The creatures you se before you are not real.

They are the resul of the imagination and talent of a local specia effects artist.

His inventions chil the spines of movie audiences all over the world.

He is an actor, photographer makeup artist and stuntman, but his most widely recognize for his shocking special effects in Georg Romero's classic thrillers “Martin” and “Dawn of the Dead” If you've ever wondere how those effects are achieving, stay with us and find ou as we explore the fantasy world of Tom Savini “Master of Metamorphosis.” Tom's fascination with makeu began the day he saw the film “Man of a Thousand Faces, the story of Lon Chaney Senior who immediately became his idol.

I fell apart over this guy I just was so impressed that that very day I went home and I started with my mother's lipstick and compacts out of her purse, trying to do things to my face.

You know, my brother turned m on to a costume shop in town where I got professiona supplies.

You know, I started reading book on makeup from the library, and then it was jus an evolution, you know, to the poin where I started doing local commercials here in town you know, adjusting local hosts, horror sho hosts, toupee and making his eye look closer together.

Just stuff like that I even have a son.

I named my son Lon, after Lo Chaney.

I mean I really lost it for this guy.

He's my inspiration.

He was my idol.

Okay From that day on, I was building a makeup ki and, you know, stocking up with great supplies and getting mor professional at it.

When I was growing up, my fathe was very old at the time.

He was 50 when I was born.

See?

So by the time I was 13 he was like 63.

So I had four.

I have four, four brothers and a sister.

And as I was growing up my one brother was, was a physical person So I copied him.

I wanted to be I lifted weights, you know, I I wanted to be football.

And so I wanted to be like tha brother.

Another brother would fence.

He'd be fencing in the backyar with my other brothers, you know, so that that gave m my interest in, in fencing.

Okay, so I was copying him.

This same brother was studyin at the time to be a mortician.

He isn't now He's a postal official.

But, I would see hi in the basement sculpting Egyptian head and stuff like that.

So I my interest in in art Okay.

I started, then I started sculpting in cla and painting clay and then painting canvase and stuff like.

And sketching you know, so my brothers, I had four father when I was growing up, you know my brothers were really a, had great influence on me as far as where my interest starte flowing at that time.

You know, I have anothe brother who was just crazy.

You know his sense of humor floored me.

He was cracking me u all the time, would take out his teeth and mess up his hai and wiggle his ears, you know?

Crazy.

So then, you know, I I wanted to be like him.

So all these things, I guess you could say I' a composite of my brothers.

I don't, you know I mean, who am I?

You know, where am I Who is the real Tom Savini?

Where am I?

You know, I'm somewhere withi all that.

I think.

You know the first movie I ever did effects fo was the thing called.

At the tim it was called “The Veteran.” The title change about 4 or 5 times from that.

Now it's called “Death Dream.

Did that in Florida.

I, I was sitting in a in a, in a bar one day, and this guy was sitting there were, very interestin looking guy, and we were just talkin about what we did in life.

And he was an art directo for this film company.

And I said, hey I'm a makeup artist, and I just happene to have my portfolio in the car.

I showed it to hi in a month later, he hired me and they hired me to do another film after tha in Canada called “Deranged.” Now this guy is Bob Clark who has gone on to do “Murder by Decree,” “Silent Night, Holy Night, a lot of horror films.

Okay.

“Murder by Decree,” I thin is his first non horror film.

But those ar the first two films I ever did and then I didn' do any for a long time.

Two years ago, Pittsburgh's Monroeville Mall was invade by a host of zombies.

In one of Tom's most recen assignments, “Dawn of the Dead” the brainchild of local directo George Romero.

This time, Tom adde the roles of actor, stuntman and special effects directo to that of makeup artist.

There's a lot of thing that aren't in the script.

You know, a lot of effect that are in “Dawn of the Dead” weren't in the script We would sit around at night and think of various ways to kil people, which was my job.

You know, all these zombies in “Dawn of the Dead killing people off.

So they had to be interesting and build you know, as they went along.

So my job, we sit around an think of ways to kill people.

So I would think of things like oh, what if we drive an umbrella up a guy's throat or something, you know, and I would go u to George Romero and say, hey, George, we had this idea.

How about if we tak a screwdriver or something and stick it on somebody's ear or just something like that, you know, and George would go okay.

Yeah.

So we went to this hardwar store and I got three screwdrivers and cut the at various lengths, took a soda straw and painted it silver and stuck i on one of the screwdrivers so it looked lik it was part of the screwdriver.

But this screwdriver only ha about an inch of a blade on it, and it would slid into the straw.

See?

So you would see th the real screwdriver heading down towar the guy's head.

We would cut to a clos up of the fake screwdriver or the half screwdrive in the soda straw, and it would retract into that.

Then we cut to a screwdriver that big, which was the finishe screwdriver in the guy's ear.

At one point in there, though I had a soda straw and it was tubing going into th soda straw, pumping blood.

So all you saw was a soda straw coming out of the guy ear, and my hand was covering the tubin and the blood came up.

Then we cut to the smal screwdriver stuck in the guy ear after that.

But on camera, in continuity it looks like one continuous action.

In this scene we actually see Tom execut another special effect.

Say goodbye creep.

I took a machete and well first of all, I took a piece of solde and placed it on the guy's head that the machet was going to hit and I formed it to his head.

So I had like if I pulled it off a silhouette, a profile of the guy I traced that on the machete and then cut.

I had a welder cut the machete that that for out of the machete so the machete would fit ove the guy's head like this, so it would look like it' deeply embedded into his face.

Then we did reverse photograph of me pulling the machete out.

So on camera, what you see is me doing this violent movemen with a machete, then it close up of the revers action of the machete hitting the guy's head.

Okay, bu was actually being pulled out and there was bloo and tubing into the guy's head for a clos up of the machete in there in blood coming out In “Dawn of the Dead,” hundreds of zombie are put to death In this fashion Tom demonstrates his technique.

This is Taso Stavrakis, my stunt partner, fencing partner assistant, special effects, and I'm going to shoot hi in the forehead with a bullet.

The blood is going to flow.

What I've done so fa is attached a piece of surgical tubing to his forehea with some medical adhesive.

And I'm concealing it no with morticians wax.

This is only to be don if it has to be done quickly.

Normally, I would prepare hi by making a cast of his face and using a plastic substanc that is far thinner than this mortician wax is going to be.

But for just a demonstration.

Quickly, I'm going to use thi morticians wax.

This is a regular butto from my sewing box.

Attaching fish line to this.

And I'm going to implan this beneath this buildup of mortician wax just under the tubing.

Yeah.

Then I'll conceal the butto with morticians wax.

So what makes you see the hole appear on Taso forehead is me pulling out this button, at the same time pumpin blood through the tubing.

Everything that I'd like to d I was able to do in “Dawn of the Dead.

Okay.

And I've never done thos that type of effect before.

And like I said the fun is in creating and inventing those things Okay.

Plus, ever sinc “Dawn of the Dead,” I'm getting scripts in the mai now.

You know, “Dawn of the Dead” was the bi recognition thing for me.

I mean, it's a nationwide thing People see it.

And because there are so man effects in “Dawn of the Dead,” the attention, of course as far as producers go or movie makers go, i we got to get this guy, you know to do the effects, you know?

Marily and I go back a long time when I was in high school her at Central Catholic, he was doing a film calle “Whine of the Fawn,” which never got off the ground And he was going around to high schools looking for a talent Okay.

And out of all the actor at Central, you know, in plays we were doing, he picked m and another guy, Greg Lehane.

We went down to the studio we had a screen test and that was that.

Nothing eve happened.

Okay.

Years later when I was in the first college I ever went to I heard that George was doing a film calle “Night of the Living Dead.” I went over there the elevator door opened.

George was standing right ther because that's where the office, the elevator open into the office, I said, hi, he remembered m from the high school thing.

I think he even remembere I remembered my name.

Okay, so I said, hi.

I do makeup, you know now and blah, blah, blah blah.

He said, fine bring me some pictures and maybe we can use you Okay.

The army, I enlisted on th on the hold program.

So just as I was abou to do that, I was called in.

I went to the Arm to Vietnam.

I was in Vietnam when he di night of the Living Dead.

When I came back I met the floor manager of this station Nicky Tallo, who was working a box offic at the Lab Theater here in town.

He said, hey, you know, George is doing another movie a vampire movie.

I said, great, I went down t see George to play the vampire.

They'd already cast the vampire.

I brought my portfoli and he saw it.

Hired me three day later to do the makeup.

I wound up doing some stunts, playing a part in the movi and the special effects.

Then I left I did a play in Carolina.

I got a telegram from George and simply said, Tom we have another gig.

Call me.

I called Georg A la “Dawn of the Dead.” The peopl that I'm most impressed with.

As far as the special effect field, there's only a few of them Number one, though, I want to give credit to LO Chaney again, the silent screen acto that we talked about, he was the beginnin of my influence and my the reason I went int this.

Number two would hav to be Dick Smith.

Dick Smith as far as I'm concerned, is the god of makeup the god of special effects.

He's the master.

Dick Smith has don “The Exorcist,” “The Godfather” one and two, “Midnight Cowboy, the Dustin Hoffman age makeup in “Littl Big Man,” 121 year old man.

He's the greatest influence.

I have everythin ever written about him.

I mean, I try to hav everything ever written about him, and I, I, I study.

If I see his pictur in a magazine, I take out a magnifying glass and I study his shelve and trying to read the labels on the things he has just to ge some sort of secrets.

I just spent a da with him in his house and, we exchanged such information Hes a wonderful man.

He loves to pass on informatio and that's a rarity.

You know another guy is Rick Baker.

Rick Baker did “The Fury.” He did the Cecily Tyson in “The Autobiograph of Miss Jane Pittman.” And as Dic Smith thinks that he is going to outdo him someday.

I talked about my visit to Dic Smith.

He told us a story abou when he was doing “Taxi Driver” He had things like this plante all over a guy's face, and a guy got sho in the face about 4 or 5 times.

And, he had all thes little pieces of monofilament comin out of those little holes, he would pull them There were hollow foam latex pieces filled with bloo on the guy's face, and when he pulled the plug the blood would come out, giving the impressio that the guy was being shot.

Plus, the face would go i like this.

See?

So he had the gu only neatly prepared with a Bobby pinned to his hair, an the guy's girlfriend comes in and says, oh dear you have a little thing here.

And she pulled i and the blood came out.

I haven't been doin special effects all my life.

In fact, I was surprise when I started doing it to see that I tha I was doing it first of all, that I could do it, you know, like I started out with just your basic makeup you know, making people look, prettier on stag or for a camera, you know, for commercial or something like that.

And then I starte getting into, monster magazines like Famou Monsters of Film Land.

I have every issue of tha since 1958.

So I would take a pictur or two from a new issue or something and try to duplicate tha makeup, some monster makeup.

So I wound up doing monste stuff a lot because it was more of challenge there.

It was three dimensional stuf and not just making somebody's own fac look pretty.

So that so what happens there is you have it's like a painter or you know, like an artist.

You have this an artist work with a canvas and so do I. I, you're, anybody' face is a canvas for me it's a three dimensional canvas, which is alread an advantage for me.

You know, the fun is creatin and inventing.

Like I've never tor somebody's arm.

I've never had to make som a bullet hit somebody head, you know?

So now I got to figure ou how to do this.

And so the way I do it i I think of the movie screen.

Okay.

And what exactly we're goin to see on that movie screen.

So then I think how to creat what you see.

Okay And that's where the magic is.

Because just as magic professional magicians rely on mechanical device to fool you that you have no ide how they're built, you know, what their function is All you see, when a magicia does something to you or perform a trick for you, is is the trick the finished result?

The effect Okay, that's all I do.

So, so far, Taso, th victim here, has a button plante within the morticians wa on his forehead.

Also beneat the morticians wax, and close to the button is this surgical tubing attached to this rectal syringe which is filled with blood.

So what you woul what would normally happen is you would see the gunsho or hear the gunshot.

The whole will appea and the blood will flow.

So now we're read to execute the effect.

I will pull this fis line out and squeeze this tubing at the same time.

Whoa.

People think I'm how it ranges you know, weird, sick you know, all these things.

Its just my job, you know?

I mean, like I tell everybody that knows me or that even doesn' that don't know me.

When they see my stuff my portfolio, they see all this blood and gor and people coming apart and sick zombie and stuff like that.

I tell them right off the bat that, you know I can create beauty.

I can, you know, I mean I started off doing beauty, but, I'm, there seems to b more of a call now for ugly.

That's what I've been doing.

That's what I've been hired for you know?

But I. I'm a queas person myself.

I it were, if it were real bloo I don't think I could stand it.

I'm actually a gentle person.

I mean, a sensitive person and I'm a queasy person.

You hold up a spider you can have anything I have.

You know, I' scared of spiders, you know?

So I'm not a sick person.

More stage bloo and the common drain pipe attached to a piece of woo were the ingredients for the gory death of the vampir in “Martin.” Your soul is damned Nosferatu.

There' three of us under the bed, pumping bloo in from rectal syringes at various places in Martin's underneath Martin's pajamas.

So when the stake does go in, and I'll explai how that goes into the second.

But so when the stake doe go in, blood starts, it starts bleeding everywher toward the camera, under his shir in various places.

The stake was actually driven into a drain pip that I had around my house that I attache to a piece of wood, and it was like alongside hi here, filled with sand.

The establishing sho is the stake over his heart.

You see the stake over his hear just before the hammer comes dow to pound the stake.

So in your mind, as far as you're concerned the stake is deliver his heart.

But she did it ove into this drainpipe.

See, now, I was activatin two syringes at the same time.

One of my right han and one on my left.

The one on my left was controllin blood in the shirt, but one of my right hand was controlling blood that woul shoot out alongside his arm.

Here, where the stake goes in.

The first time we did it, the blood was like Yellowston Park.

It went straight up and sho and hit the ceiling.

And it was just it was a bad take.

So we had to clean u the whole room.

Second take, it was good The stake went into the drain pipe and blood splashe on the guy's hands against him, and it worked.

And we had two camer angles of that.

The stake actuall went into a drain pipe.

Then we cut away to a longe shot of a smaller stake on a piece of tin on the gu glued to the guy's chest, covere with wax and blood everywhere.

And again in continuity in the scene, it looks like the stake went al the way in.

And there it was.

When I'm doing stunts, I try to put in as many safet precautions as possible.

And you and you learn by makin mistakes.

I mean, I've learned everything.

I've learned the hard way it seems, you know, by doing it making the mistake first.

As far as stunts go, I try t I try to see what exactly is going to happen to my bod all the way through there, you know and I wear a lot of stunt pads depending on what's wh I'm who I'm substituting for.

If their costume doesn' allow for that, then I'll if I'm going to hit something a car or a floor or a wall, then I'll put padding there you know.

But usually I like to wear lot of padding and protect my back.

I did a stunt once wher the only thing I didn't cover was my left my right knee.

Okay.

The only thing that got hur was my right knee.

I did a stunt once for George, in “Martin,” where I was hit by a car.

So the camera shows m getting shot in the leg, and it pulls back to this ca right at me.

So just before the car hits me I jump off the ground and just start rolling.

I didn't have any sophisticate stunt padding there, but I took sheets of foa and carved it to my body.

But the only place I didn' cover was one of my kidneys.

Back here.

The only place that got hur was my kidney.

Back here in high school, I was a, a gymnas in high school, and I continued on into one o the colleges that I went to.

Okay.

When you were gymnast, it make you unafraid of the ground.

And once you're in that state you know, it's it's easy.

In “Dawn of the Dead, George Romero, who was the director of that, said he was going to hir a stuntman from New York to do the stunt that I read about in the script.

I said, I can do this stuff you know, because, well, I don't know.

You know, I guess he reall didn't know what I could do.

I mean, there were things like driving a motorcycl through a store window, falling off balconies getting set on fire.

I said, I can do all this stuff you know?

So when the time came to do it they hadn't gotten the act togethe enough to get a stunt man.

And so I wound up doing it.

I did a stunt i “Dawn of the Dead,” where I go over the railing.

It's my death actually, it's the death of Blade, the character that, that I played was about a three story fall.

And you see me wind u in the fountain after that.

Okay.

What we did was, I just took a running dive of a bench over the balcony at the mall and I dove into two layers of cardboard boxe and two mattresses.

The first time I did it I overshot everything.

My head was protected because it hit the edge of the mattresses but my feet came down and just whi lashed boom into the floor.

And I couldn't walk, you know?

But I made them carry me bac up there and throw me off again.

Because a long time ag I had a gymnastics coach who, after I was doin giant swings and accidentally, accidentally left the ba and smashed into the wall, nose was bleedin and everything.

I was ready to give it up.

He said, go right back up ther right now and do it or you'll never do it agai in your whole life.

So that's stuck with me.

So when I got hurt, I went bac up, did it again.

After my feet healed.

Two weeks later I was in the costume again and I put three layer of cardboard boxes and another mattres and extended, and there was no way I coul miss, you know, I could have jumped of in Bloomfield and hit it.

So that was a suprem safety measure for myself.

There's one questio Tom says he's inevitably asked.

Why am I not on my way t Hollywood and trying to make a career out there?

Okay, that's been my drea since I was eight years old.

I used to listen to a Disneyland records and dream about going to Californi and working for Walt Disney or just being in that fantas situation, you know, and I've been trying to get I've never been ther to California.

I've been trying to get there you know, all this time, because that's reall that's where I think my career would, you know, go because there aren't many peopl who do.

You know what I do?

There are a few great ones.

You know I don't consider myself up there as far as their talent but I think that's where it could begin.

What happened is Hollywoo came to Pittsburgh for me, you know, with George Romer in his films.

And, because of “Dawn of the Dead, I'm getting scripts in the mail now from all ove Ohio and New York.

Haven't gotten an from California yet, but that could possibly happen.

And then I'll go out ther and do a film.

There's somethin coming up for me in Colombia, South America that I will definitely go dow and do, you know, but being in Pittsburgh doesn' it doesn't affect that because, that's what Richard Rubinstei and George Romero have been saying all this time.

You don't have to b in Hollywood or New York to make big movies feature movies.

You know, there's no reaso why you can't do it anywhere.

A boy's camp in the Pocon Mountains is the setting for Tom's latest film “Friday the 13th,” in which a number of counselors are being mysteriously murdere by an unknown prowler.

So my job in that film was to a and “Dawn of the Dead” think of ways to kill peopl in “Friday the 13th.” Once the killer is revealed, There's only one counselo left in the film, and she almost gets wrapped up But she's able to to circumstances to protect hersel from this prowler who has been such a killer.

I mean, you cannot escap this person.

The strength that this perso has and the means with which this person kills people.

So at the end of the film is is a one fight after another, one chair jumper after anothe leading up to the killer's death And it's pretty grisly.

She's beheaded But I cast this person's head and with Plaster of Paris prepared her first, you know, and cast with Plaster of Pari and made a mold.

You can see there' a piece of foam along her head to separate the front hal from the back half.

I'm about to cover her fac with alginate, which is the dental materia that dentists used to make impressions of your teeth.

It dries in two minutes, the you give it a plaster backing.

Here we are, putting the plaste backing on the back half of her head.

Then I will remove this foa and do the front half.

That's the plaster backing.

Now that you see along her head, the foam is remove and I'm taking this drill and drilling in keys which are just holes alon the edge of the back plaster half, so tha when I put the front half on, it fills those holes up and gives m a key keys all around it so that when the fron and the back are connected, they're connected more solidl because the keys hold them together The alginate is already on her.

This is the plaster backin that's going on the the alginate front connecte to the back plaster portion.

Her head is totally encase now in plaster and alginate, and she' breathing through two tiny holes where her nostrils are I'm using a butter knife.

I think they're to separat the front half of the plaster and alginat from the plaster backing.

And here she i coming out of it.

She's been under this no for nearly an hour.

She said it was a ver enjoyable experience.

It's like having a face mask and it's like having your sense suspended temporarily.

And here we ar holding the finished front mold.

I don't know if you can see any detail in the front but that's the negative impression of her face.

And from that I made a shoulde and head out of foam latex.

This was attached to Tasos the back of Tasos shoulders, and he tucked his head dow inside this sweater and, the tubing the blood tubing was attached inside the neck and I actually di the cutting of the head myself because the actress who playe it wouldn't have been able to get it the first time and I knew I could.

So I'm off camera with a syring in my hand and a machete, and the close up i simply on the head of this lady who assumes this face when she' attacking the counselor, and I cast he with the same face, so she is the real perso as attacking this counselor.

We cut to the gir swinging the machete.

Then we go to the fak head of the of the of the person, the killer with me, with the syring and the machete.

And I cut it of and it did a beautiful thing.

It left.

It left the neck and shoulde relationship.

It tilted, fell down on top of the nec and then flipped off while blood was flowin out, and Tasos hands came up into the fram and quivered like this.

Then it went out of frame.

Now this is the way it wa prepared.

Again, Taso.

Coul you turn around for the camera?

The shoulders keep turning, the shoulders and the neck are fastene back here so that we could get the live action of hand coming up into the frame and gyratin when the head is, removed.

Thank you very much.

When I think back on on mysel and wonder, how did I ge into all these things at once?

I think I was just absolutel bored when I was a kid.

Like there were time when I would take my makeup kit and put it up in the attic and not even touch i for like a year.

I would get involve in something else, like fencing or photograph or something, you know, but I would always g back up there and get my makeup kid out and play with i somewhere deep inside me.

That was, you know, the one mai love, I guess, that I had.

I've, along with doing th special effects in these films, I've been doing the stunt and lot of times I've been staging fight between people.

And so I'm continuing to d that.

I have a fil coming up in New York called “Maniac,” where I'm doin I'm playing a part, acting, I'm executing the specia effects, special effects credit, I'm doing a stunt a stunt credit, and I'm staging a figh between some people.

And that's so that's, you know four things that I do that I'm that I'm going to be able to do you know, that's what I like.

I like doing everything you know, at the same time, I don't know if I want to b just into one thing.

As far as scary stuff goes, when I was a kid, you know I used to be scared to death of a lot of the stuff I saw.

I used to hide my eyes but then hide them like this.

Because even thoug I was afraid, I had to see.

Because I might wan to duplicate this in my bedroom someday.

It's hard for me when somebod says, listen, you're 32.

You're a grown man.

What are you what are you doing Doing this stuff?

I mean, grown people, actually you know, doing this stuff, you know, that someho doesn't click into my computer.

I, I don't think of mysel as as a number of how many years I've been on Earth you know, it's like, I still feel like I' the 13 year old kid that opened this horror magazine and wanted to get involve with makeup.

I think it's m attitude about just, never wanting never wanting to grow up, you know, getting involved with you know, fantasy all the time.

You know, I'd rather be I' rather be involved in fantasy.

And, you know, a lot of I've suffere because of that as far as, you know, personal relationship and things like that.

But I would much rather be wher I am because I'm happy there.

You can come i closer If you want.

After I saw Frank Langella “Dracula,” he didn't wear teeth, but it prompted me to mak a to do my own fangs.

I also did a botto set to go along with these.