An Interview with Toby Sells 

(Interviewed by Dave R. Watkins)
(Video Crew: Dave R. Watkins, Dan Slemons)

Originally from Kingsport, Tennessee, Toby Sells is a special makeup effects artist currently working out of Lawrenceville, Ga.

He has credits on several high budget horror films including; Phantasm II (1988), Deep Star Six (1989) and recently One Missed Call, set for release in 2008. He has also worked on various successful local productions including; The Signal (2007), Dark Remains (2005), and Ghost of the Needle (2003). He is currently working on Greg Bishop's Dance of the Dead.

To learn more about what Toby and other special makeup effects artists do, watch the video below, or read the truncated interview...

CinemATL: Tell me about what you do.

TS:  I'm a special effects artist.  There's a difference between special effects and special effects makeup.  Special effects is usually your practical effects including explosions, fire, rain and bullet hits. The things that Bob Shelly does here in town and does them well.

The things I do involve more of the actor himself. If there is a facial deformation or any type of special makeup besides blush and rouge, that's where we come in. Like if you need a nose or an ear, or need to make the actor look like an old person. Some of the more exciting things we do are duplicating the actors, making dummies, replicas, and animatronics heads.

CinemATL: How did you get into Special Makeup effects?

TS: I was one of those little tiny kids that loved monster movies and my hobby was, every time my mom went to the grocery store I had to have a new kit of Play-doh.  Which was like four or five different colors.  After about a year or so I had about 30 pounds of play dough in bag and that were kinda a rainbow gray color.  I started making life-sized heads and stuff.

Then eventually when I was ten, I saw Planet of the Apes on the CBS Friday Night Late Movie and they had a segment at the end on how they did the makeup effects.  They showed just enough to give me a little mileage, the next day my Dad took me to the hobby shop and bought me all the right material.  A week later I had this really crappy gorilla mask. I continued doing it from at age of ten on up.  It was a hobby, but it was a passion.

CinemATL:  How did you get your foot in the door to the industry?

TS: As far as getting my foot in the door, in 1982,  I went the Fango weekends of horror put on by Fangoria Magizine, Tom Savini was the special guest there.  He was a big icon back then, now he's more of an actor, but then he was responsible for Friday the 13th, Creepshow, you know all these different make up effects movies, he was kinda like the father of gore.

Getting to meet him to me was a big deal, I was a fan boy so I kinda geeked out.  But I brought my book with pictures of my work and showed it to him.  He was impressed, so he gave me probably the most important phone number I ever got in my life. That was Dick Smith, who's pretty much the godfather of the industry.

I got in contact with Dick and started corresponding and sending pictures of my work.  He would basically grade them and send the photographs back with red pen marks on it. Work on this, this wrinkle looks fake, and so on.  Eventually I got to up there and met him and trained under him. He's got a course now.  He's such a great guy and will tell you every little secret there is.

I finished up my degree in college in 1986, it was a dental degree and six months later I was in Los Angeles.  Dick actually referred me for my first job.

CinemATL:  What do you think about the filmmaking industry here in Atlanta?

TS: There's a filmmaking industry here?  Naw, I'm just kidding.  Actually I'll give it thumbs up because the lights are on.  That's all I can say is my lights are on.  But, the Hummer and the Ferrari are not in the driveway yet.

Actually, there is an industry and that is one of the reasons I moved here.  I was involved with Brian and Lawrence Avent-Bradley one of their first films Freez'er and later Ghost of the Needle.  I moved down here really to see what was going on with them.  They're up and coming, now you see they are in Pasadena, California and here I am.  But it worked out really good, the last three years I've stayed very busy.

CinemATL: What is some advice you would give someone who wants to get into special effects?

TS: Become a doctor, it's a very heartbreaking industry.  No, I would never tell anybody not to because people tried to tell me, I was actually just a few classes away from becoming a dentist and that was because that was what my family expected of me.  And that's fine, it's a noble profession, but it's not what I want to do.  Making monsters is what I wanted to do.  So I heard that all the time, become a doctor, grow up, forget those crazy dreams, especially growing up in a small town in Tennessee, it's just unheard of. 

But the advice I'd give anybody is; first of all, if you're going to be a make up effects artist, practice, practice, practice.  Just grab a hunk of clay and sculpt all the time.  The second thing, be willing to work for free, don't think that you're going to make a lot of money, don't be in it for the money.  And really I think the most important thing is a true passion for it, everything else will come if you've got the passion.