Jason Behr - The Tattooist #4: Let's hope Jason comments on that love scene! - Page 5

**Dreamer 4 Ever** · 06-17-2008, 02:18 PM

I have the NZ Di I can always get a print for you

Di m · 06-17-2008, 03:14 PM

They should have stuck with that one in the first place, but I'm struggling with JB's pic on 4, OMG.

Kwikimart727 · 06-17-2008, 03:25 PM

ohh that tattooist pic is gorgeous, thanks Miriam!

**Crystaline** · 06-17-2008, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by miriamqf (View Post)

If you click on "Enter The Tattooist Sweepstakes" you can find a some stills. There's one that is new for me! (At least I don't remember this picture)

Holy frak.

I may need to change my desktop again.

Hoodie · 06-17-2008, 07:18 PM

Wow! Thanks for that link and the pic, Miriam!

shakira · 06-17-2008, 11:09 PM

Oo. thanks guys. i just watched his interview for the tatooist on youtube.
YouTube - The Tattooist interview

wow.. it takes a lot of time to put it on and get it off.. btw, i dont know a thing bout tatoos.. religion restrictions..

Honey-Girl · 06-17-2008, 11:15 PM

^ I really like this interview of him!

shakira · 06-17-2008, 11:31 PM

Me too!! It looks as if he is getting younger every year! The closes i can ever get to see him is in New Zealand. I hope he really goes there often. Wow! I cant believe some of you have actually met him in the flesh!!!!

**Roswell 10/2/00** · 06-18-2008, 11:10 AM

My childhood friend Isabel lives in New Zealand and loves it there! So excited about this movie! I can;t wait to listen to the commentary it is going to be classic!

Love the cover of the DVD even though the hand is weird still who cares Jason is on the cover!

Di m · 06-18-2008, 11:38 AM

I would have like to see him more (in person that is

) but I do count my blessings.

tijuana_lady · 06-18-2008, 01:13 PM

OMG! That photo is killing me!

Thanks, miriam!

Di m · 06-18-2008, 01:38 PM

I know what you mean Tijuana lady I'm even cursing in spanish.

**Dreamer 4 Ever** · 06-18-2008, 01:44 PM

Thanks to lyric for this article

Quote:

The Art of THE TATTOOIST

By LOGAN DeSISTO

For centuries, tattooing has been an intricate part of many cultures. Used for everything from decoration and identification to spiritual rituals and medical practices, it has found its way into mainstream society, with a record number of people now ordaining their bodies. But for many, the practice’s roots remain an important part of everyday life—a fact at the center of Ghost House Underground’s debut release, THE TATTOOIST. Coming on DVD June 24 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the New Zealand production revolves around a young skin artist, Jack Sawyer (Jason Behr, from Ghost House’s THE GRUDGE), who unwittingly releases a malevolent spirit through his inkings. The film combines ancient Samoan practices with Kiwi, Singaporean and American beliefs to create an intricate and haunting tale of morality.

“The only tattooing culture I knew anything about was the Maori art of Moko,” reveals director Peter Burger, “which, despite the fact that THE TATTOOIST is set in New Zealand, was completely and deliberately ignored in our film. It’s a Samoan story, and I was aware that international audiences would easily confuse Samoan and Maori cultures. So I was nearly starting from scratch in terms of research. Everything we showed in relation to the Samoan rituals is based very firmly in reality, which was fantastic, really—I learned a hell of a lot about a topic I never thought I would get into.

“In fact,” he continues, “some of the difficulty involved dealing with a highly revered and sensitive part of a peoples’ culture with respect, while still making a ghostly, scary movie. To the Samoans, the art of tattooing is not only important, it is genuinely sacred. But they were fantastic—on the one hand, they were very happy to have this side of their culture shown to the world, so long as we did it right. On the other, they told us that they like ghost stories as much as anyone else, and were fully behind the genre. But they watched us like hawks throughout the process—as they should have.”

With a number of television shows and commercials on his résumé, as well as a short film that played the Cannes Film Festival, Burger was seeking the perfect project to make the transition into features, finding it in a surprising place. “I wasn’t looking for something in the horror genre at all,” he admits. “But the thing I love about filmmaking, and indeed about art in general, is creating something that connects with an audience, and creates a response in other humans. That’s a very wide brief, I know. But with a lot of scripts I read, I find myself criticizing them intellectually, instead of engaging with them emotionally. This one I read and spent a lot of time going ‘Ewww…oh no, that’s awful’—but in a good way. I enjoyed having been ‘connected with.’ I thought that if I could create the same effect in the film as I got reading the script, then the process would have been successful.”

Despite his initial excitement, Burger did harbor some doubts about the potential audience reaction to his darker-than-usual New Zealand genre film, coming from a country whose most notable fright exports have been the outrageous early works of Peter Jackson and BLACK SHEEP (whose writer/director, Jonathan King, penned THE TATTOOIST with Matthew Grainger). “[Even though] there is a large and well-established industry of straight horror and thriller films from within the U.S., the breakout movies from other countries have often been a horror/comedy blend,” the director notes. “It’s interesting that that has developed, and I see no reason that it should necessarily be the case. But it can become self-fulfilling: Because audiences are not used to international films that follow in the serious direction of the American-based productions, it may make it harder for those that do.

“Decisions at the box office and standing in front of video shelves are indeed made by people’s experiences of what they’ve watched previously,” he says. “So part of the reason THE TATTOOIST has an American protagonist is to pull the filmaway from feeling like an international art film. Despite its location and the presence of the Samoan culture, THE TATTOOIST’s ancestry really comes from Hollywood.”

Behr, the actor playing that American protagonist, is a veteran of fantastic fare who rose to stardom on the long-running aliens-on-Earth TV drama ROSWELL and was seen last year in SKINWALKERS and DRAGON WARS. Portraying the titular character with brooding sympathy, Behr seems very much in his element. “What I like about Jason’s work,” Burger says, “is that without needing to do very much at all, you get the sense of many layers going on beneath the surface. In particular, there is a sadness that seems to emanate from him, even when he’s very still, which worked well for Jake and his history.”

While the film centers on Behr’s performance, its make-or-break aspect proved to be the special FX. But with limited money and even less time, it fell to the solders of little-known visual FX company Albedo to go above and beyond the many restraints placed on them. And rise above they did, creating the stomach-churning gags that anchor the film while maintaining the flexibility Burger needed during filming. “In the hospital sequence, a major physical effect didn’t go as planned,” he recalls. “It was the centerpiece of the scene, and without it there was no climax. Peter McCully from Albedo came up with a splitting eye—yes, a splitting eye—as an alternative, and we reshaped the offline edit to build to that as an alternative climax. That sort of flexible approach made a major creative contribution to the film.”

But it is the company’s ink FX that are the most impressive of the lot, especially since the menacing black goo is the key incarnation of the film’s main villain. “[Albedo’s] approach was to use as many organic elements as possible in the digital effects,” Burger notes. “They stated very early on that there wasn’t the budget to create 3-D liquid elements on the level it would need to be for us all to be happy. Many of the effects shots are a combination of physical makeup and an additional touch–say, a real ink drip, shot separately and added digitally.”

While Burger is quick to point out that shooting in New Zealand is not as glamorous as many Americans might believe, he is equally quick to point out the many perks of working on location. “Jason Behr and I were made chiefs!” he proudly notes. “Yes, real, actual chiefs. My Samoan title is Tuifa’asisina, and Jason is Niuafalao. We have a lasting and permanent connection with what is now ‘our’ village in Samoa. And that will last as long as any tattoo.”

Source: Fangoria

Di m · 06-18-2008, 01:57 PM

Nicely said: “What I like about Jason’s work,” Burger says, “is that without needing to do very much at all, you get the sense of many layers going on beneath the surface. In particular, there is a sadness that seems to emanate from him, even when he’s very still, which worked well for Jake and his history.”

tijuana_lady · 06-18-2008, 01:57 PM

Thanks! I love what he says about Jason's work. That's so true.