Well, first of
all, this is an interview conducted on Wednesday afternoon at three on the 10th
of May between
SPYROS
Yeah… I was an independent producer/director
working out of a very small studio in
What here in
SPYROS
In
So this is
when, which year are we talking about?
SPYROS
Oh this was
1990… I believe it was late ‘94 I think it was October/November ’94 and eh… we
arranged to meet for lunch. And the first time I cancelled, the second time Ray
cancelled and he said, ‘Well look why don’t we do it in
I arrived that
evening, and I can’t remember what day it was or anything, with my assistant at
the time who was an Austrian girl who at the time was very short to say the
least, very rude lady. We arrived in
I’ve been in
that position with Ray a number of times.
SPYROS
Yeah and we
were talking about everything you can imagine and eventually it got round to,
‘I’ve got some film that I need to make into documentaries and it needs a bit
of tidying up.’ And he said, ‘What level of security do you have at your
studio?’ And I thought well that’s an odd question and I said, ‘Well what do
you mean? I’ve got an alarm.’ He said, ‘Well the material’s very sensitive I
need it so it’s kept safe so nobody can get to it.’ He said, ‘One frame is
worth £20,000.’ ‘What’s this then?’ you know…
Got your
attention.
SPYROS
I’m thinking is
this the assassination of Kennedy what is this? So I said to him, ‘What is it?’
And he said, ‘If I tell you promise you won’t laugh?’ And so I said, ‘Ok.’ And
he said, ‘It’s the autopsy of an alien’. And I said, ‘What a foreign person?’ And
he said, ‘No, an alien being from another place another planet.’ And I said,
‘Oh come on Ray’ you know and he said, ‘No really.’ He told me the story. And
he said, ‘I’ve got this film’ and he said, ‘it’s very delicate.’ He said,
‘Anyone that knows you’ve got it is going to come and break in and take it.’ He
said, ‘And I need to know that one: I can trust you (because you can sell the
story you can do stuff without me)
Secondly: he
said, ‘I need to know you can do the job.’
‘So what’s
involved?’
‘I need you to
take the film. I need to you to turn in into video because it’s on real 16mm
film. And then I need you to clean it up and then I need you to make a
documentary from it and anywhere I’ll sell it around the world they’ll ask you
for the footage I’ll make sure you get to make a documentary and you’re the
master of the key if you like.’ So I said, ‘We’ve only just met how do you know
that I am trustworthy?’ He says, ‘I’m going to sign you to a contract and make
it watertight so that you can’t.’ He said, ‘But I’m not a bad judge of
character.’ And I said, ‘Ok well you’re not a bad judge of character.’ and I
said to him, ‘So what?’
‘So when we go
back I’ll show you the footage and you can tell me what you think.’ Anyway this
went on for a while didn’t get any footage didn’t get to see any footage.
Oh really so
you came back and there was some time past?
SPYROS
It took a
little while but it was because he was waiting for the meaty stuff to arrive
apparently it was more than the reel and it was all… Anyway cut a long story
short a distraught Ray phoned me up and he said, ‘I’ve got the stuff back…’ He
said, ‘And it’s terrible condition, it’s really bad condition.’ He said, ‘I
haven’t got enough…’
So when he had
the conversation with you in
SPYROS
And it was
clean…
And it was
clean. So when he said he wanted you to clean it up? What did he mean?
SPYROS
He meant he
wanted me to take away the tail trails, the trailers and just make a good
script. Cos it comes… when you shoot film it comes in
very small reels, 50 foot reel, and then it’s spliced together now often what
happens is it’ll be spliced together with the…
Right I’m with
you.
SPYROS
And then it’s
just a big blank. So he says, ‘When it comes back I just want you to go through
it and make it watchable.’ So he recited to me what
he saw in
Right, right.
SPYROS
And his very
words at the time and I never forget the words he used which were, ‘I don’t
know what’s on that film but it’s going to make us a lot of money.’ And I said
to him, ‘What do you mean you don’t know what it is?’ ‘I don’t know what it
is.’ He said, ‘I find it hard to believe it’s an alien.’ And he said, ‘It might
be a deformed human, it might be a special effect, it might be whatever it is,
it’s going to make us money.’ And I said
to him, ‘Well if it’s a special effect it’s not going to be worth anything.’
And he said, ‘No they couldn’t do this in 1947.’ And I said, ‘How do you know
it’s 47?’ And he said, ‘Well I had it checked I wouldn’t buy it until I knew it
was 47.’ So I said, ‘You’re right, Hammer House of Horrors were making crap
films in ‘68 so, you know, so in ‘47.
Kensington
Gore.
SPYROS
So I said, ‘I’m
intrigued.’ And I said to him, ‘I can give you the level of satisfaction
security you want.’ And I said, ‘I’d love to do the job.’
Was it here?
SPYROS
No, no, no I
didn’t own this place at the time it was this place in
Oh I see tell
him to stop it.
SPYROS
It has to run
though you can’t stop it you’ll burn the cell, but I saw an image, now as an
editor I see frames you know. I can watch a film and it be one frame, pow, I see it you know focally I see it. But that’s what we do that’s our job. I
didn’t say anything I said there is images on the floor on the film, I said
what’s happened is it’s oxidised…
And that’s
quite common is it for a film stock?
SPYROS
It really
depends on what film stock it is. Some film blows up into flames. That’s why
it’s kept in metal containers over time they can become combustible. So you
open the can and the air hits it and it bursts into flames.
Really? What’s
it made…?
SPYROS
Phosphorous.
Ah I see.
SPYROS
And it can go
up quite dramatically like a bomb you know.
So this is
particularly the case on older film?
SPYROS
Yeah, yeah it
depends on the certain make-up of film. You got phosphorus, you got silver
compound, you add them all together in fact what could happen is just a bit of
a jolt could set it off.
Really?
SPYROS
So what
happened with Ray’s stuff it was flaking it deteriorated quite badly. And I
said to Ray, ‘Right what we’ve got to do is not run it through the machines
anymore what we’ve got to do is Telecine it put it
through a projector and actually video the output. So we can see what’s there.
Then we can freeze-frame and look at the frame.’
So how does
that work? Telecine it?
SPYROS
All that
happens is you put it through a projector and instead of going onto a screen it
goes through a tube and that tube is attached to a camera and you actually film
what comes off the Telecine.
Right so there
is a slight deterioration in the quality of the image?
SPYROS
It’s pretty
good. I mean that… Telecine image is pretty good. So
that’s what we did. And we managed to retrieve some images, very compelling
images and at that point I remember I was looking at it and I was thinking…
because I did believe it was real. I was looking at it and I’m thinking how
would I recreate this if I had to recreate it and I’m going through it and I
was looking at it and I’m thinking. Now there was a sequence of images on
another reel, which actually showed moving images. And when you got a moving
image you’ve got tell, tell signs, various tell, tell signs, that I didn’t see.
For instance if it was a made prop you would see all sorts of give away signs,
they weren’t there. So I’m looking at it and I’m thinking that’s a still again
the other thing as well that I remember was, etched in my mind was how scary
the image was because every alien you’ve ever seen an image of before is quite
a jokey image, is quite a Mickey Mousey kind of you
know… and this was so eerie because it looked sinister it looked like someone’s
dead here, right this is someone that’s died, it’s someone that’s real and this
is not a good thing.
And what were
these images of?
SPYROS
It was… what
you know as the alien autopsy, that was pretty much what we saw… now we had to
make up what might have been on this side and what might have been over here
because we couldn’t see.
When you saw
that? When you first saw it, the first time you saw it in your studio in
SPYROS
Totally blown
away and the whole time…
Who else was
with you?
SPYROS
At the time it
was just Ray and the whole time I was saying to Ray “How much did you pay for
this Ray?” he said “oh that doesn’t matter right now, it’s not important.” I
said to him, “Well what if it isn’t real?” I said, “You might have got done,
have you considered that?” He said, “No I went to the guys house I know the
guys real.”
And the guy was
the cameraman?
SPYROS
Yea he said,
“He’s definitely real.” He said, “What I saw there was this but moving and
full.”
How is it
possible for him to see it?
SPYROS
A lot of time whet by as I understand it the
film was kept in damp conditions and hadn’t been looked after and I don’t even
know, it even looks like water might had got into it. Although it was dry it
didn’t look… you know when film is clean and flat this was buckled it felt like
it had been in… It had been mistreated. But I’m looking at Ray and I’m looking
at this and I’m thinking to myself well.. and he obviously had spent a lot of
money and he had this face on him which was the end of the world had happened.
Right and I’m looking at this amazing piece of footage and I said, “Ray look no
one else has seen it right? Why don’t I recreate it?” He said, “You can’t.” So
I said, “I can I can re-create this and no one will know.” He said, “But it needs to stand up to all
sort of tests, it needs to stand up to NASA who want to look at it, to Kodak
who want to look at it, to all the experts, we’ve got the Queens pathologist
lined up to look at it. We’ve got all sorts of people.” He said, “They have to
look at it and it has to pass.” And I said, “Now I’m a magician.”
Are you?
SPYROS
That’s one of
my things.
Literally?
SPYROS
Yeah.
I said to him, “Ray this is my job.”
This
is you been put on this earth for this purpose
SPYROS
I
said to him, “This is tailor made for me, I am in my own mind a talented film
maker and on the other hand again in my own mind because I’m not going to say
that I’m the best of this and that but I am.” And I said to him, “I can create
the biggest illusion that any magician to be perpetrated on the world and they
won’t know.” He said, “How will you do it?” I said, “That’s not your problem. I
said, “What your problem is is can we get some money?
I’m happy to just do it don’t want to make any money out of it.” I said to him,
“Lets just do it, see if we can do it, the key to this is that we minimise the
amount of people involved so that the secrecy level, that the security is
high.” He said, “I don’t know, you see I’m nervous about this.” I said to him,
“I tell you what we’ll do, lets do it and if we fail we’ll know we’ve failed
right and we don’t release it.” I said, “But I can do this.” So he went off to
Had
you met
SPYROS
No.
“Never gonna get away with it, it can’t be done, how
can you do it?” So they came back and they quizzed me and they said, “Look… we
don’t believe it can be done.” So I said to them, “Look I’ve got a very, very
good friend who is like my brother who I trust with my life, who I can bring in
who can make the creature.” “Who is he?” I said, “It’s a guy called John
Humphries, he has worked on lots of frontline movies he has worked on lots of
frontline television I said you would have seen his work again and again and
again. More importantly he is trustworthy, and we can work together.” So he
said, “What would he want?” I said, “John will take what I give him, he’s my
brother. But we’ll do this.” So they sat down and said, “Right we’ve got to
bet, look we’ve got costumes, we’ve got props, we’ve got a set, we’ve got a creature,
we’ve got to film it… we’ve gotta dadadada. And at the end of
it all we’ve got to make sure that all the experts in the world won’t ever
know.” He said, “We can’t do that it ain’t gonna happen.” I said, “Look for the last time right I said
I can do this, if you want me to do it Ray I will do it.” He said, “Well how do
we position it?” I said, “Look we know it exists, we know it’s real. If I can
make it look like that.” I said, “To him you’re not telling any lies.” I said
to him, “We’ll present it as what it is and then we’ll tell the world what
we’ve done.” But I said to him, “That
that’s the proof.”
How many images
were there?
SPYROS
We got I think
in total about 2 and a bit minutes spread across the 2 minutes of… yea
And where is
that film now?
SPYROS
Ray’s got
it.
Have you seen
the movie? The alien autopsy movie?
SPYROS
Yea.
Is this thing
at the end, the sequence at the end? Is that the real film?
SPYROS
You know I can’t
remember because I was actually appalled by the film. I left early and I can’t
remember what was on it. My character was played by a Turkish kebab shop owner
who does wedding videos on the weekend and I took that as an insult. Now it’s
not Ray it’s not
Warner brothers
SPYROS
Warner brothers
they made a comedy. But the reality is, the enormity… they said to me, “Do you
want to be a part of this film.” I said, “No not in a million years.” I said,
“Why would I want to do that? It’s just belittling the whole and…”
So
you and john Humphries sat down…
SPYROS
I sat
down with john and I said, “John we’ve got these clips.” He said, “What is it?”
And I said, “It’s an alien autopsy.” He said, “Yeah right.” I said to him,
“John, whatever you think I’ve been there myself I’ve done all of it now, and
that’s irrelevant. Whether it’s real, whether it’s a human being that’s
deformed. We need to recreate this.” I said, “Now can we do it?” And he said,
“Well yeah.” I said, “that’s what I think I think we can do this. The thing
that you don’t realise is it has to be made a secret, nobody can know any
aspect of it, nothing, not where the clock came from, not where… nothing. He
said, “we can’t do that how are we gonna do that? it’s
impossible.” I said, “it is possible. We just got to be very clever and it’s
very much like, my training as a magician is there are a lot of techniques
where you can involve people and they haven’t got a clue that they are part of
it.”
What
when you should somebody a coin or something or?
SPYROS
But I
don’t do that kind of magic, I do mostly mind magic. Nothing exists but I can
have you think that I’ve just read your mind and I can also have you confirm it
to five or six people who also think I read there mind in actual fact they’re
all in on it. Nobody knows that you’re in on it only a little bit because
you’ve genuinely seen magic and because I’ve pieced together a string of events
you’re all sitting there giving testimony to what you’ve just seen in actual
fact if you all cross-examined each other you’d break it down. And there’s ways
of doing stuff. So the most difficult part of making this film was persuading
everyone around me that it could be done.
It’s
weird isn’t it?
SPYROS
That
was the most difficult thing.
But
you had enough images… because obviously the alien is key. You had enough
images of the alien for you to be able to see the whole length of it? Or?
SPYROS
We
had enough images to see enough of it to make an image. The long shot we
couldn’t see any detail we could see where everything was. The close up shot
showed us information like how many digits on the fingers and toes and all that
sort of stuff. We saw images…
Could Ray, do
you think, have conned you before this point?
That film that
you saw couldn’t have been faked?
SPYROS
No, not in a
million years. First of all with all due respect to Ray, Ray couldn’t have the
way or withal to make it. To con us. If he did why would he want us now to
recreate what he’s created.
Yeah you’re
right it doesn’t make sense.
SPYROS
Doesn’t make
sense, and he’s persuading me not to do it. He’s saying we can’t do it so what
we going to do, I’m buggered that’s it I’m buggered. So what we did was, I sat
down with John and I said, “Right. We’ve got… these are the pieces.” And I did
a few sketches and I said, “Right this is what I think these frames look like
from all these angles so when you’re looking here that’s what we’ve got in the
room, when you’re looking here that’s what we’ve got in the room, so we’ve got
to create a situation where a camera can do this and these images are pieced
together in a 3 dimensional scenario.”
Because
presumably there are people still alive, who were in those days, who are still
alive, who were in that room?
SPYROS
I’ve
interviewed nearly 30 people as a filmmaker not the person that made this film.
As another person I went to
When you say
there were there, do you mean in the room or they were in
SPYROS
They were in
What sort of
things?
SPYROS
For instance
the suits, they… one guy who happened to know about the fallout suits he
basically said, “What they are wearing is a first generation fallout suit.” He
said, “I only know about the existence of one of those today and that’s in the
Because you
didn’t know what they were wearing?
SPYROS
No because
there would have been a tube coming out of the boot and that’s how they would
have been breathing. So we didn’t want to go to that extent so as long as there
wasn’t a tube so we simply said, “Is it possible that they were breathing
through a tube in the boot?” and he said, “Well yes that’s possible.” And I
said, “So why is this not real.” And he said, “Yeah you’re right.” He said,
“That was done then that’s what they had.”
But the suit
that’s in
SPYROS
I didn’t see it
we found books.
So you had
reference of the suit it self?
SPYROS
My assistant
yeah, my assistant did all the research throughout the whole film came back
consistently with loads and loads of different things. And we said, “Right
that’s the one we need to make it fits in the… it’s 1945.”
And was it easy
to make the suit?
SPYROS
It was a
nightmare because… we should give the girl my assistant a name because we don’t
want to expose her because she doesn’t want to be exposed so what should we
call her?
Michelle.
SPYROS
Let’s call her
Michelle. Now Michelle had a sewing machine and she said look the material we
had to use wouldn’t go through her sewing machine. So she said, “Look we’ll
have to get a special jobby and a needle and a this
and a that…” So we went in John Lewis and…
A Haberdashery
department.
SPYROS
Yeah and we got
the bits she needed and while we were there we started looking at material they
had rolls of cloth and there was a lycra white, lycra metalized material that
stretched but it looked like it wasn’t plastic so on film we’d get away with
it, but a very modern material you know and it was quite thin. And I said to
her you know, “Do you think you could stitch this?” And she said, “Probably em… I’ve never done it before I don’t know if it will tear
I don’t know what… but we’ll try it.” So we bought enough of the material to
make four suits because we’re not going to go back and we’re going to make it
work. And we’ve gone back and she had no experience of cutting patterns. Now
what are the chances of my parents owning a dress making factory many, many
years ago in the seventies where I used to go on a Saturday and help pattern
cutter, right. What are the chances of this? So I said to her, “Well I know how
to do it, so this is what we’ve got to do” and I drew a pattern as we drew the
pattern we laid all the stuff together and cut it in one go. Em and just laid it out. And we made the pattern together
she stitched it and we made a window the whole thing, one piece suit, all the
glove the sleeve all made one piece, quite a difficult job, right? Because you
couldn’t have gaps otherwise the air would get out, you know. In the autopsy
film with Ant and Dec if you look at it they’ve got a flap here where the
helmet is separate from the thing well that wouldn’t work, right? Ours is
completely one piece, and it was an exact copy of what would have happened in
there. So that’s how we made the costumes. I sat down with John I said, “Right
John this is what the alien looks like, here are the photos, this is what the
sets going to look like, this is what we’re going to do.” Michelle came back
with a thing that she uncovered which was an eye witness report which was that
an alien had been dissected and they discovered that their internal organs were
that of a fly, similar to a fly they weren’t human, and the sense behind it
was, the metallics behind it was: That our innards
wouldn’t stand up to the kind of speeds that they would have gone to. A fly or
a cockroach you could do anything to it, it survives, so this is how it
evolved. So we said, “OK well lets look at that.” So I said to John, “Right
we’re going to create the innards to look like it could be an insect so if
anyone that knows, that’s what they’re looking at now that person that doesn’t
know it will just go top of both people’s heads. An expert will say this is not
a human being, fair enough and someone in the know will say this is the insides
of an insect now that happened there is a guy in Roswell that we interviewed
who said, “The insides don’t resemble anything to do with a human cos they are like an insects and it takes amazing G force
and a dadadada.” And that was great because we
planted the seed and… Now the same guy his name was sergeant stone he was in
the army, in the
How bizarre.
SPYROS
So the whole
thing you know…
Contradictory.
SPYROS
Contradictory.
His son died in mysterious circumstances. All sorts of stuff happened to this
guy and when you read between the lines he saw it. You know he actually broke
down and cried on tape and everything you know. So it validates a lot of our
suspicions whether it is real. Definitely something happened in 1947 in
You believe
that?
SPYROS
Definitely.
Listen I have spoken to people who are far more intelligent than you or I put
together alright and I don’t know you very well but I’m telling you, I’m
telling you these guys are super, super intelligent and you know university
lecturers we’re talking about all sorts of and they saw something, it happened.
So I made the mistake of talking to Loretta Procter who, Loretta Procter was
the woman that lived next door to Matt Brazel who
owned the range where the spaceship crashed, right. And the story goes Matt Brazel woke up in the middle of the night, there was a
storm, and he went outside and he found a spaceship crashed on his range which
is in the dessert and he went to his nearest neighbour to show her the bits of
spaceship that had crashed. That’s the story right. I went out there, went to
the range and his nearest neighbour is 20 miles, right, 20 miles. Now that
story changes now for me it was ‘he went next door.’ Right 20 miles on
horseback in a storm, now I went by small plane it took ages, now he went on
horseback in a storm. I went and saw the lady that he visited and she was still
there, I’m not sure she’s still there now but you know, it was some eleven years
ago now. Loretta Procter and we sat down with her lovely lady very coherent not
at all mental not at all old she was very with it and I made the mistake of
saying to her, “Mrs Proctor could you please tell me why every time a UFO is
sighted it is always in a small town in a America somewhere?” and she got very
upset about that. And she said, “Let me tell you something you man.” She said,
“We were the only place in the world that had the nuclear weapon. We fired the
H bomb from
Interesting.
SPYROS
…was described
in 47. So I met another guy and he told me again and he said to me, “Well I’m
wearing something right now that came directly from what we learnt.” And he
said, “Cos you’ll find that there was a metal you can
crush up and it came back that he got into his garment. And he said “You can
see I can bend things like this and it comes straight back.” Which he says is
memory metal. He said we’ve got these now but he said in 1947 no one even
thought about them. He said but they existed.
And you were
making this documentary for…?
SPYROS
It was for us?
It was just to see to make a documentary to see if we did get anything out of
it, you know, and I’m glad I did it because it kind of reinforced a lot of
stuff that I…
Yeah, of
course. And so ray wasn’t with you or anything?
SPYROS
No. So going
back to how we made the documentary. The reason this worked and the secret to
our success was because everyone involved were very close and multitasked I did
the job of the director, set builder, set designer, costume designer, producer,
prop maker I also acquired props so obviously I went off on buying trips and
found stuff it had to be the right year…
Yeah of course,
the clock was one of the…
SPYROS
The clock yeah…
loads of stuff and I’ll tell you a story about the clock in a minute but
everything from filming it developing it, editing it. You know, this is the job
of a crew.
How did you get
the right film stock for it?
SPYROS
Well what I did
was I researched the film stock they would have used. Which would have been Kodak
triple X or four x, super four x. And what we did was we found the equivalent
modern stock that was available that fit the right camera. The camera that
would have been used would have had a certain frame rate and it would have had
certain features that for instance if you couldn’t have the right about of
stock you know exposure stock on the
camera that we were using if we had more because of the more modern camera an
expert could tell, right if the frame rate was different an expert could tell,
it was electronically driven and not a wind up they could tell. So I had to
find a camera which was exactly the same as the one they would have used. So
imagine my delight. When my friend Lance, Lance Aston phoned me up, he’s a pop
promo, at the time he was a pop promo producer/ director and he phoned me up
and he said, “Do you want to come and help me film this pop promo with this
band? I want to film it, I want to shoot it on film as well as video and I’ll
go buy a camera.” He said, “I’ll just find a camera on Portobello market.” And
he said, “And we’ll just shoot some stuff and see if we can get some arty stuff
out of it.” And he knew that I could work film. So I said, “Yeah I’d love to.”
And that was it. Now Lance married to Marcella Detroit from ‘Shakespeares Sister’. I don’t know if you know the band?
Yeah, yeah.
SPYROS
His sister’s
Jay Aston who was in ‘Bucks Fizz.’ So it was quite a celebrity outfit/ Showbiz
outfit and I turned up and he handed me this camera and I’d been looking at
photos and photocopies of cameras for the last week looking for one and he
handed me this camera and I was mesmerized by it. And I said to him, “Where did
you get this?” He said “What? It’s no good?” I said to him, “No, no it’s
great.” I said to him, “Where’d you get it?” He said, “At Portobello market.”
So I said, “That’s fantastic.” I said to him, “I’ve wanted to play with one of
these for a while.” I said, “Do you think I can borrow it after the shoot?” He
said, “Yeah how long do you want it for?” I said, “A couple of weeks?” He said,
“Yeah no problem.” So the whole time I was filming his job I am jumping through
hoops and wanna phone Ray up. I wanna
phone Ray and say I can’t believe dadada… you know,
so anyways I’ve got this camera and it is exactly the right Ben and Howell
exactly the same model that would have been used then and in them days what
happened that they made them in, they were in camouflage green. And they were
disposable, the idea of these cameras was that you went out into a war zone you
filmed what you wanted took the reel out and threw the camera away.
So there aren’t
many left.
SPYROS
Right. So these
cameras were disposable they weren’t made for you know and they were forever
jamming cos the mechanism was cheap so what happened
was in the original film, what you got was… the camera would go to flashes of
white and…
Oh I know…
yeah.
SPYROS
And what would
happen is the sprockets would actually be torn out because it jammed. The
sprocket reel was turning around and cutting into the film rather than moving
it along. So when you come to develop it, it runs through a machine. So it goes
through the chemical and it comes out the other end developed. Ok, but when it
goes through and it gets to a point where the sprockets are dead it starts to
spin, wheel spin. And the film in the chemical is overexposed and it’s ruined.
So when you’ve got that problem, these particular rolls, some of them had been
done by hand. So you had to literally put it into a hand developing system
where you reeled it by hand when it stopped turning you start to turn it by
hand. If you go to rank they got a big mechanized thing and you can’t get near
it. It’s all inside the machine. So this is the reason why the original Camera
Man got to keep film back…
Oh I see…
SPYROS
…because they
couldn’t process it the conventional way he had to process it by hand. So he
took it home.
That’s
interesting…
SPYROS
Now a lot of
people didn’t realise that. Cos we asked the question
how was he allowed to take this film?
Yeah course. He
stole it though, because he could.
SPYROS
Yeah. And what
happened was he had nobody to answer to. The army air force became the army and
the air force. And the people he was responsible to had disbanded. So it was a need to know basis if you don’t
mention it I can’t mention it. So he had the stuff he couldn’t mention it to anybody
and nobody asked. So that’s why it was left with him.
Oh that is
interesting.
SPYROS
So knowing
this, I knew the, you know, short comings of these cameras as it happened we
didn’t get any jamming. Maybe the modern film stock is better quality…
Yeah stronger
or something…
SPYROS
Yeah, but
anyway… I shot the promo, took it home, looked at the camera played with it a
little bit. And then I had to buy film that was compatible for it. So the first
thing I did was I took the camera, I went down to
Can you do
that?
SPYROS
I can do that
yeah. But eh…
Wouldn’t an
expert have been able to tell?
SPYROS
Maybe. And I
don’t know how I would know so I thought they wouldn’t know but somebody maybe
could. So I didn’t want to risk it. In
the end I found 30 rolls of film that was dated 1980 and it was no longer
available and it was in perfect condition and I bought the whole lot. We used
up from the 30 reels we used up 15. And luckily I didn’t use the rest because
the first time we filmed it, it didn’t work. So we had to film it again.
You mean it
didn’t work?
SPYROS
We didn’t make
a good film. So the first time we made a film it wasn’t good and Ray says, “You
see I told you.” And I said, “Ray we’re gonna make
another creature. Right we’re gonna leave it…”
Oh I see the
first creature didn’t look good enough. I see
SPYROS
Wasn’t good
enough. Wasn’t good enough. And the thing was…
So what was
wrong with it?
SPYROS
The creature
looked alright, what was wrong with it was that John (the sculpture) was
playing the part of the surgeon.
And he…
He didn’t look
like a surgeon.
SPYROS
He didn’t look
right and Michelle was saying the procedures are wrong. You wouldn’t do that in
an autopsy, look just get the books out, that isn’t what you would do. You’ve
made a mistake here, this will be found out. So we said, Right John take the
book home, keep in touch with Michelle and learn the procedure. We’ve got to do
this right. We’re going to come back with it tomorrow we’re going to clear up
and we’re going to make a new creature and…
You must have
been gutted.
SPYROS
…go through it
all again. So what we did was we left the creature on the autopsy table, there
is blood and guts everywhere, right? Now you forget because you’re making a
film, you forget how gory this looks, you know, and so that night I look round
the corner before I put the light off, I looked at it, and I just remember
thinking my god it looks disgusting, you know. Turned the light off, locked up
and we left.
This is your
house or your…?
SPYROS
No was
Michelle’s house right… she had a house which was being renovated and it was
on… in the middle floor in this house in one of the big rooms. So we made the
set within this room. That night there was a burglary.
No!
SPYROS
Right, no word
of a lie, somebody had broken in they’d gone through the building. Alright? Imagine
this, nothing to see you know. They’ve opened the door and they’ve looked in
there and they must have shit themselves right. They’ve seen, what looks like,
a dead body cut to pieces right? And they’re just gone, right? Now it was never
reported to the police they was no nothing… Somebody somewhere out there is
telling the story right where they’ve gone in and seen this situation and we
were complete… we said, “That’s it games up. Games up now.” If the police are
called in, we’re going to have to say we are making a film they are gonna see the foo…, that’s it,
it’s over, right? Nothing. So we waited. I said, “There’s no point in doing it
now let’s just wait and see what happens.” I said to John, “You carry on making
the next alien. Right?”
So you were
just going to use the same technique as you made on the first one?
SPYROS
Exactly the
same thing.
And how did you
make it?
SPYROS
What happened
was John first of all brought in his son who was I think seven at the time. But
they are they are twins a boy and a girl. They’re just massive. The gene pool
from the mother’s side, everyone is seven foot tall. So these kids at seven or
eight years old were like twelve year olds. Anyway so his son come in, and he’d
just be lying there and John first of all moulded Michael. And then what he did
was he made a cast of Michael’s body. And then he sculpted clay over the top of
it to create the new features and created the alien features…
Brilliant.
…And to say
brilliant the man is the most talented person you’ve ever met in your life. He
is the most underrated…
Oh no…
SPYROS
… Right because
nobody… I don’t think anyone’s really appreciated. I think people appreciated
him because he worked on
Doing what?
SPYROS
Sculpting,
sculpting special effects… Right so he’s worked for the best, major feature
films. People know what he is worth but he’s never got recognition for it. He
did Max Headroom, which was a person in the eighties, and it won a BAFTA and
because people thought it was a computer-generated animation the person that
did the lines behind Max Headroom won the BAFTA. John for a whole decade, for
that whole decade in the eighties got nothing in recognition right. And in the
second decade, nineties, alien autopsy John got no recognition. Two decades,
two images that rocked the world right? And this man’s behind them and that’s
just not fair.
Has he made
money?
SPYROS
John is an
artist I think by default and I think it’s in the union rules you’re not
allowed to make money if you’re an artist. He makes a living, he’s made money
in the past, he’s never made what he’s worth.
He’s made the
alien.
SPYROS
Yeah. I’m
hoping he’ll make some money now. But, as I say, I’ve worked in the film
industry to TV, 25 years I’ve never met anyone with his talent. And as I say a
key part of John, John helped me build the set. I helped him build the alien
between us we created 30 people jobs on our own with Michelle. I mean what a
team and to bring those people together to create this illusion…
And was Ray
involved in this bit of it?
SPYROS
Ray, Ray kept a
keen eye over the whole proceedings he popped in…
He was funding
it I presume?
SPYROS
Sorry?
He was funding
it?
SPYROS
Yeah he
actually got money from somewhere, em and it wasn’t
anywhere near what it would have cost. I mean… we got paid…
OK…