University Daily Kansan, August 21, 1985
Page 10
Graduate student's makeup to star in driving film
By Liz Maggard
Staff Reporter
Tim Rebman, Lawrence graduate student, got a strange call one day last semester.
"Tim." his caller asked, "how much would it cost to rip half of someone's face off?"
"Well," Rebman said, "I could probably tear a nose off for $100, or I could give you a real good scalping for $75."
"That's what I'm looking for," the caller said. "Some real gore."
Jones is the writer and director of a traffic safety film, "Just in Passing," which was done by KU's division of continuing education for the Kansas Department of Transportation. The project was filmed in May.
Rebman, 26, isn't a Mafia hit man specializing in grisly retribution. He is a makeup artist whose craft is creating illusion, making fantasy appear real. He can make a young person look old and a healthy man look dead.
And that was just what Rebman's caller, Jerry Jones, another Lawrence graduate student, wanted Rebman to do.
Jones now is editing "Just in Passing," and he said recently that the film should be completed in late September.
In the film, a young man dies because his car is forced off the road
by an oncoming car which is attempting to pass on a curve. A graphic scene shows the damage done to the man's face in the accident. Rebman created the special effects makeup for the scene.
"Jerry told me, 'The guy went through the windshield and met face-to-face with mangled metal,' "' Rebman said. "That gave me a direction. I started thinking of sharp, jagged edges of metal ripping the guy's face."
Brebman said he didn't have time to do a lot of research to find out what kinds of wounds a person would have after such an accident.
"I had to use my imagination, which sometimes seems more real than reality." Rebman said.
Because of the detail and three-dimensional makeup required for television and film closeups, latex pieces — called prostheses — often are used to create realistic effects which are difficult to obtain with basic stage makeup.
The first step was to make a plaster cast of the actor's face.
Rebman used latex to produce the image of someone whose face had been mangled by glass and metal.
"This was more a design tool than anything." Rebman said. "It helped me think about his face in relationship to the accident."
Rebman uses a dental impression powder, alginate, to make such a cast. The alginate is mixed with cold water and then applied to the actor's face. Moistened plaster bandages are placed over the alginate to strengthen the cast. When the alginate has "set up" and the plaster bandages are dry, the cast is removed from the person's face.
Rebman described the process of having a cast made of one's face as an exercise in sensory deprivation.
"Your face suddenly feels an inch thicker, and you really can't feel anyone touching it," he said. "You can't see and you can't talk — unless you write notes. You can barely hear because you've got cotton and alginate jammed in your ears."
"And to make matters even worse, you can't breathe very well, because you've got soda straws and clay stuffed up your nose."
The next step in creating the makeup was to pour plaster into the alginate mold. This produced a positive cast of the actor's face. The cast was then covered with clay.
Rebman said one person told him the whole effect was "like a death experience."
"I plopped some clay on the plaster cast and started sculpting," Rebman said. "I pushed around the clay as if a piece of metal were ripping the face.
"I took a knife and slit the clay in the direction the wound would go. I used toothpicks to add some detail of tissue and muscle as it would look underneath someone's real skin, to give it texture."
Rehman then made a plaster cast of the clay mask and poured latex into the cast.
"Then I pulled out the latex piece and painted it," he said.
Rebman uses clear latex for such pieces and colors them with cosmetics. He does any necessary touch-up with makeup and acrylic paint.
The last step was to glue the piece on the actor's face and add some detail — and some fake blood.
"All that work for one scene that will be about two seconds long," Rebman said.
Brebman's work on "Just in Passing" marked his return to makeup artistry after a layoff of several years.
While attending Sterling College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in theatre in 1882, Rebman took a theatre makeup class. He said he found it frustrating because it did not teach him what he wanted to know
"It gave me stage basics and I wanted to do movie makeup," Rebman said. "So I embarked on several movies that I did." He used to use latex and foured latex.
“Then I sort of put it away and “didn’t do any makeup for several years. The makeup kit just sat up on the shelf. I was tempted to sell it.”
Then came "Just in Passing."
Mark Syverson, graduate teaching assistant in theatre and media arts and co-producer of the film, suggested Rebman get in touch with Jones.
"Since I came from theatre, I didn't know exactly where I'd fit in a film production." Rebman said. "But my portfolio along to Jerry anyway,
"We kicked around some ideas of what I could do. What we finally decided on was me doing the special maneuver and heading up the make crew
"It ended up being a challenge to work this film, because I usually didn't know from one day to the next what they were going to do, but they would have me working on."
Rebman did a lot of things on the scoot.
He said, "Someone would yell,
'Tim, we need a scar on this guy.
Could you have it done in 15 minutes?'?"
The day the movie's funeral scene was filmed, someone told Rebman. "We don't have enough old people in France. Make us some old people. Tim."
Brebman said he only had about 15
minutes to work on each person, but he got the job done: Old people were in the funeral audience.
Billy Gilbert, a film production specialist from Overland Park who worked on "Just in Passing," said Rebman's makeup was comparable to any done by Hollywood experts.
"The latex jobs were very effective," Gilbert said. "I hadn't seen anything that good in the Midwest at all."
Chuck Berg, director of film studies and associate professor of theatre and media arts, said, "Tim is a good example of the high caliber of student we have in the department. The makeup work he did on the film project is reflective of his academic work."
Brebman, and two colleagues. Holly Schwiez, Omaha, Meb., junior, and Kevin Bowersox, Yuma, Colo., now working on a project of their own.
"Our original idea was to make a video resume that would show what we could do," Rebman said. "It's kind of evolved beyond that now, but we're really capable of full-length movie. We could use it on a soaring film for about $20,000."
They have had a garage sale and accepted cash donations to their "filmmakers fund." And Rebmann said they are looking for backers.
Phone operators stay busy answering number queries
By Gina Kellogg
Staff Reporter
KU's directory assistance operators do more than just give out phone numbers.
They have to know what is playing at Murphy Hall so they can give the right box office phone number, they must be able to explain the location of campus buildings, and sometimes they even have to give directions to campus from the Kansas Turnpike.
Each operator is also responsible for a daily update of the names and phone numbers of students, faculty and staff on the directory printouts, Emma Barland, chief phone operator, said recently.
'We haven't had a count for a while,' she said, although
Barland estimated that the 12 operators received about 2,000 calls a day, depending on the day's events.
Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.
took one about a year ago.
The operators answer the phone 24 hours a day and work in five shifts. Four operators work during the day and two work at night.
Barland said sometimes during a busy day, all the operators would be answering calls, resulting in a wait for anybody else who might be calling in. She said the administration needed an increasing number of operators, but she didn't see how she possibly could operate with fewer workers.
"If someone wants to take a break,
then sometimes I have to come over
and work so there will be four
operators," she said.
She said her operators had the most up-to-date information on campus.
"Sometimes students will call us
with a new phone number and never notify the Strong Hall offices," she said.
Barland said about four days after enrollment each semester, her department received a list of the new students with their phone numbers and addresses. The softbound printed directory is available to students, faculty and staff by mid-October, she said.
Bartland said she was looking forward to getting a computer system in a year or two, on which information could be updated and referred to more easily when someone called.
However, using the printouts is probably the fastest method she will have for a while, she said.
"But it can still be improved on," she said.
Three of KU's 12 directory assistance operators answer calls to the campus, some of about 2,000 that come in each day. Emma Barland, chief phone operator, said she would not give out the names of KU's operators because they had been harassed in the past.
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