Macabre Daily Talks with Micheline Pitt, co-writer/director of "Grummy!"

Making a short film can be as big a gamble as making a feature, especially if it’s as ambitious as “Grummy,” a new short about the monsters around us.  Written and Directed by husband and wife team R.H. Norman and Micheline Pitt, “Grummy” tells a fantastical, yet intimate story of Sarah (“The Haunting of Hill House’s” Violet McGraw) and her imaginary friend, a shaggy purple monster named “Grummy” (“Army of the Dead’s” Alexander Ward).  The film arrives after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Horror legend Kevin Yagher came out of the woodwork to help with the creature effects, as well as co-produce.  

“Grummy” comes from the imagination and experiences of Pitt, who directs for the first time.  She sat down to discuss the film, her influences, and how monsters are used to survive. You can currently see the film on Youtube:

Lowell Greenblatt: Right off the bat, I have to say the film was very impressive.

Micheine Pitt: Since we didn't really get to screen [“Grummy”] with people because of covid-19, getting to hear any kind of feedback has been really a gift, so I appreciate you sharing that with me.

Short films have always been fascinating to me, because you have a limited time to cover so much ground. Where did you find your inspiration as a director of shorts, especially to make this specific story?

I had previously produced two of my husband’s short films.  One was a short with Werner Herzog in Cuba. We worked together on that from the ground up and I collaborated with them as much as possible, even though I wasn't on the ground with them.  Then I produced another short film that he did that stars Ross Marquand from “The Walking Dead” and Dayo Okeniyi from “The Hunger Games.” That was my introduction to shorts.  He had already made a few others prior to that, so producing really kind of got me to understand the ins-and-outs of how much work it takes to do a short film.  It is a lot of work. If anything, at times it’s as much work that you put into making a feature, but with a much shorter timeline. 

I grew up idolizing Jim Henson, who had a lot of complexity and really danced around the darkness more than other directors.  As a young person, he was my idol because he kind of did everything. He could draw, paint, he could create things with his hands.  He could build worlds. I mean, the man was truly a multi-faceted talent that shaped the lives of so many of us growing up. As much as people talk about Walt Disney shaping their childhoods, Jim Henson was that for me.  

At age 30, I went through some repressed dreams and memories that were really difficult to process and I ended up in the hospital. To be honest, it was a really hard time and [“Grummy”] was a way for me to channel all of my experiences and passions into something that could help people and could mean something, and also heal me in a way. It just started with me writing about my life and my experiences a few years ago. I was talking to my husband, and it was actually his idea for me to turn this into a short. He said we should do this together, rather than me being behind the scenes and in all these other positions.  

R.H. Norman (Left) and Micheline Pitt (Right) collaborated to tell Micheline’s story with help from some very talented friends.

I never thought I could do something like this because it wasn't something I saw a lot of women do, especially in the genre world. There aren’t as many female voices, especially in fantasy. That's really where my heart lies, as much as it does with horror. 

That makes sense, because Grummy himself looks like something straight out of “Labyrinth.”  How was his design conceived?

One of my biggest influences besides Jim Henson is Miyazaki.  All the fantasy set-pieces were really kind of trying to invoke the art and magic of Miyazaki.  He has these really beautiful, whimsical, fantastical landscapes and creatures, but he deals with like the most tragic storytelling.  To me, he's a master. 

When we started working on “Grummy,” Kevin [Yagher] had approached my husband after seeing one of his shorts and asked if he could work with him on something.   We happened to be focusing on this project, so we showed him.  At the time, he was interested and he hadn’t started working on “Bill and Ted Face the Music” yet.  No one had seen him do anything for quite some time.  We put together a lot of inspiration pieces and different elements with the color palettes, then we let Kevin run wild with his ideas.  He ended up just honestly coming back to my original concept designs and sketches. The design was a bigger version of a plush toy I designed, but it also had to be a monster at the same time. We ended up having only so much money, because it was a very small crew of a couple people making the suit over an extended period of time in between “Bill and Ted.” It was mostly him and his brother Jeff Yagher, and a few other people including Mitchell Coughlan and Danelle Vierkan, who’s an established fabricator from Jim Henson Studios.

Had we not had Kevin, we’d have looked into prosthetics, like a facial appliance, because as you know animatronics can be really expensive. There's a way to do silicones and foam together.  With the current technology, even just a foam latex appliance could have been great if someone knew how to correctly paint it and lay hair. We always asked “how could we make this work?” but we always knew we wanted it to have practical effects because of the size and scale of Grummy. We knew we wanted him to be this big gentle giant because we felt like it was important for the character to have that ability since he had to show such a duality in 10 minutes.  If he was small, he wouldn’t have been able to terrify a grown man.  

We used servos from Kit Kraft that used to be in Studio City [CA]. We had this amazing guy, Jurgen Heimann who was bouncing between “Grummy” and another project because he really liked the script.  He helped us find cheap ways of making everything possible. It took five people to puppeteer the face being worn by Alex Ward, who plays Grummy. He’s a fantastic creature suit actor and this was his first time to not have to play a terrifying monster, but rather something that had more soul and spoke and had different abilities. He had to act out the body’s mannerisms and he also did voice acting that we modified, too. Honestly, a lot of people volunteered their time and gave us discounted friend rates and/or worked for free because they thought the story was important and it meant something to them.  It was probably like 90% of our crew to be honest.

With special effects, the truth is in the tangible.

Since shorts tend to make their creators resourceful, did you have a backup plan in case the suit or the animatronics, or even the involvement of Kevin Yagher didn’t work out?

I don’t think we would have had to change the script.  One of my biggest Inspirations for “Grummy” was “Le Belle Et La Bete,” the old French “Beauty and the Beast,” which is just a man in makeup giving a beautiful and heartfelt performance. It’s so dynamic and gorgeous that I felt that it was absolutely possible to have something meaningful done in makeup. 

If you can, look up Lou and Dave Elsey’s makeup test for 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast.” That film has lots of practical makeup, but you can actually find all the original prosthetic makeup that the producers axed at the last minute. It was just an old-school facial prosthetic on an actor and it is one of the most beautiful makeups I've ever seen.  They’re two of the most gifted, talented makeup artists and they even won an Oscar with Rick Baker for “The Wolfman”. So if we went that route, I’d only be able to hope and pray to be able to work with them.  I’m glad we got the Jim Henson effect in the end, but we could have still had something incredible.  It just takes the right people that know what they're doing.

Luckily, we’ve accumulated a lot of talented friends in the special effects and creature effects world over the years. They very rarely get to do stuff like this. When was the last time you saw a monster that wasn’t a demon or CGI, or a Marvel character? There hasn't been something that's been an original IP or design done in a long time, so I think a lot of people were excited to flex their muscles on something new.

Horror fans still remember when 2011’s “The Thing” came out, and it was supposed to be mostly practical effects, but they replaced them with CGI.  When you see the original effects tests online, they’re astounding.   

I think producers can get really scared and nervous because they’re accustomed to seeing CGI.  They forget that something tangible gives the actors something in-camera to play off of.  Thank goodness for “The Mandalorian,” because it has really revived the interest in puppets, animatronics and practical magic that people have tried to kill off for such a long time. I just don't think you can have the same magic as Gizmo and “Gremlins” that you can have with CGI.  It's just not going to work. 

Take a look at Rick Baker.  His range is just incredible, he’s got 8 or 9 Oscars, and he's like the nicest guy. He was brought up under Dick Smith, who had such a gentle heart, but he’s sadly no longer with us.

I'd like to see Rick Baker come back.  I know he’s retired or semi-retired by now.

Who knows?  If the right thing comes along, I’m sure they could get him to design something.  I’d like to see him do a female werewolf.

I hope it would be in an original werewolf film because we really don’t have enough of those, at least in modern horror.  Not a sequel, I mean.

Well, there could be a way to do a sequel to “An American Werewolf in London.”  To me, the werewolf in “The Howling” looks like a Pomeranian.

Oh my god, it kind of does [Laughs].

I love Rob Bottin, but we just don’t have a lot of great werewolves.  The one in “Silver Bullet” looks like a bear and we have no female werewolves.  I love “Ginger Snaps” but that design is really strange. It's an interesting choice, but I understand it’s also a low-budget indie film. The most expensive monster you can do is a werewolf.  The werewolves in “Trick r Treat” are cool but it's such a short vignette.

If you look at Rick Baker's book, “Metamorphosis,” he was working on “Cursed,” which included a pretty brutal female werewolf.   They stopped production completely, and he had to jump onto another project, but they didn't want to wait for him. So they went with someone else and it became a crazy CGI mess.  But his original design is incredible. We missed a fantastic opportunity, but I’d still love to see that .

I want to talk about the casting, especially the abusive father.  Most fiction portrays abusers as either malevolent monsters from the start, or saintly figures who reveal themselves to hide an inner evil.  Sarah’s father, Jack comes off as a middle-of-the-road dad, which makes him that much scarier. How did you modulate that performance?

Well, Tom [Degnan, who plays Jack] is married to one of my best friends [actress Erin Cummings].  He’s a fantastic actor with such an incredible range. He also has this big, handsome, commanding kind of character, I felt like often when you see people in these positions of trying to harm children, they’re always creepy and uncomfortable. Like Lurch or almost Gollum. I feel like that's not the reality and most stories.  It was important for us to show someone that people wouldn't expect because they've been kind of taught through so many types of storytelling that it's that type of character.  Statistically speaking, 93% of children under a certain age already know their abuser, usually in the family. 

This is my story. “Grummy” is very much a hundred percent based on my actual childhood. There's no embellishment of any sort besides the fantastical invisible friend of mine, that I wished was real. That's what the story is about: the power of imagination and how it gives us hope and sanctuary in the darkest times of our childhood no matter what our trauma is. A lot of us used our imagination to cope and survive. That's really the core premise.

When Tom came on board, we had to have multiple conversations because this is a difficult role. I told him about my story and answered his questions. We worked together with my husband and really broke down the character. One of the biggest things we did was a “roleplay” at our house where Tom and Violet pretended to be father and daughter.  He helped her with her homework, they played games together, and hung out so that she could feel very comfortable around him and he could feel like a father figure. The most important thing was to show a dad being a dad.  And then it's not anymore. That change needed to be able to happen. It’s very subtle when it starts happening, before you realize what's going on, because that's the reality of grooming. It's not this “big bad” that's coming out of the closet or a white van.  For a lot of kids, it's someone that they know and trust.  It was important not just to be honest about my truth and my story, but because I knew it was so many other people’s stories as well. It was a difficult role for Tom even though it was a 10-minute short, but it had a purpose and he was incredible.  The scene where his hand goes down her back is actually a life-size dummy with a human hair wig and a set of her clothes.  We were really careful about blocking shots. Violet was not present on set at all in some moments.  We worked with her mom to make sure she understood that he's a “bad” monster that's going to try to hurt [her].   We're even had Tom's wife on set, so when she's in the closet reacting that's actually Erin in the closet running lines with him.

I wanted people to get uncomfortable and not expect what was going to happen, because I needed them to care. We had 10 minutes to show the innocence of a child and the magic that they have, because children are absolutely magical and special. Then we have to try to take all that away from you as if you were into that character and make you feel something.

Interview edited for length and clarity.