Lights, Camera, Action!

By: Brittany Bevis

For those who’ve been to the Arizona Sun Circuit, you’ve likely seen Kristin Spinning around the rings, snapping photos and gathering interviews for her freelance work that appears in The Equine Chronicle. But there is an entirely different side to Kristin that most people don’t know about…

For example, did you know that she was supposed to be a leg double for Sharon Stone in The Quick and The Dead or that she’s worked with actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Kevin Costner, Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, and many more? Is she a stunt double? An actor’s agent? No, Kristin is what they call in the biz, a “scenic artist.”

How did she get into this line of work? It’s a long and complicated story, much like the plots of the movies she works on. “In the mid nineties, I was living in Tucson trying to figure out what to do next in life when I saw an announcement for extras for a period Western movie called The Quick and The Dead that was being shot nearby,” Kristin says. “It starred Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman. I got the surprise of my life when the casting department called saying they needed a hand and leg double for Sharon Stone. They were going to shoot a second unit insert, which means close-up footage, under a table where Sharon Stone’s character fumbles pulling a pistol out of her garter belt to shoot Hackman. Inserts are often done with doubles to save time and money.”

“The Hollywood casting person erroneously assumed that since I lived in Arizona, and rode horses, I must know how to artfully wield firearms. I wasn’t about to correct them! On location, I was fitted in a costume, a whole crew of technicians readied the set, I was briefed by the director, and even met Mrs. Stone and this new kid named Leonardo DiCaprio. Suddenly, plans changed, schedules changed, and I was out of a job! My big break into fame and fortune evaporated thanks to the whims of others.”

However, during her time spent on set, a series of random events showed Kristin a niche in the film industry that might be better suited for her set of artistic talents. A few months later, she was a scenic artist working on a movie called Tank Girl.

What is a scenic artist? Unlike what you might think, scenic artists do not create sets. A scenic artist is responsible for making the sets come to life. “Film sets are built by carpenters, plasterers, welders, and such. Even if it’s an existing location, there are usually modifications to be made,” Kristin says. “Scenic artists paint the sets to look real. I turn foam into rocks, make a sheet of plywood look like a 3-D brick wall, or paint signs and then age them to look as though they have been there for years. I’ve created eons of rust, decades of decay, gleaming bars of gold, and columns of marble.”

“It’s fun, challenging, and creative; yet, often it’s just plain, old, hard work. The irony of it is that, if I do my job right, no one ever notices my work. The viewer just believes in the reality of that world. While scenics do most of their work prior to the actors and camera crew rolling in, I also was the on-set or stand-by painter on a number of films. That is the person who does touch ups or handles things that come up during shooting. It can include painting special effects rigging so that it disappears into the surroundings or fixing sets that are accidentally damaged.”

Despite the popular perception that movie sets are all glamour and gloss, Kristin explains that is far from the case. She likens the long hours spent in tight spaces as being akin to being in a room full of people who have been mucking stalls all day. “Everyone gets a little dirty, a little smelly, and a little tired. It’s part of the environment and most everyone rolls with it, some better than others.”

But, she often has the opportunity to meet actors, directors, and celebrities. She says that the vast majority of people she has met are regular, easygoing folks. “They chat, joke, and swap stories with crew during the long hours of waiting. The few exceptions always seem to be the actors who have little real experience or are simply bad actors. They attempt to hide their dearth of skill with an abundance of arrogance.”

“George Clooney, who starred in Three Kings, was always quick to flash his iconic smile and didn’t hide out in his trailer. He would shoot hoops with some of the crew between scenes. Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube were also in that film. I worked on two films that starred Kevin Costner- Tin Cup and The Postman. He directed the later, and I worked as a stand-by painter on set for a couple of months, so I saw a lot of him in action. I always admired how he handled foul-ups without going off on somebody. That film also featured Tom Petty, and it was a hoot to hang out with him for a day. He was exactly the half-lidded dude you would imagine.”

“Older readers will remember singer and actor, Joel Grey. He stared in the film adaptation of the long running stage musical, The Fantastiks, along with Joey McIntyre of New Kids On The Block. Joey was pretty new to acting at that point, but he was laid back and willing to learn all he could. He seemed to appreciate a break from the boy-band fandom. Joel Grey was a consummate gentleman, flawless performer, quick-witted, kind, and enthusiastic. I’ve also worked with Sean Penn and Jenifer Lopez on the dark, Oliver Stone drama U-Turn. Sean was quiet, introspective, and shy, which surprised me given his bad-boy persona.”

There are certain sets that are more fun to work on than others, and Kristin certainly has her favorites. More often than not, the experience has to do with the film crew camaraderie and location.

“It’s always the crew that makes a film a pleasurable or nightmarish work experience,” she says. “Some crew members are locals who I’ve known for years, and others come from all over the country or the world. One of my favorite film experiences was with The Fantastiks. Everyone was singing, not just the actors. It was infectious. Crew on set would be humming, whistling, or belting out lyrics. That leads to a rather joyous work environment.”

“The location in southern Arizona was fantastic too. The broad, rolling, grass lands of the San Rafael Valley were where most of the 1955 movie Oklahoma was filmed. Yup, it was Oklahoma in Arizona! The next time you watch Curly ride along singing the title song, notice the mountains in the background. ‘The corn was as high as an elephant’s eye’ only because thousands of corn plants were grown in gallon sized pots and placed on the ground around each shot. We used the same trick on Fantasticks to create corn and sunflower rows.”

In addition to creating virtual fields of corn, Kristin has also painted horses, blood spatters, and even a dead cow. Films that use animals have dedicated wranglers who handle them. However, as a scenic, Kristin has had to paint quite a few horses.

“The Postman is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the only mode of transport are horses. There were a lot of horses on that film for the action-packed, mounted, battle scenes. The main characters ride a ‘hero’ horse, one that looks great on film. However, stunt horses are trained for specific tasks like falling, rearing, charging into someone, or trampling. Sometimes, more than one horse has to double as the hero horse. The stunt coordinators try to get a close match, but there are always some differences. I’ve had to paint blazes and leg markings on stunt horses and even adjust coat or mane colors with non-toxic, wash-out hair coloring- the kind you get at a beauty supply store.”

A couple of months ago, Kristin was asked to braid long extensions into a horse’s mane, because he was starring in a music video. “I had to braid in long, skinny, mane extensions on the horse to match the singer’s pencil-sized plaits. It rather reminded me of a Reining horse by the time I was done.”

Other odd jobs include painting blood splatters and stains for a Saddam Hussein torture room for Three Kings. One time, she was lowered by ropes and a harness to paint the underside of a suspension bridge over a raging river. She also had to recreate a mutant-sized, trap door spider’s nest in Eight Legged Freaks. However, the oddest thing she’s ever been asked to paint is a dead cow on the set of The Postman.

“When shooting the final battle scenes between the evil Holnists army and the Postman’s valiant forces, a dead cow washed down the river and lodged on a rock in the background. The wranglers tried roping it from shore and pulling it off, but no one could get it to budge. I was asked to paint it to make it disappear. Armed with a set of rock colors and tied off with ropes, in case the fast current carried me away, I still could only reach the bloated bovine by wiring my brushes to a long pole. I painted the cow to look like the rock she rested upon. The story of the dead cow/rock swept through the crew to the point where people would walk down to the river to see for themselves. When the film came out, I could identify the ‘rock’ in the background, but no one else was the wiser. I did my job.”

During this time of COVID-19 shutdown, all film, TV, and video production has been put on hold, and it is uncertain as to when film work will return to Arizona. Because productions have a very long timeline and planning process, it will be a while before Kristin is able to work on a set again. But she’s using her downtime to relive some of her past pieces of art.

“In lockdown, I’ve been glad to watch a Dutch TV series that did a lot of filming in Arizona last year. Hoogvliegers (High Flyers) follows the adventures of young, Royal Netherlands Air Force recruits as they become F-16 pilots. The Dutch and many other nations train their F-16 pilots at the The 162nd Fighter Wing of the Arizona Air National Guard in Tucson. While the story is fiction, Hoogvliegers is pulled from reality. We even recreated a middle eastern, NATO, joint forces base in the desert for a couple of episodes. It’s always fun to get to see my work on the screen, even if that screen is just a laptop.”

If you have a great story about an equestrian, who leads an interesting double life in another industry, email B.Bevis@EquineChronicle.com.