Episode 789: In The Seats With...Nick Taylor and 'Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson' at Fantasia

In the 80's and 90's in the movie business it wasn't music or people that made the world go around, it was rubber....In advance of the film's world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal we got the opportunity to dive into the life and times of the masters of the practical VFX game.  It's time for 'Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson'.Steve Johnson was a child of the movies whose journey led to creature shop of Rick Baker all the way to big budget classics like 'Ghostbusters' and the indie gore darlings like "Night of the Demons'.  As the 90's came around he built his own  groundbreaking FX studio that would work with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro.However when the studios started to favour digital effects over practical ones, his success started to wain which led to being a man out of time, as divorce and the non-stop party like it's the 1980's started to see an actual end..While 'Rubberhead' doesn't skimp on the fan service which is well deserved and plentiful it's also a really interesting story of a mad creative genius being undone by his demons like many before him have gone through.  That being said, with Johnson serving as narrator he gives this time period the unabashed rock star treatment that it so richly deserved.  He created on a level like no other, and played in is excesses without regret.  Iconic geniuses never seem to fit anywhere, and that's exactly what Steve Johnson.A film seven years in the making, we had the pleasure of sitting down with director Nick Taylor about following this immensely interesting life,  paying homage to the time period and acknowledging unhinged brilliance when it stares us in the face.