. I have been very lucky and always had a great crew to help problem solve.

NE-FX: You said in an interview that your team is made up of fine artists such as sculptors, and illustrators. Do you prefer that your people have a fine arts degree?

GS:Yes they have all been fine artists with fine art degrees. They are also successful artist in there own right. People are chosen for their individual talents and how they add to the abilities of each other artist.

NE-FX: One of the most recent films your shop worked on was X-2 under Bryan Singer. How was it working with Mr. Singer?

GS: The most fun job I have ever had.

NE-FX: For X-Men and X-2 you and your team got to airbrush (in my humble opinion) one of the most beautiful models in the world, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Allot has been said about the reduction in time for the airbrushing process, but a revolution was also made in the silicone appliances you used for the second movie and how they were adhered. Can you elaborate?

GS: The prosthetics were all very thin silicone gel appliances, intrinsically coloured. So there was no need to paint them. They were applied with a very thin coat of the same prosthetic silicone so we could move the appliances into place before it cured. Once cured it was on better than any glue and better than self sticking as we did in X-MEN

NE-FX: The special 'Mystique Blue' color that was created by mixing the Skin Illustrator and Temptu palettes seems like a solution fraught with difficulty from a consistency perspective. How was the formula managed for color consistency? GS: Colour was not an issue because both Temptu and Kenny Myer of Illustrator were meticulous with their efforts to be consistent in their formulations. In the end we only used Temptu's paint because of the qualities of Rebecca's Skin. Very dry.

NE-FX: Poor Girl. I wonder if she needs a guy to follow her around with moisturizer... (making a note to prepare my resume) In the scene in X-2 where Mystique was required to slide through an opening under a closing door (while giving us the one-finger salute), how were the prosthetics protected and kept from sticking to the floor or tearing off her?

GS: We coated the prosthetic as well as a plastic sheet on the floor with water gel and that is all. The prosthetic never moved even after 16 times sliding across the floor. We only had to touch up the paint.

NE-FX: Alan Cumming was brilliant as Nightcrawler and the very elaborate process he went through for his transformation (documented very well on the X-2 DVD) seemed very time consuming. Can you give us an overview of what that process was and what efforts go into maintaining the comfort level and safety of the actors during body-wide airbrush applications?

GS: His hand and feet and tails were all intrinsically coloured silicone gel which were taken on and off before and after each shot. They were not glued or painted so the majority of the work was designed out of the make-up to start with. The make-up on set only dealt with the head. His ears were silicone gel made on the day and applied with silicone gel. (No Glue.) They were also intrinsically coloured. The scaring was the lions share of the work and were applied over temporary tattoo patterns provided by Temptu. The scars were a mix of pros aid and pigment. The paint was the same as Mystique with a different colour mix. His teeth and eyes were also on and off through out he day so the comfort level for Alan was as good as it could get, less the paint which is a pain because of it's alcohol content.

NE-FX: The beautiful designs for Nightcrawler's scarring were designed by Urban Primitive. Had you worked with them before?

GS: Very well. I need(ed) someone with the most knowledge of scarification and they were the answer. Their designs were brilliant.

GS: It is an artist issue. The CG work is slow in involving the extensive knowledge of the fine art. It is still a technicians world which they protect with vigor. The time will come when the fine artist becomes part of the CG world and then we will see a brand new world.

NE-FX: How often you find yourself working with C.G. artists now as opposed to years past?

GS: I have never used anything but my own technology but for the last 4 years I have used the gel system I have given to the industry. It has solved every problem I have been presented with. My prosthetic gel system is available through Polytek. 610-559-8620. I do not gain anything from this but the knowledge that other artist can have the same benefits I do. NE-FX: Your own team aside, in your opinion, which young new artists are the ones to watch for their style and creativity?

GS: I do not involve myself very much with the rest of the industry in any detail so I do not know the answer to that question. I am sure there are many great new artists. NE-FX: You had the opportunity to work with John Woo on several occasions (Broken Arrow, Face Off) What is he like to work with?

GS: I only built custom duplicate dummies for those movies. I never met him. I worked with the properties master. Don Miloyivich .

GS: He blanched and had to squeeze it's toe to see what it was. He blanched again and said. 'What the hell is going on here.' He thought for a moment that we had shipped a corpse from Canada and some how put John Kennedy's face on it. The greatest compliment I have ever received. The other interesting event was that we had not circumcised his penis. Oliver took great issue with that as he believed he was circumcised. I even received letters from a lawyer informing me that I was wrong based on a letter from John while he was in university which stated. 'Little Johnny doing better after the operation'. Unbelievable how many people had an opinion about his penis.

NE-FX: Seems some things never change. Several years ago, You worked on one of my favorite vampire movies, Near Dark. The cast and crew seem to have nothing but fond memories of that movie, what do you remember about it most?

GS: The cast. It was great. It was Katherine's first film. The effects were fun if not odd. I had to make skin smoke and bubble on demand. This we did with tobacco because it was the only smoke we could pump through lines with out it condensing in the lines. Peter Chesney designed a system for smoking 4 cigars at the same time which strapped to the actor for the larger smoking scenes. Other wise I simply blew smoke through a line into the prosthetics which were made of very poor foam prosthetics. The worse they were the better it worked.

NE-FX: How was the body of the youngest vampire 'Homer' created for the scene where he explodes on the highway from exposure to the sun?

GS: The actor wore the cigar smoker for the beginning of the effect then was substituted with a dummy wearing the same smoker we would blow up.

NE-FX: Another movie I felt had real potential was Johnny Mnemonic. I understand based on your portfolio that you created 'Jones' the cybernetically altered dolphin and the severed head of Ralfi played by Udo Kier. What were the challenges with working with the 'Jones' puppet being under water?

GS: No problem with being under water but we had one internal air line in his head that was cut in half by the mechanical apparatus within the first two minutes of operation. I couldn't fix it so he had a twitch that was heart breaking. Other wise the film was gutted by a producer who took all the money out of the art department and demoralized the entire creative crew including the actors and director. It was an ugly experience. We all felt very bad for William Gibson.

NE-FX: To this day, I still get the creeps watching Jacob's Ladder, and thanks go to you (in part) for creating some truly nightmarish imagery. Where did the ghouls come from?

GS: They all came from the collective drug experiences of Adrian Lyons and myself coupled with influences from (Sir) Francis Bacon  and Joel Peter Witkins  and the word “meat”. Nothing was in the script.

NE-FX: You worked on one of the best examples of techno gore in recent memory on 'Virus' What were you asked to do for this film and did you work with Steve Johnson during it?

GS: The Virus that I made was a Japanese film on the end of the world, shot in the late seventies. I was not in the film industry at the time. I built 16 decomposed bodies to help a friend. Properties Master Don Miloyivich.

NE-FX: (open mouth, insert foot.) Oops, sorry. Can you say what projects you are working on now?

GS: I am working on my music which I left behind when I got into the film industry. Reliving my youth.

NE-FX: Thank you very much for sharing your insights with me today. And rock on! Good luck with all your future projects, and I wish you and your team continued success.