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Production Notes from the DVD of Wishmaster 2 - Evil Never Dies
About The Production
Artisan was pleased to welcome leading man Andrew Divoff back to the Wishmaster sequel. "In addition to Andrew, who is the perfect Demarest, we were excited about including some recognizable faces like Bokeem Woodbine and 'Tiny' Lister in this film," said an Artisan executive. With a strong cast, including Paul Johansson and Holly Fields, director Jack Sholder began the 21-day shoot in Los Angeles.
The majority of the action was shot inside the old May Co. building in downtown L.A. The abandoned department store provided the architectural detail and spacing that production designer Alfred Sole needed to build his varied sets, which were all constructed from the ground up.
Something About Those Eyes
Besides the sets, Alfred Sole also performed a full overhaul on the costume for the lethal Djinn character. "I though the first incarnation of the Djinn was a tad cumbersome for the second script. We scaled it down so that it didn't feel so massive, giving it a more human feel," explained Sole. "We gave the Djinn more muscle tone and created a more sinister look by making it more personal."
Andrew Divoff agreed: "The suit really evolved into a more organic costume, which I loved. It definitely helped me find Demarest within myself." "He's a lot sexier now, that's for sure," offered Sole with a smile. "Standing in the mirror, I looked like a wrestler on both acid and steroids or a bodybuilder from hell," Divoff said with a laugh.
Anthony Ferrante, special effects make-up supervisor, worked closely with Sole to rework the Djinn's face. "We concentrated on making the face more expressive than it had been previously. Everything from the forehead to the cheekbones to the pupils of the eyes," Ferrante said.
The eyes proved to be so crucial that production was nearly shut down when Divoff's contact lenses became infected from extended use. "On the second to last day of shooting, Andrew's colored contact lenses just went haywire," recalled an Artisan executive. "If his eye didn't heal quickly, we were facing the prospect of an suspending the shoot. Lucky for us, and for him, Andy's eye bounced back in record time."
Actress Holly Fields, who played Morgana, remembered Divoff being selfless and gracious throughout the ordeal. "While he was gone, I had to do the final scene while speaking to an X marked on a pole with a woman reading Andy's lines. He felt so bad about it. He actually called me from the hospital to apologize. He's a real pro," maintained Fields.
Divoff playfully described the experience: "I prefer to see it an occupational hazard of satanic entities. If you are playing an otherworldly character and wearing 5 hours worth of costume and make-up, you've got to figure that something like this will happen."
Ahura-Mazda
According to a Persian legend explained in the film, the Djinn defeated soldiers and destroyed the court of Persia. As the creature prepared to conquer the Earth, a royal alchemist imprisoned the Djinn in a fire-red opal. The god Ahura-Mazda was enlisted to guard the gem and keep the Djinn trapped in a statue between worlds.
Alfred Sole designed the sinister sculpture, which hides the deadly Djinn, by researching ancient art and studying the statue in the original Wishmaster film. "I tried to take a different approach to the Ahura-Mazda without changing a lot. It is just slightly modified," said Sole.
David Waine and his effects team contributed to the overall look of the deadly deity by outlining the gem itself. "The stone is central to the story and had to be durable but very looming and mysterious-looking." Waine used everyday LED, or electronic lights, to give the sinister stone its eerie glow. "We used a super bright red light shell, cranked up the electricity and it looked perfect."
Devilish Delights
Throughout the filming of Wishmaster 2 - Evil Never dies, Divoff would make an unusual request of the production assistants in an effort to deepen his natural baritone. "Jelly beans," confessed Divoff. "It's the whey in them that helps me get that unearthly raspy voice. It sounds silly, but it's a by-product of milk and it coats your throat and kind of sticks there."
Ferrante recalled: "The special effects and make-up team and I would laugh and kid him about it. It was very surreal to have Andy in the costume, contacts and full make-up chomping away on candy. It was a running gag -- the devil likes Jelly Bellies!"
Killing Machines
In the casino scene when the biblical plagues are manifesting themselves, there was a crowded combination of teams on the set working to capture the moments of terror. Stunt coordinator Kurt Bryant remembered: "There were so many people doing so many different things. There were about 150 extras and 30 stunt people in a small area with lights, special effects and casino machines everywhere. With cameras and crew on top of that, it was wild."
Bryant continued: "We wanted to create a state of pandemonium but the most important issue was safety so there was a lot of checking and double-checking. The stunt team checked with special effects, who checked with production design who checked with camera and on and on until the shoot was safe and sound and ready to roll."
Special effects coordinator David Waine agreed: "We took a lot of wide shots and made sure to tell the extras not to elaborate in any way, shape or form. 'Just move back and forth,' we said. 'It'll look like things are crashing into each other on camera. Trust us.' "
Safety instruction for the cast, crew, and extras was imperative during this particular scene as the props proved to be just as dangerous as they were described in the script. "That machine that spat the deck of cards out was a doozie and could really cut you if the card hit you," said Bryant. "It was surprising how sharp a flying playing card could be when hurtling through the air so quickly," agreed Waine.
Waine and his team spent a week building from scratch the casino machine that projected playing cards. "The vision was to create one of those Vegas contraptions that flips out cards, but have it just go berserk," said Waine. "We built four versions before we got it right. The final machine, which was used in the film, could shoot out 400 cards in 60 seconds, which would fly about 16 feet through the air. We called it the card-spitter."
Waine and his crew also built a customized roulette wheel with thin, sharp metal spikes that morphs into a killing machine during the pivotal casino scene. "As we were working with the wheel and extras, we realized that the spikes were going to be dangerous if not very carefully managed because the director wanted it to roll quickly through the crowd," explained Waine.
"We then built foam rubber spikes, rolled it around like a big Frisbee and let it hack into things with no problem." A mechanical rig was mounted to the front of the dolly attached to the giant roulette wheel to capture the deadly game machine action.
Ferrante's team also used an untraditionally rigged camera for the same scene. "To create the effect of a killer card in the foreground of the frame that is spinning and flying through the card, we rigged a camera to an oversized playing card," explained Ferrante. "In that shot, it just looks like a regular size dealer card was hurtling through the air hitting people in the face. That was my favorite gag. It was a $5 effect that looks really cool and we did it in about an hour."
Doomsday In Vegas
The crew supervisors agreed that the apocalyptic casino scene was the most challenging scene of Wishmaster 2 - Evil Never Dies. The climax of the film took a week to complete. Sole enhanced his production design and added a rich texture to the scene by graphically broad-stroking the set before the camera rolled. To create the glamorous look of Las Vegas on the film's modest budget, Sole did everything from calling in favors to searching though his own garage.
He borrowed 25 Titan motorcycles from an old friend. The handmade, customized roadsters, which were worth approximately $60,000 to $100,000 each, were placed on stands throughout the mock casino showroom to capture the often gaudy, circuslike feel of Las Vegas casinos.
Sole planned to mimic the elaborate blinking Vegas lighting with Christmas lights hidden behind panels to diffuse the glare and hide the trick. However, purchasing Christmas lights in April proved to be a major problem. "There was a moment of panic when we had called every holiday light manufacturer on the West Coast and came up with nothing . We were even searching our own garages for lights," recalled Sole.
The out-of-season lighting catastrophe was solved by a small company in the Midwest which shipped the lights just days before the camera was to roll. "It could have been a nightmare, but the lights came and we were ready to set the stage for Doomsday as planned."
Taken from Wishmaster 2 DVD Version, copyright Artisan Entertainment.
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