Josh's Exposition
"Grandma Borg"
Date: 27 December 1997.
In December of 1997, MacAfee told me that I would be playing a role in his movie, A House in the Woods, at the end of the month, which required the character of Grandma Borg. We had developed her long before this, so the desire to include Grandma Borg in the film wasn't entirely unfounded. While MacAfee was fine with using the old costume we built, I thought the movie needed a bigger more impressive outfit.
This sketch served only as a guide as I constructed the best Grandma Borg costume yet. Several planned details were deleted due to time constraints, most notably all the little gizmos I have labeled, which would have been solid chunks of electronics (likely made of foamboard and painted). The assimilation tubes came from a unit fashioned from clay and taped to my wrist. It was painted less than an hour before I had to go film. The suit took me nearly four hours to preassemble the night before and it then took me another hour to put it on. There was a string of Chrismas lights that wove throughout the suit with a battery pack on my thigh, but I bent over and broke the wire, so only a blue light on my hip worked (you can see it during the movie's night walk sequence). The outfit was incredibly uncomfortable, too: You couldn't sit down, there were wires jabbing the flesh underneath, and it was hot. But playing Grandma Borg was so much fun to do! In fact, I later revamped the costume and wore it to Kresta's Halloween party, 1999. It was a scaled down version of the movie suit, with no electronics involved.
A little movie trivia tidbit: This drawing appeared briefly in the film! In the scene where Detective Jakab is speaking with Mr. and Mrs. Mantwan, this was the top sheet on the clipboard that Jakab is writing on. That's where the "Josh?" at the top of the paper came from, as the gallant detective got right on the case, this sketch serving as the beginning of his investigation of the missing kids.
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This page engaged 30 January 2002.
Last updated 30 January 2002.
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