Torturing People in the name of “Art.”
Tuesday was a busy day at Strangewerks Films. We needed to cast the face and torso of one of our actors, Shawn, so that we could begin sculpting prosthetic pieces. There is a nightmare sequence in our new film, Demon Nun!, wherein he is transformed into…what else…a horrible creature.
Shawn bravely agreed to be casted, even though he had no idea what it entailed. Though he got a little worried when we started covering everything in plastic sheeting.
Some people have withered away in terror, at the prospect of having their body parts covered in alginate and plaster bandages, but not Shawn, he got through it like a pro.
We use Smooth-On‘s Alja-Safe to cast people. That, the plaster bandages and other supplies are all obtained at The Compleat Sculptor, here in Manhattan. They always have us covered. Or, in this case, Shawn.
Shawn getting his torso cast…
Make up artist Christina applying bandages over the alginate…
Applying alginate to Shawn’s face. Yes, we left nose holes so the poor guy could breathe.
If you want to learn how to do stuff like this, write me and arrange to take some courses. It’s fun and creative!
Covering the alginate with plaster bandages…
Finished plaster torso cast
Finished face cast…
Soon we’ll clean up the plaster positives and begin sculpting some horrifying pieces on top of them for our current feature: Demon Nun! I’m so excited at the prospect of transforming Shawn into a shambling beast that I can hardly wait!
Wounds and Nurnies…
Gearing up for some gore and bloodletting insert shots these days, so I’ve included some pictures showing the making of various gags in their various stages.
These are some nurnies, a latex sheet that will be ripped up later and used for creating third degree burns on victims. A really fun process!
Here’s a cross burn appliance we are sculpting. The edges have to be really thin on it…
This sculpt will eventually become a stomach stab wound made of silicone. I know, it looks like a vagina. What can I say?
Here’s another angle on the stab. wound. I’m outfitting it with a blood tube so blood will flow out of it. Need bigger tube though.
This is a sculpt of twin knitting needle wounds in a stomach. Also fitting with blood tubes. We’ll make a mother mold and then cast it up in silicone. Looks like something from Dune, doesn’t it?
Gory Goings-On…
Here’s another bunch of behind-the-scenes set photos from our shoot this past weekend on Long Island. We had a bunch of slayings that the crew had to do makeup for. You can kind of get an idea from the pictures below. Of course we’re not showing them all to you, we don’t want to give away all the goodies we have in store for our viewers!
Gary with a fork in his head–’nuff said!
Gary realizing he has a fork in his head and that he’s laying in a body bag.
Ryan looking a little more demonic than usual–but only slightly more…
Broni with a knife in her chest. Yes cutlery can kill, folks!
There’s a lot more stuff to be shot, including shots where we have to bring in the…blood tubing! That’s all we can say at the moment. I’m looking forward to some arterial spray. (Wow, watch three seasons of Ash vs. Evil Dead and you get so jaded about all this stuff.)
Weekend of Horrors…
And we’re not talking “Chiller” Fest.
Ken Driesslein is the evil Monsignor Brock. Makeup by Christine Russo and Magaly Rosado.
Colleen White as Sister Bonaventure. Makeup by Christine Russo and Magaly Rosado.
We spent last weekend in a spooky church basement shooting scenes of terror and mayhem, mixed in with blood and also nurnies and charcoal powder–in other words, it was a horror fan’s dream. This was days five and six of shooting for our new feature film Demon Nun.
Ryan Natalino in jeopardy…
Ryan in repose…
Knife vs. whip…who will prevail?
Ash Snow: corpse wrangler…
Meet My New Body…
Okay, so it’s not really “new,” and it’s not my body, though as an aside, it would be cool if we could have alternate bodies/”sleeves” to port into like on Altered Carbon. (Who would you port into? Me, anyone awesome like Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Florence Welch, Freddy Mercury.) But the body in question–the one shown below–is new to the blog and to the film it’s being used in: Demon Nun, our new horror film!
Gory George at home…
I call him Gory George, though if it was a girl I’d call it Greta Gangrene or something. I don’t know what they called him in his previous life. Maybe I should get his dental records checked out?
Really gross hands, needs some hand lotion.,,
No stomach.,..,
He’s got a few friends moldering around in the apartment somewhere. Also, my familiar, um, cat Tabitha likes him, as you can see from the pictures. They hit it off right away.
His toenails are sharp! I keep gouging my feet on them every night!
I can’t believe all the crap I fit into this place and neither can my wife. I dunno how she can sleep at night with George and his friends in here. Sometimes you can hear them whispering (or playing cards).
The crowded life of a filmmaker/toy nut/animal lover…
Anyway, he will make his second film premiere in Demon Nun this weekend! Can’t wait to shoot the bastard. I had to open the lens way up just to get a detailed shot of him. He tends to soak up the light. (Also souls, but I digress!)
‘Demon Nun’ Makeup
Above is an encapsulated silicone prosthetic we made of a melting, burning face. Amazing how squishy it is with the addition of Smooth-On’s “Slacker” product. It’s extremely flexible. Slacker is the way to go for facial prosthetics if you ask me.
Below are some clay sculpts of gross pustules, blisters and sores we are working on for another scene with a drug addict. Can’t wait to cast these in silicone, paint ’em, add syringes and glue ’em to our actor Matthew’s arms…
Shooting with the Saints
On March 24th, we had the pleasure of shooting in a lovely little church in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. If you ever need a church location for a photo or video shoot, this is definitely a place you will want to check out. Call Andrew Samaha for more info at 917-796-0574.
You can see more pictures of St. Philips here.
CHEAPO DOLLY TRACK
Strangewerks Films’ new high tech dolly track–ain’t she a beaut?
So I have a dolly for my camera. It’s one of those “Glide Gear” systems they sell on ebay. It’s pretty nice for the relatively inexpensive price. The only problem is, I don’t have any track to go with it.
They have a track system on ebay as well, but I didn’t feel like dropping the $150+ for it. So I went down to the Home Depo and bought a 2 X 4 and some plastic pipe (one inch in diameter). Oh, some screws too. Cost me about $18 bucks. I went with one inch because it lifts the glide wheels off the ground a little more, in case you’re shooting somewhere outside and there’s gravel around that could obstruct the wheels.
Unfortunately, I had to do the construction in my tiny NYC apartment, not much room to maneuver around, esp. with curious cats like Madame Sylvia here…,
I had to cut down the pipe to around five feet because I don’t think it would fit in the company SUV if it was much longer. I would’ve liked it longer to provide for more tracking shot time, but at least we got this muich. Maybe I can devise some kind of interlocking pipe system to make it longer…! Mwahahaha! Oh and I only stripped one screw!
It’s crucial to get as much camera movement into your project as you can and not just the handheld stuff. (I’ve had distributors tell me that overseas audiences don’t like the handheld stuff that much.) Getting smooth camera motion into your film is key to making it look professional. Also, it’ll set your film apart from all the other low-budget crap a distributor has to weed through. That and using a boom mic instead of a camera mic! Ditch the camera mic you guys/gals/gender fluid types/whomever is reading this. (Ol’ Max is open to everyone!)
Now, the only thing is, if I want to use this thing for a scene where two people are talking as they walk down the street, I’m gonna have to move it like twenty times to cover the whole scene.
So, if you see some strange guy moving his homemade dolly track down the sidewalk, again and again, don’t make fun of him, he’s just trying to save a few bucks!
“DEMON NUN” SHOOTS
Hi Guys,
We’re just in the beginning phase of shooting our new picture, codenamed “Demon Nun!’
We had a shoot at St. Phillips Episcopal Church in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn last week and it was glorious! We actually made our day! Plus we got to work with a bunch of great extras and our wonderful crew, without whom we’d probably still be out there shooting. (Much thanks Tuesday, Ash, Paul and of course Drew!) Everyone was stupendously talented!
Here’s some shots. We’re doing 4K on the Canon 5D Mark IV and I have to say, I love this camera! Most of these shots are from some protest scenes we shot in front of the church. You can also see one of the church’s beautiful stained glass windows in one of the shots….
Everybody had a blast. Thanks to all for making it a great time!
XOXOXO
Max Dementor
Christina Prostano as our news reporter…
Matthew Edell is James
April Love is Sarah…
Tuesday Shirk and Maria de Jesus Castellon on set
Rebekah and Allison in action…
Maria acting…
Rachel with Rebekah and Ash…
Nick and Rebekah acting…
Nick and Ken acting…
Window at St. Phillips…
All our wonderful extras at the “protest.’ (At least they weren’t protesting the craft services table!)
Gary as Dean
Alla as Alice…
Allegra playing Diane…
Lifeform Trailer is Here! (So is the official film site…)
It’s been a little bit, but here I am to announce the brand new trailer for Lifeform, as well as the official film website for our new horror film. Yay!
http://lifeform.strangewerksfilms.com/
Please, if you haven’t already, check out the site. You can also sign up in order to stay informed about where to view the film when we finally navigate the crazy world of film distribution and hopefully don’t get taken for all we own in the process of said navigation! (Have I said too much?) Thanks ahead of time for signing up!!!
At any rate, I think we’ll share with you while we make this journey, for your edification and our own. To whit: for those who want to learn how to get their film distributed, read on…
The first thing we did was set up the official web site so that potential distributors would have a location they could check out to learn a little about the film, have the opportunity to see the trailer and learn how to contact our company so they could see a screener of the film. A screener is basically a copy of the film that is set up with some type of “copyright protection” on it so that they can watch it and see if they’d be interested in (hopefully) purchasing the film, or (probably) representing it to actual distributors in the U.S. and territories outside the U.S. The copyright protection is basically the words “Property of Strangewerks Films” popping up on the screen every few minutes, so that if some lunkhead in Bangladesh manages to somehow download the film (it’s password protected) he’ll have the annoying words mucking it up. Used to be, you would send actual DVDS out all over the world to try and get people to look at it. Thank God I don’t have to do that anymore, was that a pain!
After this was done, I began the very long process of researching companies on the web to see who might be my target audience–companies that might like to distribute indie horror films–and who in that company, usually someone in “acquisitions”, would be my intended contact person.
You can do a search on “horror films,” terms like that and it may lead you to a blog where somebody has posted a list of horror film distributors. This has proved fruitful. So has iMDB Pro. It’s a great tool for getting email addresses and contact people. However, many times it’s not up to date. Don’t be afraid to extrapolate an address, based on the email info on iMDB. Try adding “acquisitions” @blah blah company.com–sometimes it will work.
I think it’s just a matter of emailing as many of these companies as you possibly can. Don’t be afraid to hit them all really. You never know who has a subdivision that does lower profile films. (They might not want to post them on iMDB Pro, only their big studio pictures–the cowards!)
You’ll definitely get acquisitions people contacting you for the link to your screener. I’ve received quite a number of requests so far and I’ll let you know how it goes. Later!
Tentacle Hand From Hell!
So okay, genetic manipulation is bad. Don’t take my friggin’ word for it. Just see for yourself:
Here’s some pics of the Ethan Monster’s gnarled tentacle hand from the film Lifeform…
Basically, it’s a silicone glove the performer slips on. There’s a wire inside the tentacle to help it hold whatever positions we put it into. (Mostly strangling people.)
Below are a couple of in-production pics for the tentacle. The first one shows us filling the hollow latex tentacle with Smooth-On FlexFoam-It. Very messy process, but it was a lot of fun watching it foam out of the pour hole.
Below is the finished silicone tentacle, removed from its mold. You can see the foam filling coming out the back
After this we attached it to the silicone glove at the joint we molded into the glove. Then it was painted with FuseFX platinum silicone paint and Psycho Paint. It was a blast being able to cut loose and be creative with the makeup. Nobody really does practical monster makeup for features, or so it seems these days.
Just one of the many crazy monster makeups we did for the shoot! (Actors Ree Merrill and Adam Cerny goofing around on set with aforementioned tentacle…)
Mutated Monster Face…
Now that our horror feature film Lifeform is about to be released, I thought it would be cool to show some of the many horror special effects makeups we created for it. (Too many if you ask my wife!)
We figured we’d have at least two creatures in the film–one is the main creature played by Virginia Logan and the other is the son of the villain, who is played by Adam Cerny. For him, we thought we’d have some crazy face mutation as well as a mutated monster hand. In this piece, we’ll show some of the steps involved in creating the face prothetic.
Here’s a shot of the face sculpture, you can see where we tried to work some tentacles in. Everyone knows tentacles are what’s best in life, after laying wasted to your enemies, listening to the lamentations of their girlfriends, etc. etc.
After sculpting it, I had Anthony Jones cast it in Rebound from Smooth-On and make the mother mold for it. Then he casted the piece in silicone, also from Smooth-On. Don’t remember which one. He did a great job. All the details were perfectly transferred to the piece.
After that, Christine painted it with silicone paint. She’s an artist, so of course she did a smashing job of bringing out the fine details (and she has not coerced my admiration for her work in any way!)
Here it is on Adam. He did a great job of acting out the part of a mutant freak! Though he really doesn’t look that happy, in fact he looks a little annoyed. The things you have to do for showbiz…
The top shot is from the film set…looks pretty awesome especially with creature contacts. He gets to strangle people with his mutant tentacle hand too, a pretty standard horror movie convention, but still delicious!
GOOD NEWS!
The official trailer for our 2017 horror film “Lifeform” will be dropping next month, along with the official site for the film. “Lifeform” will be available for distributors to pick up at that time as well. We are very excited! (Hopefully you are too. If not, I will personally come over and tap dance for you. Or sing. Depends on my mood.) 
Giving Life to Lifeform…
We’re in the midst of creating 3D animations for our film Lifeform. The software we chose was Blender–a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating visual effects. Here at our studio we’re doing the animation, lighting and compositing. Modeling and rigging were handled by talented Blender vets Kevin Hayes and Nathan Taylor, respectively. At last count there were forty–odd (and we do mean odd) 3D fx shots in the film, which, while it doesn’t sound like a lot, is a HUGE amount of work, not to mention render time. Currently we’re averaging a day-and-a-half to two days of render time per shot, so you can imagine how long it’s taking to wade through the list. Still, it’s worth it when you see the results… One of the more interesting facts is that you actually output the animation as a series of still images, .pngs, which you then import into Aftereffects, in order to create an entire animation, who’d have figured that? When we designed the actual creature, I was looking to invest attributes from actual creatures in nature, in order to give it a more authentic feel. Some dinosaur plating here, some praying mantis there, a scorpion tail over here… Now we’re trying to emulate some of the physical movements these creatures make in the real world to bring the illusion home.
One tip I would give to any fledgling animators: don’t forget to use the animation curves to smooth out the model’s movements. You can use the bezier tools to make them less “roller-coaster” like–some of mine were looking like the Cyclone at Coney Island before I smoothed them out!
The goal is to finish all the 3D shots in the next few months and then on to color correcting and sound mix! Ugh…
Here’s an effects clip from Lifeform that features Virginia Logan. She looks chilling in this clip! Good job Virginia!
We’re hard at work creating a whole lot of Blender creature effects for the film, just like the multi-tentacle effect here, in addition to a ton of AfterEffects work by some talented people. The goal is to be finished with post within the next three months so we can get started on even more macabre madness!
Mutant Monster Tentacle Attack Scene!
Presented for your edification: a partially completed tentacle attack scene featuring Virginia Logan suddenly sprouting mutant monster tentacles from out of her back and molesting attacking Peter Alexandrou–and who can blame her really? It was a long day on set, afterall. Everyone was cranky!
Actually, we’ve been using Blender to create 3D animated tentacles for these shots. Then we bring them into AfterEffects and combine them with a matte created in Mocha (sounds like we’re making boozy drinks here!) and, voila: instant monster tentacles! Actually, it’s not that instantaneous, but it’s very gratifying to see one’s vision of tentacular (is that a real word?) homicide come to life before one’s eyes.
We combined the computer tentacles with some practical ones on set. For these, we actually had to do reverse shots, which involved wrapping the silicone prop tentacle (made from Smooth-On’s Dragon Skin silicone product) around the actor’s wrists or ankles, greasing them up with KY (who says sets are no fun?) and pulling them off while filming. Then in Final Cut Pro, we reversed these shots so they looked like the tentacles were wrapping around his limbs. I was pleased with how seemless these shots turned out.
What do you think?
tentacle test from Brian Schiavo on Vimeo.
Cyber Brain Machine Props…
Recently I got a call from Drew Bellware at Pandora Machine. For his latest film–starrring one of my favorite actresses–Kate Britton— he wanted some type of consciousness transference device, that would enable a person to download themselves into an android body. Not having one on hand, I was forced to construct said device from scratch–with no time or no real budget–as usual! Fortunately, I had a bunch of vacuum tubes laying around that I’d bought on ebay years ago and never had the chance to use. I love vacuum tubes, they add an arcane tech feel, especially when used in conjunction with new sci fi tech. Just feels French for some reason–there’s a certain “je ne se quois” about it, which means “I would like my croissant toasted and dipped in curdled goat’s milk.” So after a trip to the Depo for parts, I came up with this. Hope you like it:
I had to make two of them, one for the user and another for the android to wear….
We also had to have some kind of control base–which I had no idea for. No clue. As I was wracking my brain and walking down Third Ave, I looked down and saw a big, disgustingly dirty fan someone had unceremoniously dumped in the street–lighting struck. That was what I’d build the thing around! I carted it home, threw it in a plastic bag for fear of BEDBUGS and eventually got around to taking it apart. Threw some parts on it including popsicle molds, a spark plug cleaner, a base from a Babylon 5 doll, some volume control knobs, etc., along with some lights I rigged on the inside and –voila! A conscious transferral device. Looks great in moody lighting, don’t you think?
Tentacle action
Hazzah! Here’s a first-ever attempt at Blender animation on my part. It’s a tentacle that’s going to be used in our feature film Lifeform. (Still in Post!) It’s not perfect, you can see a light panel in back and the thing goes out of sight at the end, but I think it looks pretty cool. I have to thank a number of people for helping me get to this point, including Nathan Taylor, who rigged it, Kevin Hays, who was the modeler and Drew Bellware, who actually told me I had to skin the darn thing with the texture files and showed me how to do it. Couldn’t do it without them and their impressive talents!
Various animations of the tentacle will the composited into scenes with Virginia Logan as she “monsters out” and attacks people with tentacles coming out of her…back–just her back, I swear. What do you think this is? Species?
I wish we had their budget, or Natasha Henstridge. Heck, I’d settle for a 8 1/2 by 11 glossy of H.R. Giger at this point. Probably give me nightmares though.
One neat tutorial I looked at, regarding working with the Cycles render engine is located at Blender Guru. Andrew’s site has many great tutorials wherein he takes his time to actually show you how to do things and he’s a really nice guy as well. One of the neat things about Cycles is that you can use a mesh plane as a light. He says it works better than a regular lamp object, as a light source. So, I used a few planes to light it.
Nate is rigging a few more models for us and I can’t wait to see how great these things animate! Thanks guys!
Here’s my test animation:
Playing With Monster Models…
Below, you can see a 3D Blender model that was created for our new film by Kevin Hays, of the Colorado Hays. Kevin took a few concept sketches that I threw at him and came up with this great design. We really appreciate all the hard work and effort that went into its creation. We’ll be adding the creature to the film shortly, after we have it rigged, then animated, lit and composited…whew! Can’t wait to see this thing wrecking havoc onscreen.
Here are some other views of the creature. We decided to go with Blender after Andrew Bellware convinced us about it. It’s free to download!
Additionally, here are some of the sketches I gave to Kevin…
Kevin’s model will really accentuate all the practical effects we did in the film and take it up a few hundred notches or so. Many thanks Kev!
Tentacles
We’re well into post on Lifeform, halfway through the second edit and just beginning the CG effects work. The first step of course, is getting the actual models. (We’ve decided to work in Blender because it’s a free, open-sourced 3-D animation program.) Below you can see a picture of the silicone stunt tentacle that we actually used on set when strangling any and all recalcitrant actors, God love ’em!
However, we still need shots of the tentacle doing things we couldn’t get an actual physical prop to do, like emerge from a mutant woman’s back, flail about in midair, pour a cocktail, do transwarp drive computations, all kinds of stuff like that, so that’s where a computerized version comes in. Below is a picture of our brand new CG tentacle model, which was created by Kevin Hays, a very talented young blender modeler, who hails from Colorado. Don’t know how he had the time to do this between all the wildfires and shootings, but he did and he did a magnificent job! Once it’s rigged, animated and lit, it will be composited into footage so it can properly terrorize our ensemble.
Babes And Blood on Long Island…!
Not. Safe. For Work–I warned you.
Okay, so in-between actually editing our film “Lifeform,” we’ve been putting together two shoots, for additional scenes. Now, the reason for this, I could say, is to add an additional layer of narrative in order to make the film more complex and add more dramatic depth, but the truth is, I just wanted to add more crazy, blood-curdling monster-lovin’ mayhem! Also more beautiful women. Hey, Shakespeare wrote for the groundlings folks, don’t kid yourselves. There’s more stabbings in his work than the average episode of CSI. You know you love it…I just deliver the goods, okay? So, no mea culpas coming from this part of the neighborhood. But I digress…
Yes, in order to add a denser layer of narrative complexity, we went ahead and sculpted a scalping wound for our aforementioned beautiful actresses’ to wear. You can see a few shots of the piece after it was created and we were in the process of adding hair to the gelatin piece–oh yeah, I cast it out of gelatin, the same stuff Bill Cosby used to sell on TV. The great thing about this stuff is that it’s cheap, it looks good on camera and you can re-melt it in your microwave to use it again. We all had Jello Puddin’ Pops after the shoot!
Here’s the effect on the very talented Tatyana Kot–she’s the new screen queen on the block. Our shadowy beast tracks her down and for some reason feels the need to rip her dress off and then pull her scalp off. Hey, it happened in Macbeth didn’t it? Or was it The Merchant of Venice, I can’t remember… All kidding aside, the scene worked like a charm. Tatyana was a consummate professional and Miranda Kahn, who played the creature did a great job. Both are wonderful actresses! The end effect is absolutely chilli
ng.
The next weekend, we shot more mayhem, this time with Tatyana and Jacklyn Sokol in an earlier portion of the scene, as drunken debutantes on their way home, before the assault. Both women were great and…Jackie got to wear a similar headpiece as well–the beast apparently hates blondes. Who can blame it? Thanks to makeup artist Meraly Lopez and Christine Russo for painting and applying the pieces. Also, thanks to Josh Barbour, for helping me crew the shoot!
We also shot scream queen Christina Wood and Tom Rowen’s sequence. They play a pair of lovers caught in the beast’s crosshairs–just like in Hamlet when…aw forget it…
Insect Attack!
One of the problems with having downtime between shoots is that your mind has time to wander down crazy little alleyways and come up with incredible special effects you’re going to actually find a way to implement somehow. For instance, when we decided we had throw in another monster effect because, gee, the film only has about five hundred-or-so scenes of monster disembowlment, we thought: “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if our mutating heroine grows a giant bug arm and kills a hooker with it?” Of course it would be cool!
But…how to create said bug arm for our actress–the talented Virginia Logan–to go haywire with? Why the Old School Way, of course! The following shots give you an idea of the process….
First we sculpted a likeness of a bug arm out of plasticene clay, on top of an arm cast of an actress we had in the workshop…
Next, I cast the sculpt in a two-piece ultracal plaster mold….
The key to a successful casting is keeping the first coat of Ultracal thin enough to get all the crazy detail sculpted into the piece–after that you can go crazy with the burlap and Ultracal…
The next step involved slip casting the mold, once it was strapped together tightly. We used rubber mask molding latex–I think it’s #8–which is readily available at The Complete Sculptor here in NYC.
We ultimately did three layers of latex in the mold and used a blow dryer to dry each coat. The picture shows the piece after it was removed from the mold.
Finally, it was painted black, with bug green highlights. For the actual shoot we slathered onplenty of KY jelly, which brought out some nice highlights once it was lit properly. You can see the arm below, on-set, ready for crazy, bugf*ck action…
And here it is, poised for hapless victim slicing action…
In the final shot, Virginia is bringing her chitin insectoid arm to vibrant “life!”
Interestingly, we found an actual praying mantis on set late in the summer and I took a bunch of snapshots of the creature. The actors gave it a pet name at the time, but I can’t remember what it was. It wasn’t too happy to have me pointing the camera lens at it, I remember. I wonder how much this influenced our thinking processes?
It’s Alive!
Recently we had the opportunity to create a monster suit for our newest production, Lifeform. The actual application was the culmination of many months of work. First, we started out with some pre-production drawings like the one attached here.
You can see in the illustration that the creature’s head is actually pretty beastial and less humanoid than the final product–due to the fact that we had to fit it to the actresses’ actual face–oh well…!
After deciding on a general look, we broke the design down in our brains–how were we going to end up building this thing and getting it on the actress? We decided to go with a multi-appliance approach–crafting numerous pieces out of silicone or latex and gluing them right on her. There were gloves with claws cast from resin, there were arm pieces that would attach to the top of her arms, there would be a chest piece, a head piece and finally, upper and lower face pieces.
First, I sculpted each and every piece from plasticene, using body casts we had taken of an actress, as the base on which to sculpt them. This took a little while, since there were numerous pieces that were going to be required, but it turned out to be worth it when we saw the final product.
After the pieces were sculpted, we cast them, sometimes in Rebound, in the case of pieces we were going to create in silicone, such as the arms, hands and face, or in plaster, for pieces we were going to create in latex, as a cost-cutting measure. These were the chest and head pieces, which were huge.
We had Anthony Jones, a very experienced mold maker, cast them in Ultracal plaster.(I still don’t know where I’m gonna put these monster molds. They’re doubling as a coffee table and a futon in my tiny apartment!)
Then he slip molded the pieces, creating a top layer of latex by pouring mask making latex #80 in the molds, gradually building up several layers. Once that was done, he created an inner layer of foam to give the pieces shape and definition. He did a great job as you can see below.
After that, Christine painted them, doing a boffo job as usual! She used PAX paint on the latex pieces and FuseFX and Psycho paint, Sil-Pig brand pigments on the silicone pieces. She really brought them to life by painted on a dark base and lighter-colored highlights, as you can see in these pictures.
Finally, the day of truth–shoot day. If anyone really believes making movies is a glamorous past-time, let me shatter your misconception for you. We had to bring the actress in SIX HOURS early, so that Christine and Ciara Rose Griffin, another talented makeup artist, could put it all together and turn the very talented Virginia Logan into a hideous creature.
They painstakingly glued everything to her with Skin-tite and Prosaide, skillfully blending all the pieces together as they went along. It was a torturous process for Virginia to undergo, but she held up like the complete trooper she is!
Finally, here she is, along with FX contacts and monster teeth, wrecking mayhem on the set!
We’ll probably add some CG enhancements to make her even more horrible, twitching tentacles, that sort of thing.
See the gallery below for more pictures of the whole process…
Medical MisAdventures
So Sunday we had a crazy day shooting in Voorhees, NJ at a plastic surgeon’s office. We braved a two hour drive through the pouring rain, Burger King breakfast food and hospital booties (the ones you pull on your feet,okay?) in order to shoot some complicated hospital scenes. 
Also, there was a life signs monitor that Virginia Logan was attached to that keep beeping and telling us she was no longer respiring. I think it was a malfunction because as of today she was still walking around and making lascivious comments! 
Anyway, we made most of our day and then we nearly hydroplaned on a sharp turn into two other cars that had already spun off the road. 
Somehow I was able to channel my mad driving skills and turned into two skids, all the while holding one cup of coffee, thereby avoiding the upset-looking Hindu woman we were skidding towards. 
The gods of filmmaking were with us on the that day, I can tell you! All in all, adventures like this are the thing I like least about filmmaking. Still, it does build nerves of steel, if one survives the ordeal. Indie filmmaking is rarely pretty, rarely glamorous and always an adventure….
strangewerksfilms
IN THE WERKS 