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Behind the Mask with Gene from DecayNYFX

Here is a recent interview with Jason mask creator and FX specialist Gene from DecayNYFX. Credit Johnny Bisco for the interview.

Johnny Bisco: How long have you been painting Jason masks?

Gene: Legitimately, about 10 years now, but I've had the bug for a long time & started converting the cheap glow in the dark masks 20 years ago, when I was about 10 or 11.

I always thought I was a strange child, but then I started going to conventions & the internet came along & I realized most other hardcore fans, FX guys, mask makers, etc. all pretty much have the same childhood stories as I do and now I can say I was a pretty normal kid, just one that had a fascination with the darker things in life.

It definitely helped my self esteem.JB: how did you get started doing them and when was the first time you "nailed it"?

G: I think I was probably in 5th or 6th grade when I did my first one.

It was, needless to say, dime-store converon job, and it was for Halloween, right after I saw The New Blood.

All I really did was use a set of my dad's wire cutters & chopped out a chunk for the propeller damage, the ax crack, and I threw some fake blood on it.

I think my parents still have a picture of me wearing it.

I should get them to scan it & email it over, heheh.... In all seriousness, I can tell you that that's where the seed was planted.

I got real serious about and sculpted my own in 1998.

I made an alginate mold and tried casting it in fiberglass.

Now, fiberglass ren & alginate don't get along.

The moisture prevented the ren from fully curing for a couple days, and in the time, the alginate warped, so it was a mess.

Then I tried it again, but used Bondo instead.

It worked.

The construction of the mask wasn't all that great, but at least the pull looked nice.

I sold a few of those, and then through a fortunate series of events, I got a JGTH mask from Greg Nicotero.

At the time, I used to talk with Jason Zyla of NFX Studios & Justin Mabry a lot.

I told them what I scored, and the two of them, I swear, they were my Yoda & Obi Wan.

They taught me everything, told me what to buy, what to use, how to use it, and if it weren't for those guys, things would've turned out a lot different, so if you two are reading this, mad love, mad respect, and thank you!

As for nailing it, I don't think I have yet.

I'm still constantly experimenting, trying new things, trying to learn new things, and always aiming to top the last piece.

And I have, I'm doing better now than I was two months ago.

I've sold masks to Todd Farmer, Mark Swift, and Dan Farrands to name a few.

These guys could've bought a mask from any of the other dozen hock makers out there, but they chose me, so I figure I've got to be doing something right, and I think that there are people out there that might find contention with that, like, "Hey, I sold masks to the guys that wrote Jason X, Freddy vs Jason, and Halloween 6, so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing in that case".

But I've never been the type to allow myself to be content.

If I do, I won't work harder, and art is an evolutionary process, you've just got to keep pushing yourself.

When I started doing this, the only places you could get a great hockey mask from were Nightowl, Gates of Hell, NFX, HMA's New Yorker, and me.

Now you've got a dozen choices.

There are some amazing talents out there right now and the only way to stay competitive is to evolve in terms of style & ability. JB: do you ever do any of the finishing work like punching the holes or the axe and motor boat marks?

G: I still do a lot of that.

That's the "work" part of the process, trimming the pulls down & drilling the holes.

Cutting out the damage is always fun though :) JB: What are the best straps to use and do you apply those as well?

G: The first three (Parts 3, 4, and 5) get black elastic.

I usually buy it off a spool in Michael's, or if I'm in a rush, I'll get the packaged kind from Wal Mart.

For 6 and beyond, it's leather all the way.

What I've always liked to do for those is scour thrift shops for old belts.

It's beaten, weathered leather.

It might be a little more expenve than buying it wholesale, but you can't get more authentic than by ung something that's just so naturally worn. JB: How many masks do you think you do in a month and are there a lot of ups and downs?

G: It certainly has it's ups & downs.

It's hard to really give a figure because it changes with the seasons, literally.

It can be anywhere from 5 - 10 in the "off" months and well over a dozen during the good months. JB: I imagine October is probably your buest month do you get swamped with orders?

G: Yes!

My Halloween starts in late August and I'm usually working straight up until October 30th.

This past year, Bill Butler bought twenty Part 7's alone.

I had to crank out close to 60 masks over the course of Halloween season '07.

And now with the new movie out coming next year, I think this Halloween will turn out to be just as crazy.

I'm looking forward to it though, it's always an exciting time, and it definitely keeps me too busy to get into trouble. JB: How long does it take to make the mask perfect?

G: I can usually get the initial base & weathering knocked out in about a week, but I'll keep going back to it, tweaking this, touching up that for another two weeks.

Every time I look at it, I'll see a small change I want to make, whether it's adding a scratch or removing a scuff, and more often than not, it'll set off a chain reaction & I'll wind up make several more changes.

Like I said, it's a very evolutionary process. JB: I think the New Blood mask looks the most difficult to do which veron would you say is the hardest one to nail the movie look?

G: New Blood's a lot of fun to work on, but I think the most difficult ones to do are the ones that look so mple, like 3 and 6.

A lot of people have come to me thinking, "The mask is brand new in Part 3, don't you just paint it white and put the triangles on it?", but it's not that mple.

If I sprayed a coat on a mask and stuck the triangles on it, it would look a lot like one of the converons I did when I was a kid, albeit, on a much nicer pull.

I layer up so many different off-whites, grays, creams, etc. to get a 3 done, and that's for the non-beaten, pre-"Barn Scene" veron! JB: Do you do any other finishing work bedes hockey masks or do you do any sculpts of your own?

G: I've been doing special make-up FX on indie horrors for several years now.

Everything from original masks, blood & gore effects, full body molds, age make-up, and everything in between.

I've done a lot of work with Brian Spears & Pete Gerner of G&S FX, and those guys are just incredible, they taught me so much, from the bacs of bruise application, life casting & mold making, all the way up to fiberglass understructures.

I got to work with them on Shadow: Dead Riot, with Tony Todd & Misty Mundae in it, and the stuff we did was insane!

About 15 full head zombie masks, exploding foam heads, a full zed puppet of a zombie torso (that they wound up casting my body for), and then all kinds of appliances.

That 6 weeks was one of the best periods of my life.

I'm currently trying to raise the funds to finance a sculpt for Frightstuff, because everyone's been waiting for us to start offering latex pieces to go with the hockey masks.

We've tried contracting a couple guys, but nothing panned out, so I decided I'm just going to do my own sculpt, mold it, and start casting up pulls.

I'm really excited about that, because I do love to sculpt & I haven't had really had the chance, the resources, or the facilities to do so in a couple years, but I do now, and I'm really looking forward to it.

If nothing else, I'm hoping I can show people that I can do more than just paint hockey masks and do gore make up. JB:

Your main web page frightstuff.com says it has the original Friday the 13th part 3 mold from the movie how did that come about?

G: Ken's the owner, I'm not sure if he's had it for the past 25 years or dug it out of the shop after Martin Becker past away, but he saw all the replicas being sold online, saw a lot of minformation, and he decided it was time to clear the air, as well as finally offer fans the ultimate replica.

Seriously, a mask cast from one of the production-made masks just can't compare to a mask that came from the same buck as the production made ones, it's like getting a celebrity autograph in ink on 8 x 10 versus getting a photocopy of that gned 8 x 10. JB: I think a lot of us would love to know the history of the mask. Who degned it Doug White or Terry Ballard ?

G: That's a cloudy subject at best.

There are so many people claiming responbility for it & there so many stories that contradict others.

If it was just a one trick pony and Jason started wearing a different mask in Part 4, fewer people would try to take credit for the hockey mask.

Ultimately, what I think, is that there were a few guys that all gave their two cents on it, and all of those ideas were fed through Ken, who ultimately wound up sculpting it, and of course, he added his own touches as well.

It's execution was the work of a ngle set of hands, but the concept, I think is safe to say, was a group effort. JB:

Do you ever talk to those guys?

G: I've actually never met, nor spoken with either of them, but I'd definitely love to.

It'd be nice to hear some of the stories straight from the horse's mouth as opposed to a filtered veron in some magazine, book, or relayed five times over on the internet, because then it becomes a game of telephone & everyone winds up more confused than they were in the beginning. JB: Of all the masks in the series what would you say is your favorite?

G: I would have to say New Blood's my favorite, it was the first one I saw in the theater, and that was the very first mask I ever sought to replicate (as crappy as it turned out!), so yeah, it's got a very special place in my heart, lol.

My favorite to work on, that tends to change from month to month, & it depends on how many I've done.

If I do x or seven Part 5's in four weeks, I'll get ck of it & start praying for someone to order something different.

At the moment, Part 4's my favorite to work on, though I haven't done a 7 or a Vs. in a while, and I'm really hoping someone orders one, the other, or both soon! JB: Ever get any odd requests for finishing?

G: I think of the coolest things I got to do was put the Undertaker logo going down the center of a mask for a guy that wanted to wear it to Summerslam that year.

I also a did a few way back when that I put metal stitching in that came out looking pretty ck.

I might do a couple like that to see how well they go over now, nce the fanbase has enlarged & changed, and they've seen fifty different Part 4 masks.

I love getting custom requests - - requests for melting, bullet holes, extra chunks taken out, scorch marks, etc, I've yet to get one that's too odd.JB:

Gene you are a nice guy and an asset to the community are there any of my bootlegs you would like for doing this interview?

G: Thank YOU!

I really appreciate the time you've taken to talk to me & letting me spit out my two cents.

I'd say let's call it even on those grounds alone, but if you're offering, send me a list, and when you're ready for those two hocks, count on getting a KILLER deal! :)

thanks for posting this interview up justin!