Friday, September 27, 2019 3 Brooklin Town Crier Durham Region's Works Department, in partnership with the City of Oshawa, is hosting a Diversion Day on September 28. You can drop off electronic waste, household hazardous waste and reusable items, free of charge. When: Saturday, September 28, from 8 a.m. to noon (rain or shine). Where: Lakeview Park (parking lot), Kluane Avenue, Oshawa. Notes: Electronic waste collection: To provide residents with a convenient, free drop-off service to properly recycle their electronics. By participating, residents are helping to recover and recycle valuable resources, while keeping toxic materials out of the waste stream. Examples of electronic waste include: cellular phones, audio and video players, VCRs, DVD and Blu-Ray players, stereos and receivers, computer peripherals, printing devices, televisions, personal digital assistants and pagers, cameras and radios, telephones, desktop computers, monitors, camcorders and portable computers. Residents should erase personal information from hard drives and SIM cards before bringing their obsolete, broken and end of life electronics for safe and secure recycling. Household hazardous waste collection: By safely disposing of household hazardous waste (HHW), residents help prevent toxic materials from entering local ecosystems and local water sources. Examples of household hazardous waste include: antifreeze; batter ies; brake fluid; motor oil and filters; fluorescent light bulbs and tubes; pesticides; herbicides; fertilizers; insecticides; cooking oil; medications; syringes (contained in a sealed puncture-proof container); mercury thermostats; pressurized tanks (propane, oxygen, helium or other gases); pool chemicals; paints; stains and solvents. Commercial, institutional, agricultural or industrial waste is not permitted. Pick up a free gallon of paint when you drop off your HHW. One per vehicle, while supplies last, courtesy of Photech Environmental. Reusable materials: A program to divert quality, reusable items from the waste stream, including: clothing, textiles, furniture, appliances, cabinets, countertops and most other reusable renovation materials. Only items deemed to be suitable for reuse by local charities will be accepted. Garbage, household hazardous waste and electronics will not be accepted. Materials refused by charities must be removed by residents and may be disposed of at one of the Region's waste management facilities (fees may apply). Residents are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item to be donated to a local food bank (please check that boxes and cans aren't damaged, opened or expired). To learn more about waste management in Durham Region, or for more information including tips for attending a collection event, visit durham. ca/waste, email waste@durham. ca, call 1-800-667-5671 or download the Durham Region Waste App. Electronic, Household Hazardous Waste, Reusable Items Drop Off for the ceremony but we lost. I was thinking, this is kind of cool." After that show, he and his new family moved to Mississauga where he had to start from the bottom. Nobody knew him. "I've got to climb the ladder again," he says. Was it the right thing to do? "You always question yourself. I was still working in factories in Mississauga to make ends meet. And the makeup thing wasn't a full time gig. I knew a guy from Vancuver who lived here and he helped me out. He hired me for the odd job here and there. But it was a very slow process. On his own "It wasn't till about 2010 when I bit the bullet and decided to do this on my own. I wasn't a fan of working for 'the man' and really wanted to work on my own. It was the best thing I ever did because I've been going non-stop ever since. "It's hard because sometimes we work for six months and then don't work for six months. In the winter we're like squirrels. We have to save that money because come Dec till about March there's not a lot of work. Every show has makeup, but not every show has prosthetic and effects makeup. When times are tough, you have your friends all vying for the same show. In the end it doesn't really matter because whoever gets the show will hire the others anyway." These days, Zander can mostly pick his projects. In Canada, he's become well known in the industry since the "IT" movie came out. "That's skyrocketed my career quite a bit. Good thing is that now I'm at a place in my career where I can pick and choose. Before, there'd be a show, I have to take this. The show might be absolute crap but you've got to do what you've got to do." "Unfortunately now it's more about how much? Bigger shows and bigger movies pay more of course. I get asked to do some things and I decline. But I do point them to other individuals who will do it. We all help each other out." A second Emmy The second Emmy nomination came last year for Star Trek. "This was the sad kicker of it all and it hurts a lot. I left Star Trek season 2 last year to do IT chapter 2. I did three episodes and had to leave. They needed me to do the town makeup. When I left, they had a replacement come in. She was nominated and she won. So I sort of gave up an Emmy." Naturally, the industry has changed substantially during his time, let alone what was done in a bygone era. He's amazed at how effects and makeup were done with films like Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." If done today, the aliens would most certainly be CG (computer graphics) rather than using puppeteers who are expensive and have to be paid as actors. Similarly, 1939's classic "The Wizard of Oz" is high on his list of incredible work. The flying monkeys and the large green head of the wizard with flames shooting out were so far ahead of their time. Still, he and his colleagues need to work closely with CG people, although it's not something he'd want to do himself. Sitting in front of a computer screen isn't his thing. "We work a lot with the CG guys. It impacts on us but a lot of times it helps us out quite a bit, too. Because it used to be that if say a blood gag didn't work, we'd have to set it up again. Nowadays, they just say they'll CG in that blood later. It's a quicker process now and more efficient." Sometimes not so good Then again, things don't always work out the way he'd envisioned. "We'll film something on day one that they put at the end of the movie. It's all out of order. I've seen a lot of shows that were disappointing. One of the shows that was fun to work on was a 2011 remake of "The Thing." It was a prequel of John Carpenter's movie. It was all puppets. It was beautiful. I got to work up here with a bunch of LA guys for months and months. Then it came out in theatres. I took my kids out of school one day to go see it. "They just destroyed it with CG. I walked out almost with tears in my eyes. It was that bad. Even my kids asked what the heck was that? Why did you take us out of school for this? "At the end of 'IT chapter 2,' there's a giant spider. It was all CG, not us at all. They scanned his face and took 6 hours and scanned every possible emotion and facial expression he could handle. It was exhausting and they take that and make a giant spider. Incredible." When productions begin, colleagues contact each other and say they're putting together a crew. "You're only as good as your crew. You need someone to make all that stuff for you. If the shop is not producing good quality, when you bring it to the shoot, that's going to reflect on the final product, on the actor's face or whatever it is." What the script wants The process begins with meetings with directors and producers. "You get a script and you get a break- down. In the scene, a guy gets his head cut off. Is this going to be practical. Is this going to be computer generated or a combination? You quote out man hours, how long it's going to take. And then you look at the kinds of shots. Do they want to see the eyes? Are they going to be facing away from the camera? There's a lot of negotiating and going back and forth." As for actors, most are great; a few, not so much. Will Smith, for instance: "One of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet." Others sit in the makeup chair, on their phones or eating. He's had to ask them to put them away. "The chicken sandwich dripping down the face in the middle of makeup is a problem." Along his path, Zander has also had to learn human anatomy. They have numerous resources at the studio to show what happens when a body part is cut off or what the inside might look like. Which means the ones young Gage plays with are likely quite accurate. Made sacrifices Zander admits he's made a lot of sacrifices to rise to the top of his profession. His exwife and four children remain in Mississauga where his 22 year old son, the one born just after he returned from LA, is, he says, an immensely talented artist in his own right. Meanwhile Zander and his new family love Brooklin, the drives notwithstanding. Theirs has been the house to visit on Halloween though they've had to cut back on effects because of his work schedule. These days, as the man who is now almost exclusively on the set prepping the actors, he's working on Star Trek at Pinewood Studios till February. Most of the key effects are made in LA and shipped to the studio where he opens a box and gets to work. "I go to Pinewood today and deal with six different alien species. Just another day at the office." (Read more about Shane Zander and his work on his site: https://gotgore.wixsite.com/mysite) Continued from page 2