Village Raw - ISSUE 4

VILLAGE RAW
ART & CULTURE
in shooting the film to do anything. This was April and the film
continued to be made right through the summer into the autumn.
Come November, nobody had seen the Jabberwocky. In
desperation the producer, John Goldstone, and Terry went to
the supervisor’s house, where they found the creature in his
garage in a very sorry state. The person who had made it hadn’t
even understood that the performer should be standing back to
front. John rang me and asked if I could put it right. I was given
a week – I could have had eight months. I don’t know what I was
thinking, but the first thing I did was to take a blowtorch to all
its ghastly hair. Of course I set the whole thing alight – fortunately,
we managed to douse the fire. I was leading a team of
four and we finished the creature in 10 days by working day and
night. We made as many changes as we could, and by the skin
of its teeth and some very clever shooting and editing by Terry
it worked. But I still wonder what it might have been… My next
film for Terry was Time Bandits, but now I was vindicated – I was
models supervisor.
A move into education
In early 1990 I was offered a senior lectureship at Wimbledon College
of Art on a newly validated degree course which hadn’t yet fully
defined itself. I saw an opportunity on two levels. The new course
had evolved from a prop-making course for theatre design, but I
realised that it could satisfy a real need for skills training in film-related
special effects. On an educational level I was very committed
to a student-centred approach, rather than a subject-centred approach.
We encouraged students to determine their own pathway
– to decide for themselves what and how they wanted to learn.
We even asked them to mark their own perceived achievements
and they always under-marked themselves. The success of that
course, where frequently 40% of the students were dyslexic, forever
convinced me that when anyone is fully supported and allowed
to discover where their passions lie they are unstoppable in their
learning and in their creativity. More dyslexic students were awarded
first class honours degrees than those that weren’t dyslexic.
Forest of hands, landscape of eyes
The hand forest made for Time Bandits was just one of Terry’s extraordinary
images. He wanted these absolutely colossal hands
as trees which were alive and human-looking. I made heaps of
them – they looked terrific and would have worked, but I think
the scene got cut because it didn’t fit into the plot very well. The
landscape of eyes were made for Brazil – they were part of the
dream sequence where the flying man flies over this landscape
of eyes, which were supposed to follow him. That was shot but
they couldn’t get it to work properly as the eyes kept flicking in
the wrong direction. Terry once said he has these images that
sort of splurge out of him often without being processed – he
produces a heap more stuff than he ever uses.
The pleasure of learning
Desmond Morris was a naturalist who worked a lot with chimpanzees.
He gave them painting equipment and found they
loved putting colour on paper and painted with interest. Then
he started rewarding them and their motivation changed – they
painted to get the reward. They lost the curiosity in painting for
its own sake. I think this reflects a problem in schooling where
everything is geared towards the rewards or punishments related
to students’ achievements. We ‘mark’ students, sometimes
for life; we scrutinise everything they do and applaud them, instead
of supporting them in the joy of learning and exploring –
the pleasure of learning for its own sake.
An imbalance in society
Studio 8
After Time Bandits I was asked to make the landstrider creatures
for Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal. Jim, always an innovator, took
over Studio 8 at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood and turned it
into a joint workshop and rehearsal room so that makers could
work closely with the performers – it was a great working environment.
The four main landstrider performers trained for eight
months to walk on all fours on stilts. The landstriders were big
creatures – nine feet to the top of the back, supported by one
thin wire from a giant crane above. The costume, and especially
the legs, had to be very light but strong. I rejected so many
casts of the legs because they were too heavy and the plasterers
threatened to make a museum of them all. I wanted to put
a tiny pogo stick with a pivot in each hoof but the guys I was
working with couldn’t make it, so I rang my dad, who was very
inventive. He and his engineer friend produced some amazing
little sprung hooves which pivoted and provided the lift-off that
the performers needed while they ran and galloped across the
landscape set. It was incredible – no computer-generated imagery;
it was all done for real.
I came from a skilled working-class background, so I’ve got huge
respect for the skills that people have developed in all kinds of
technologies. I’ve never believed that an academic education
automatically denotes intelligence, though it might. But I know
that there is great intelligence in manipulating all kinds of materials
– steel, wood, fabric, clay, plaster – not to mention in cooking
food, growing plants, and living in a rainforest. The kind of intelligence
in people who can solve problems materially tends to
be undervalued and underpins a massive imbalance in society.
On failure
I don’t think I’ve ever made anything correctly the first time – I
fail, I fail, I fail, and then eventually I might get it right at the
end. Failure is just a step along the way. If you are frightened of
failing you can’t learn. How can you possibly get it right the first
time if it’s something you’ve never done before? You’ve got to
get it wrong to get it right. •
An exhibition of Val’s photos is currently showing at Muswell HillBilly Brewers Tap
Room: www.muswellhillbillybrewers.co.uk
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VALERIE CHARLTON. PORTRAIT OF VAL WITH HER MONTY PYTHON BUSTS BY KATE KUZMINOVA
Previous page: Val Charlton with landstrider head at Elstree Studios (The Dark Crystal, 1982); The
Landstriders on set at Elstree Studios (The Dark Crystal, 1982). This Page Clockwise: Val in her studio,
with her Monty Python busts; Jabberwocky creature worn by Peter Salmon on location in Wales (Jabberwocky,
1975); model of the hand forest (Time Bandits, 1981); working on King Arthur’s boat on location in
Scotland (Monty Python And The Holy Grail, 1974).
08
09