Spoiler: The Dog Dies

The monster book in "The Book Eater" eats the dog off camera, so I needed a bloody collar and dog bed.  I used Mehron "3D gel" (useful stuff to have around, though only worth buying if it's from the 90% off post-Halloween sale, as it's dead simple to make) on the collar so it would look wet, but be completely solid so as to not get on the floor of the bookstore in which we were shooting.

I imagine most people reading this blog know that you can't just splatter fake blood all over and be done with it.  The blood has to make sense.  So I asked the director how the dog dies.

The dog is sitting on his dog bed, minding his own business, when the monster book comes out of nowhere and wraps its tentacles around him.
He starts clawing at the bed, trying to wriggle free, and he tears up some of the cushion.
The book tentacles constrict the dog like a python and squeeze him so tightly that he POPS like a water balloon!
Whatever's left gets dragged off the bed and swallowed by the book.

Actually, I think the director just said the bed is torn up and bloody after the book's tentacles constrict the dog... I might've embellished a little.

It's all there.  See it?

My art director actually did most of the dog bed, but for some reason the only pictures are of me... probably because I look the most ridiculous doing it.

More "Book Eater" to come...