JONATHAN POTTS:
Isn't that ironic—for a Jason movie we get a month of rehearsals! And I mean real rehearsals. We literally played out each scene, and Geoff Garrett, the associate producer, videotaped them on a little camcorder so Jim could look at them afterward, seeing us walking and talking and getting ideas.
PETER MENSAH:
I think those rehearsals were really important. We learned who our characters were. The level of comfort the cast had with each other stemmed directly from having sat through read-throughs and going through certain actions together. And it provided us with a certain level of comfort with Jim Isaac, because right away it was established that this was our guy. He clearly knew what he wanted. So the tendency for the rest of the shoot was, you started the scene and could easily settle into what was required of you, rather than spend 14 hours a day going through it.
And I didn't see any prima donna behavior taking place, right from the start. The Canadian scene, I think people are really grateful and happy to have the opportunity to go to work. There wasn't the "I'm so much better than what I'm doing" as much as there was just a sheer enjoyment of doing what you do. Why would you pick this feature if you thought you were above the material?
Jason X represented a unique challenge for costume designer Maxyne Baker. "The idea was that Earth was no longer inhabitable," says Baker of the film's unique "TerraFormer" suits. "But I didn't want to do the typical spacesuit you normally see in science fiction movies, with a big helmet and air flowing through tubes. So we came up with a design based on leather Flying Duster jackets from World War II. We went with orange because that's the color of survival. And because the sun's brightness had become too much, everyone needed to wear a screen on their faces to protect from the ultraviolet rays."
LEXA DOIG:
That was one of our missions. In most of these films, you know who's gonna die the minute they walk onscreen. Whereas here, because it was an ensemble cast, because each character has an integral part to play in the story, you don't always know. And when they did die, it was actually kind of emotional, like, "Oh, man, that sucks. I really liked her," or "he was totally cool."
LISA RYDER:
It was an excellent group of people and we all did a lot of bonding. We also all lived in downtown Toronto, and this is another cheap thing of Sean's, but none of us got individual transportation to the set. So it was by bus. They'd pick Lexa up first thing in the morning, then my place, then Chuck's place, so by the time we got there, there were 10 people on the bus. And then we'd work all day together, and they'd drop us all back home. It was like "Camp Jason."
NOEL CUNNINGHAM:
We were still making major script changes even while we were casting. There was one character who was supposed to be a love interest for Rowan. He was even going to survive throughout the entire film. But the romance angle just never gelled. We were looking at the script one day and it was like, "Why do we have this character?" And one of the most heartbreaking things I had to do was talk to the actor we already hired and say, "You're a really good guy, it's not about your work, and it's our bad. But you're fired." Telling somebody four days into rehearsal, who was the second lead in the film—he was floored! I felt so bad. But it was a good thing to do conceptually, because we had enough things clogging up the movie already.
JIM ISAAC:
That was typical of the script changes that were happening, even throughout rehearsals. And it was really starting to affect me because it was happening as we were getting so close to shooting. But I think the lowest point was one day when I was rehearsing with the actors, and Sean had brought in Lewis Abernathy to do some uncredited rewrites. Now, Lewis had written for Sean before on DeepStar Six and contributed to the opening of Jason Goes to Hell. And he is a character. We all love Lewis. We were all like a family. So that is why I think I can say what I'm about to say.
Here's Lewis sitting in the corner of this big old room that all the actors are rehearsing in. And Lewis is spreading script pages out all over the floor. He's this big guy acting like, "I'm gonna be the script doctor. I'm gonna fix all the shit that's wrong with you assholes. You don't know what to do." Maybe he was half joking, half not, who knows? But it had been a very long day and I was tired and getting very frustrated—especially because Todd Farmer was already into rehearsing his role as Dallas. This script had been Todd's baby, yet he's trying to help by not getting involved in this situation with all these script changes. He's not coming up and saying, "Fuck it, I'll walk."
So I'm in my office at the end of the day and I'm pretty pissed. I've been rehearsing actors all day and I'm not sure if the pages we are doing are even going to be in the movie I'm supposed to start shooting next week. And here comes Lewis. I'm totally dead tired, I haven't slept in days, and here's this big guy just looking down at me. And he says, "Okay, Jim. Here's what I want you to think about: space pirates! Just think about that. All these kids are on this ship out to rob and plunder, and then Jason comes on board and wreaks havoc." I just sit there. Then I go, "Lewis, I shoot on Monday. This is literally the week before principal photography. You see those kids over there, the ones that I've been rehearsing with? They're not fucking space pirates!"
That was it. That was the moment when I really felt like I was fucked. I'm supposed to shoot a movie the next week, and I don't even know what script to pick up.
Unfortunately, the situation on the set of Jason X would only grow more contentious during principal photography. Moviemaking is often about making spur of the moment decisions as much as it is the result of careful planning and coordination. But both cast and crew acknowledge that much of the energy and rawness of the original script continued to be diluted—if not completely eviscerated—as production went on. A source of even more consternation and concern was the film's limited budget—ample by Friday the 13th standards, but ridiculously low in comparison to the big-budget action extravaganzas with which the film needed to compete. Nevertheless, for the creative crew it was an often rewarding experience that afforded them the freedom to experiment with the then-cutting edge digital tools that were rapidly becoming available to independent filmmakers. Stuck somewhere in the middle of the age-old battle between art and commerce, however, was the cast. Largely unaware of the escalating conflicts between the film's core creative personnel, the actors naturally sided with their director. Few enjoyed the experience. Most simply endured it.
TODD FARMER:
Pre-production was one thing. But production, that was madness. Making the film was a nightmare.
NOEL CUNNINGHAM:
It was a circus. Tons of people, tons of effects shots. Pyrotechnics. Stunts. Lots of action. Big, huge sets. We only had one exterior shot in the whole movie—Jason X was shot entirely on a set. We had a $22 million film that we were trying to do for $13 million.
JIM ISAAC:
I felt that eventually the Friday franchise would die out and end up going straight to video. So much time and money have been spent on movies that turned out to be bad. So with Jason X, I said, "Let's put every dime on the screen. Let's not do a Jason movie for $3 or $4 million. Let's raise the stakes. Let's prove we can do a movie for under $20 million that still looks A-list." Because if we approached this movie like just another low-budget slasher, then that's what we would end up with.
I'd been in the business for a long time and have developed relationships with some very talented people. For instance, Stephan Dupuis is an Oscar-winning makeup effects artist, and a lot of our team had crewed on many of David Cronenberg's films. People who wouldn't normally work on a "Jason Part 10." So when I called and said, "I've got this project and I want to direct it" they initially got excited. Then after they'd ask what it was and I'd say, "It's 'Friday the 13th Part 10,'" the enthusiasm disintegrated. But my approach to them was that if they jumped on board with me then we'd all get to do something different and exciting.
"Kane Hodder used to really crack me up," says director Jim Isaac of his Jason Voo
rhees. "I did, sometimes, want Jason to do things that weren't completely consistent with his character. Kane would just look down at me and say, in that very deep voice, 'Jason doesn't do that.' And I'd be like, 'Oh, OK!' There was always this feeling that, at any point, he might reach down and grab the top of my head and squeeze if he didn't like the direction I was giving him."
JOHN DONDERTMAN, Production Designer:
I don't believe I've ever seen a Friday the 13th movie, except for maybe the first one. So it was different for me to work on this type of picture. Jim Isaac called me and said, "We want to make a film unlike any other Jason movie. We want it to look better than any Jason movie that's ever been made and we want it to look better than any science fiction movie that's ever been made." So it seemed like I couldn't lose.
The big draw was that we could create this whole space station down to the last doorknob—all the monitors, consoles, the typography, everything. I worked with a graphic artist and we even designed a whole alphabet, a whole graphical language, that we used. And all of the drafting was to be done on computer, which then wasn't as commonplace as it is now. It makes the whole process better and faster, and I could use my digital camera to photograph the models we built. The results were fantastic. The sheer amount of detail was a quantum leap from my past experiences. Normally, you don't get to do that.
JAMES OSWALD, Art Director:
On Jason X, every single day, there was something new happening. That was very satisfying. It was almost like being in an old Hollywood studio, where you had craftsmen of different disciplines all working under one roof. I'd never had an opportunity to work on a show where I could walk down the stairs into this workshop where these guys are sculpting this crazy stuff. And I never worked on a show that was so effects-intensive. Designing a set around certain effects is a discipline, it gets you thinking, and makes you really appreciate there's a lot more to it than just drawing up the set and getting it built and making sure it looks good for the actors.
CHUCK CAMPBELL:
I thought the whole futuristic aspect of the movie was a blast. It felt massive, like shooting in a huge air base. You could take a baseball and throw it from one end towards the other, and it'd never hit the back wall.
DERICK UNDERSCHULTZ, Director of Photography:
I realized that it wasn't just another slasher film when I first read the script. Jim made it clear right from the beginning, too, that in a lot of ways we were not taking this film seriously. It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. That was appealing, and that it took place in the future. For a Friday the 13th, it allowed us much more room to play around. I could be more theatrical in my style in a way that wouldn't necessarily work as if you were in the year 2000 and on, say, a boat or something. I was able to use a lot of very hard lights with a lot of theatrical patterns, and a lot of color. I could have a lot of fun with it, too, like if Jason walks through a particular area we could make it a lot more moody, a lot more black but with bits of light here and there to make it spooky. But then if we have a woman walk through the same set set, especially if they stop for a close-up, they can conveniently have walked into a nice, soft, flattering light source.
What was both limiting and liberating in a way was that though Jason X takes place in space, the story really all takes place mostly on a spaceship so we were not working in great, huge vistas or across open spaces. Part of the reason being, of course, is that when you have somebody stalking you and hunting you down as Jason does, you want it to be claustrophobic. You always want him to seem to be lurking just around the next corner. It was the goal to keep the visuals more enclosed. John Dondertman did a great job, too, in designing the sets to be quite different from one another. We didn't have to worry necessarily about keeping just a commonality or a theme in terms of lighting all the way through the whole entire spaceship. It gave us a lot of opportunities to play around with a lot of different styles lighting-wise, from one set to the next.
MAXYNE BAKER, Costume Designer:
I was hired on Jason X just prior to Christmas and I started work right at the beginning of January, which only gave me about six weeks of prep. Technically, it was a real challenge. We started with a script that's not necessarily what we filmed, so we did all the meetings that didn't necessarily apply once you got to the set on any given day. I was constantly having to touch base with all the departments involved to make sure that we are doing is what we originally talked about, or if it's changed. We had a lot of lunch hour meetings and constant regroupings just to make sure we were still all on the same page.
Jim Isaac, however, because of his background in visual effects was a dream in articulating to me what he wanted. Then I could come back to him with tears and sketches. He wanted as much depth and texture to the costumes as possible because it just films better and doesn't look flat. We also used a lot of complimentary color schemes to jar people's nervous systems—if you use opposing colors like red and green, or orange and blue, it's unsettling. We always wanted the audience to be on edge. Jim also wanted characters that the kids in the audience could relate to, so the idea was to take a little bit of the way that clothes were worn then, what was hip at the time, and then move it a step further. We didn't want it to be something that children or teens could not relate to whatsoever, and that our characters looked a little bit like action figures
We ultimately went more for the sci-fi genre than the horror film genre. I looked to a lot of different comic strips, I researched historical space suits from NASA, and other different films. The art direction in Dune, particularly the suits that they wore on the surface of the Earth with all the "tubage," were really inspiring. They were more like a wet suit as opposed to this big bundled up thing. And of course the classics like Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Films that are futuristic tend to be post-apocalyptic, so they have an incredible amount of breakdown on the costumes, but we didn't really have much of a need for that on Jason X because these were supposed to be kids on a school trip. The idea was also that Earth is no longer inhabitable. You could still breathe the oxygen, though, so for the spacesuit designs I was looking for something that didn't have to be an environmental suit. We went with the orange for the jackets because orange is a color for survival, and would be the most visible from the sky. The design itself for the suits was a continuation of a second World War Flying Duster that would be made out of leather. We just made the collar bigger and changed the front and the pocket and the shape. And we had no helmets—we wanted to try a different beat, so we had masks which have really deep lenses, the idea there was probably ultraviolet rays and the sun's brightness was now too much for human eyes.
JOHN DONDERTMAN:
I got along very well with Jim, and he's a real easy going guy. For Jason X, we initially agreed to go with a Jules Verne, Trip to the Moon kinda look. So we looked at old movies and new movies, comics, NASA images, even science fiction-style architecture. I also explored the visuals of movies like Metropolis. But the more we got into it the more we thought, especially Jim and I, that maybe it wasn't the exact right approach, though I still pulled some elements from those pictures.
One of the things we wanted to stay away from with Jason X was the type of science fiction movie where it's very dark and menacing. We wanted to do the opposite, so that the world of Jason X was actually a place where you would believe people live—a place you could spend years in. And when Jason arrives, there's a contrast. That's also why we used a lot of reds and greens to bring in a sort of military element in certain areas, but the living areas are all softer colors and more natural tones. Jason X also had to be designed for a certain age group. So I designed the look of the film to appeal to them. Ultimately, I wanted the audience to be inspired by the visuals.
We had, at our busiest time, about eight people in the art department, about 80 carpenters and painters, plus the props team and the set dressing team of up to a dozen people. We were working two shifts a day to get everything complete. But everyone has their
own little universe, and what could happen was that everyone's universe seemed to be the most important. So there was this constant kind of jockeying for position, but at the same time we still really had to work with each other. It was an interesting dynamic. But I loved standing in the middle of the set and seeing it finished. Anyone that designs anything, whether it's clothes or cars or watches, will tell you that's the ideal moment, to see it all come together.
Original concept art.
STEPHAN DUPUIS, Makeup Effects Supervisor:
Film is such a strange medium. It's like having a whole bunch of strangers suddenly thrown together who have to collaborate. It depends on the director and it depends on a lot of things. You get so many elements. So many things can go wrong and so many things can go right. Jason X was like a family affair. Much of the crew had known each other for so long, and Jim had always wanted to direct. So it was fun to see him finally get to do it. Plus, he was very easy to communicate with. Sure, we could all argue about something, but if you don't agree with somebody, well, you just make it look like an accident.
JIM ISAAC:
I really couldn't deal with the script issues going on, because I had all these people asking me what color I wanted this or that and all these other details. It was really difficult on the crew. I mean, I begged and begged and begged to have a locked script—like two months before we shot at least—because it was a very technical movie. And the last thing as a director that you want to do is give your crew new pages every day. They're working their asses off trying to get something done that they've been working on for days, and now they have a whole new friggin' script and they have to break the whole thing down again. Or they finish something and all of a sudden it isn't even in the script anymore.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 76
