Creature Company gives L.A.'s FX shops a run for their money
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Sunday, November 23, 2003.
By LAVENDER VROMAN
Valley Press Staff Writer

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PALMDALE - It's called The Creature Company for a reason.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's disembodied head, King Kong's tooth, Amelia Earhart standing in a corner, looking very much alive - you're likely to encounter anything when you walk into the special effects shop on Avenue Q and 20th Street East.

The shop actually contains three separate ventures - The Creature Company, Alternative Realities and FX Masters - that have joined forces to offer a dizzying variety of special effects services to the film industry.

It is run by four friends who, quite simply, were tired of commuting to Los Angeles for work.

Collectively, Lino Stavole, Paul Barnes, Alan Tuskes and Mike Walters' Hollywood credit list reads like a novel, filled with instantly recognizable titles like "Planet of the Apes," "Men in Black II," "Minority Report," "Scream 3," "Boogie Nights," "Spawn," "Xena: Warrior Princess," "Mission: Impossible," "Independence Day," "Batman Forever," "End of Days" and "Unbreakable."

The friends "took a real chance" setting up their own operation close to home, said Barnes, who for 10 years slogged through traffic to his job as a supervisor in various L.A. movie effects shops.

"It was a do or die thing, you know."

Their less-than-central to L.A. location "hasn't really affected business," said Stavole, who is in charge of marketing for the seven-month-old company.

A lot of the larger effects companies in L.A. are closing because their overhead costs are too steep, he explained. Many of those largecompanies also tend to be somewhat elitist when it comes to what movies they'll work on.

"We're willing to work on some of the projects that other companies won't," he said. "Our size is really advantageous because it lets us be flexible."

Among the services they are able to offer to films, with budgets ranging from low to outrageous, are makeup, physical and digital effects, animation, composites, matte painting, props and prototype models, figures and toys.

Whatever they can't do themselves, they contract out.

"The special effects industry is really tight," Stavole said. "We can get the best subcontractors in the business."

They've fabricated illusions for magicians, created animatronic heads, crafted 15-foot snakes to be chopped up, laser-scanned Hugh Hefner to create a wax version of the famous playboy, whipped up promotional music boxes for the Russian DVD release of "Anastasia," spawned an army of life-size Power Rangers for Toys 'R' Us, breathed life into a pair of shrimp puppets for a Sizzler commercial and designed corpses for a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-themed restaurant in New York.

One of their regular customers is the Hollywood Wax Museum, for which they've designed the popular Hef figure, along with tableaus, backdrops and wax likenesses from "Planet of the Apes," "The Matrix," "Harry Potter" and "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

They recently completed three wax versions of Schwarzenegger - as Conan the Barbarian, the Terminator and the governor of California - and are starting work on likenesses of horror icons Freddy and Jason to coincide with the "Freddy Vs. Jason" DVD release.

In the entertainment business, it's common for artists to specialize in one area to the exclusion of everything else, Walters said. "Everyone here can do a little bit of everything."

Barnes got his start in the film industry 17 years ago, "sweeping floors." With no formal training, he developed a talent for mold-making and worked his way up to supervisory positions on several projects including the effects-laden "Independence Day."

Tuskes and Walters met while attending Ohio's Kent State University. They shared a passion for stop-motion effects and, 10 years ago, moved to California at the behest of their wives, who wanted to live "someplace where there was no snow," Tuskes laughed.

They landed jobs in L.A. effects shops, working on films such as "Men in Black II." Tuskes began to take an interest in digital effects and Walters' talents leaned more toward artistic and conceptual design.

Stavole also hails from Ohio. He was introduced to pyrotechnics while serving in the Army and, when his military career ended, began putting his knowledge to use on film sets. He also worked at a company that manufactured animatronic figures for amusement parks and for a children's science center, designing interactive exhibits.

After Stavole and his wife, Nicoletta, who is an actress, moved to California, he took jobs in several shops and discovered that his "talent lies in getting work."

Despite their success in the L.A.-based industry, the four colleagues quickly tired of dealing with the politics that went along with it.

"We didn't want the entertainment business interfering with the fun we have," Stavole said. "I personally love the trouble-shooting. Every job is different."

It is especially satisfying to see clients' reactions to the finished product, Tuskes said. "When they're like, 'That's better than I possibly thought it could be!' "

In the future, Stavole, Barnes, Tuskes and Walters would like to produce their own films. They'd also like to expand their wax figure-making business into Asia, where the concept of the wax museum is relatively unknown.

For now, they're focusing on a promotional project for Super Mario Brothers and the upcoming task of designing three "photorealistic" penguin puppets for the Richard Gere film "Emperor Zehnder."

"It's a lot of fun," Tuskes said. "It's like not growing up."