Behind the Scenes of Heartbeeps (1981)
Heartbeeps is a 1981 romantic science-fiction comedy starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as Val and Aqua, two domestic robots who fall in love and run away to make a life together.
Although critically panned, Heartbeeps was one of the first films in history to be nominated for the newly established Academy Award category for the Best Makeup.
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- Using Gelatin for Prosthetic Makeups
- Challenges With Using Gelatin on Heartbeeps
- Bernadette Peters’ Advice to Stan Winston
- Establishing an Annual Makeup Category With Heartbeeps
(Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as domestic robots Val and Aqua, in Heartbeeps. The faces of their characters were stylized caricatures of the actors, achieved entirely through prosthetic appliances.)
After his metallic makeup for the character of the Tin Man in The Wiz (1978), Stan Winston developed a reputation as the go-to guy for robot effects — a perception that would ultimately lead to one of the most pivotal projects of his career. According to Winston, “When they needed robots for Heartbeeps, it was natural to ask, ‘Who did the Tin Man in The Wiz?’ And that’s how I got it."
(L to R. Nipsey Russell as the Tin Man, Ted Ross as the Lion, and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow in The Wiz. Makeups designed by Stan Winston.)
"But, the truth is," Stan admitted, "I hadn’t been all that happy with the final results of the Tin Man makeup, which was made up of foam rubber appliances, painted to look like metal. I wanted to see if I could come up with something better for Heartbeeps, appliances that would have an intrinsic metallic quality, rather than one that was just painted on."
(Left to Right: James Kagel, Stan Winston, Karen Winston and Michael McCracken at work on the Val, Aqua and Catskil Heartbeeps character sculptures at Stan Winston Studio.)
Using Gelatin for Prosthetic Makeups
To achieve the desired artificiality and to produce a new look for the makeup, Winston's innovation was to use gelatin instead of painting on foam. “There was a translucency to gelatin appliances that was very nice, and it would also give me the smooth finish I was looking for," said Winston. "So I decided to take a chance and use gelatin to create these full-face, multi-layered prosthetic makeups for the robot characters, mixing metallic colors right into the gelatin itself. This had never been done before.”
(Bernadette Peters’ Aqua robot makeup, blocked in with clay over her face cast.)
(Stan Winston resculpts and details Bernadette Peters’ face cast to open the eyes and enliven the ‘death mask’ look that resulted from the lifecasting process.)
(Variations of Michael McCracken's sculpture for Andy Kaufman as 'Val' at Stan Winston Studio. Images courtesy of the Michael McCracken.)
(Michael McCracken cleans up the final makeup sculpture for ‘Val’ – Andy Kaufman’s character – to ready it for molding.)
(Background maid and butler robot characters sculpted by Stan Winston, James Kagel, and Michael McCracken for Heartbeeps.)
The final appliances, which included foreheads, chins, cheeks, necks, noses, and ears, had just the translucent, metallic look Winston had sought; but the fragility of the gelatin resulted in their requiring constant maintenance on the set, nearly driving him to a nervous breakdown.
Challenges With Using Gelatin on Heartbeeps
“By using gelatin," Winston recalled, "I had created the look I wanted, and I had done something that no one had ever seen before. The downside was that, on a daily basis, I didn’t know whether or not we were going to get through the shoot! These were very difficult makeups to maintain, very labor-intensive."
(Val had twelve separate prosthetic facial appliances, and Aqua had six. The pieces were applied with matte adhesive, but the inherent instability of gelatin meant that the prosthetics required constant attention.)
(Pearlescent metallic colors were used for the faces: gold for Aqua and bronze for Val, with silver highlights. The exposed skin areas were made up to match without any need for adding extrinsic color or foundation on the pre-tinted appliance.)
"Every day at lunch we had to replace the lip appliances, for example, because they were starting to melt on us. Vince Prentice and Zoltan Elek, the makeup artists who actually applied the prosthetics, constantly had to stay on top of the problems with the gelatin. I was a wreck through the entire show.”
(Andy Kaufman in full makeup and wardrobe as 'Val' on the set of Heartbeeps. Image courtesy of Michael McCracken.)
(A continuity photo of Bernadette Peters, Catskil, and Andy Kaufman from the set of Heartbeeps. Image courtesy of Michael McCracken.)
Bernadette Peters’ Advice to Stan Winston
It was while nervously attending to Bernadette Peters’ makeup application one morning that Winston received a piece of advice he would take with him into every subsequent job. “I was in a stressed-out state,” he recalled, “which was fairly typical of me at that time, and Bernadette Peters said to me, ‘Relax, Stan. It’s just a movie.’ Here she was, going through this grueling process of having these prosthetics applied to her, and she had to calm me down. It should have been just the opposite. To this day, I thank Bernadette Peters for putting my attitude in perspective. In this work, there are always going to be very real responsibilities and pressures — but it’s just a movie, and there’s nothing to be gained by being a walking stress factory. Ever since that time, I’ve tried to bring positive energy and lightheartedness to the set.”
Establishing an Annual Makeup Category With Heartbeeps
The risk and stress involved in building large-scale appliances out of gelatin paid off when Heartbeeps was nominated for an Academy Award in 1982, the first year makeup was recognized as an official Oscar category. The honor was particularly meaningful to Winston, who had been a key spokesperson, mover, and shaker in the campaign to establish an annual makeup category. Up to this time, only two ‘special’ Oscars had been awarded to makeup artists in the Academy’s history, one to Bill Tuttle for 7 Faces of Dr. Lao in 1965, and one to John Chambers for Planet of the Apes in 1969. “I started wondering, ‘Why isn’t there an annual Oscar for makeup?’” Winston said. “There was an Emmy. Why no Oscar? So I went on this crusade to get the Academy to recognize makeup as an Oscar-worthy category. I went on news shows to talk about it and bring it to the public’s attention. There were columns about it in the newspaper, where I was quoted. I just thought it was a disservice to makeup artists not to have an Oscar category.”
(Stan Winston Studio artist James Kagel works on the sculpt for the wisecracking Catskil character, voiced by comedian Jack Carter.)
(Catskil in a still from the film.)
Stan Winston’s rival nominee that first year was none other than Rick Baker, who had created spectacular articulated makeup effects for An American Werewolf in London (1981). “Rick and I were competing that first year,” Winston observed, “and we have been ever since.” Baker won that initial round, taking home the gold statuette for 'American Werewolf'.
(Stan Winston between the busts of Val and Aqua.)
“After Heartbeeps," said Winston, "I became very interested in how I could push the envelope to do things people hadn’t seen before. I was really exploring what I could do beyond makeups. And then I saw this ‘making of’ documentary on The Dark Crystal, which started me thinking about using puppet technology to do articulated characters we couldn’t do with makeups on people. I got really excited about the idea of creating characters as puppets, using the techniques that Jim Henson had pioneered. I studied how he designed heads and hands for his characters, how he built the various puppeteering rigs, and then I stole from him shamelessly!”
- Blog assembled by Balázs Földesi with selections from The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio by Jody Duncan
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