EXCLUSIVE: TMNT Director Steve Barron Shares New Book

SITE EXCLUSIVE! TURTLES MOVIE DIRECTOR STEVE BARRON SHARES SNEAK PEAK OF UPCOMING BOOK

Steve Barron, writer and director of the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie has a book coming out later this year that documents the making of the first Turtles film. 

Steve has been in touch with us here at the site recently and he has graciously offered to give us a sneak preview from the book.  It's all about the Turtles……

From: Steve Barron; Director Of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Subject: egg n chips book extract

 'You don't hear crickets in Manhattan, do you?'

Me and Simon are standing over a motionless Raphael. It's actually an actor, Josh, inside a green latex suit. We're trying to make him feel a little less claustrophobic inside his boiling hot prison.

 'No.'

 He's panting. This stressful panic is not his idea of movie magic. He's resting on a purpose-made wooden frame, like a small horse, that cradles a Ninja Turtle in the only comfortable resting position possible between takes. His large latex mouth is wedged wide open like a lizard and a fan is blowing cold air through it and onto the actor's sweltering face inside. I look around at all four Turtles perched, in this frozen, still-life state, on their resting horses. It's like something you'd see in a MOMA exhibition – and it's even more bizarre as the Manhattan street set is being accompanied by the deafening sound of North Carolina crickets in the heat of the night. If that's not crazy enough, the reason we're doing another take is because of interference from the local aircraft landing at Wilmington US Airforce base. It sends the radio-controlled animatronic servers in the faces of our Turtles wild. Eyes are blinking and smiles are creasing and jaws are freezing in remote mayhem. 'Cut!'

 Mercifully, we've got Jim Henson's Creature Shop to make our characters. He said most projects they have to invent one new technology – on this one it's six! And we've got seven million dollars to shoot it. If people ever do show up to see this movie they will surely never imagine the moments in between.

 God, it was so close to not happening at all, because until two weeks ago no one wanted it in the US and we didn’t have enough money to go ahead. Luckily, New Line has stepped in with a couple of mil, or it would have been over.

'Okay, let's get back in position, we're set for another take,' says a voice from a megaphone. We've abandoned the idea of removing their 30lb heads to cool off between takes because it takes too long to patch them back on, defeating the purpose. Each of these brave performers has lost almost 30lb in weight themselves in the last two weeks. Mind you, no one said it was going to be easy. 'Roll camera.'

FROM 'EGG 'N CHIPS' written by Steve Barron.  The book will be out in late 2014.