On a number of occasions I have had the opportunity to work on low budget short films, which are trying to get the investors to make them in to full features. A few years ago I would have taken anything I could get my hands on in an attempt to build my portfolio up. These days I tend to turn them down unless they are like "Subject 3". Producer and Writer Dominic Morgan, founder of Bleak Production sent me over his latest script, after reading it I knew I had to get involved. After all it is not every day you get the opportunity to work on such a blood tingling gore flick that would have so much potential if it ever made it onto the big screen as a feature.
The Film was directed by Danny Patrick with Cinematography by Michael Miles. The cast include Swedish Goth Beauty Lena V, Jason Gerard, and Karl Howman.
The main part of my goal on this film was to make and apply a prosthetics for Jason. The effect was to simulate mainly facial injuries he incurs as the story progresses. I was also lucky enough to have the talent of Laura Phipps helping me with application and doing her own set of make-ups on Lena.
Design
The first stage of most jobs is design. By doing a quick Photoshop manipulation on a photo of a friend, sorry Simon. I am able to create an image that I will send to the Producer and Director for them to give it their OK. This way we can make sure we are all on the same page and I can cover myself if I get a little bit carried away with the gore part, heheheh.
Once the designs are given the thumbs up I can start getting my hands dirty. 1st port of call is to take a life cast. In this particular project the actor was unavailable so I took a risk and agreed to take the casting of the actor’s brother who by chance lived locally. I took castings of his face and both shoulders with alginate and mod-roc. I then cast then in plaster and re moulded a mother mould with silicon and fibre glass. The final castings where made in fibre glass which makes them strong, light weight and give the added flexibility that makes de moulding just that little bit easier.
Sculpture
These photos show the life casts with the nearly finished sculptures. For a project like this I will use an oil based clay, as it allows for great detail.
For added believability and because of deadlines, I was able to pick up some teeth cards from my local dentist. They are usually used in the production of dentures but you will often find many dentists will keep the spare teeth in a set that are not used. This is great for people in my line of work as it means really cheap good quality teeth. The only problem with them was the depth, so using a dremel I carefully grinded the backs down in an attempt of making each tooth fit flush against the actors face.
Once the Sculpture has been finalised a flange wall is built around the outside of the sculpt, about 1/2 cm from its edges. I also make holes in the flange wall that will act as the touch downs for the negative part of the mould still to be made. The black dots indicate where I will be drilling so the final mould can be bolted very tightly together creating paper thin edges on the prosthetic.
The last step before creating the main part of the mould is to remove the enamel teeth, then fill in any recesses, in this particular case the depth of the mouth. The reason for doing this is to get rid of any undercuts that will later lock the mould together or course imperfections in the final mother mould.
Moulding
The next set of photos show the stages I will go through when creating fibre glass moulds. The 1st step is to use a release agent in this case J-Wax this will allow for easier de-moulding. Once the J-Wax has been given least 5 minutes to dry I will add the gel coat resin making sure to watch out for any air bubbles.
When the gel coat has hardened but still remains tacky I will then sprinkle fibre glass chopped strands on top. These strands will stick to the gel coat as well as the fibre glass matting once laminated over the top, stopping the chance of both layers separating. The matting when applied is soaked in resin then carefully worked on top of the sculpture being very careful not to trap large air pockets, for this particular mould I laminated 3 layers of matting. I finally finish it of with a fine fibre tissue paper that gives the surface of the mould a splinter free finish.
In total there were 5 main moulds, from the face prosthetic to the shoulders, life cast and flat sheet mould which I use to cast out simple cuts, stabbing wounds, scars and a scalp injury. For this particular mould I tend to go around the outside with a marker pen to highlight the edges, this makes casting a little more idiot proof for myself. Once all the moulds have been cleaned and sanded for splinters the casting can begin. For the main face prosthetic I will use foam gelatine and the rest of the pieces will be cast using liquid latex. Originally I had designed the shoulder moulds to be cast from foam latex or gelatine but both materials tensile strength proved to be insufficient, so good old latex comes to the rescue. One major plus side when using fibre glass moulds is the translucency. This means that when the moulds are clamped tightly together you are able to see if the casting material has filled all the gaps.
Once the gelatine has cooled down, the mould is split apart and the foam gelatine prosthetic can be very carefully removed, with the help of talcum powder. The photo on the right shows the final non painted piece pined to a foam life cast.
Casting
For this particular project I had to cast a total of 3 prosthetics, When I can I will always add a little paint to make the final application a little quicker onset. I found by heating a metal tool and melting the gelatine on the back of the gums that the teeth anchored nicely and saved me having to use glue
Onset Application
For me, one of the best parts of the jobs is seeing the effect come together. For this scene the actor was strung up with meat hooks through both shoulders. By using simple latex the prosthetic stuck nicely to Jason's skin stretching as he struggled in his restraints.
One of the many areas where Jason is hung on display. The mask was made and adapted by Achilleas Gatsopoulos a very talent artist who turned out to be just as morbid as myself. Achilleas's links to both production photos and his official site can be found at the bottom of this page.
This was a simple nail through the hand effect. The nails where cast in resin and stuck to small latex prosthetics. I was not major happy with the way this one turned out. With the gift of hindsight I would have made the prosthetic much larger and added far more swelling around the wound.
The photos above more than likely speak for them self. As can be seen Jason is modelling the final face prosthetic as well as another prosthetic located above his left sideburn where his hair and scalp have been ripped away. The one problem that I did encounter was due to small differences between Jason and his brother facial anatomy, which the life cast had been taken from. The result meant the prosthetic was stretch vertically and meant the face was slightly elongated more than I would have liked it to have been.
The final photo is of a very cold Jason and the lovely Laura doing her best to keep him warm. For some reason I can’t get E.T. out of my head. I must also give a big shout out to Jason who did not complain once during the make-up, he was a professional to the end and a very talented actor.
