They aren't all horror movies...

Sure, it's fun to make demon books and werewolf teeth, but sometimes these film projects need something a little less monstrous.  The film I'm working on this weekend needed three different, non-copyrighted jars of peanut butter, so I played around in Photoshop and ran off some new labels to fit the jars the director bought.

I like quick projects like this because you get to see the results and move on to the next one.

Pumpkin Practice

Since it came up recently on the CalHauntS NorCal email list, here's a short example of my version of a talking pumpkin with a little glimpse of how it's done. It still needs some polishing, particularly towards the end, but I like the way this looks better than some of the other ones I've seen. It's more how I picture a carved pumpkin would move, and I like that the movements are based on something real, rather than some computer program that analyzes the sound wave.

Oscar-Nominated Makeup Artists 2012

I was once again able to attend *ahem* "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Presents  the 84th Academy Awards Oscar-Nominated Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Symposium."  Nominated this year is Albert Nobbs, The Iron Lady, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

I snapped a few pictures on my cell phone that seemed worth sharing.

These are the gelatin bridge of the nose appliances for Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady.  Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland saved each one from 46 days of shooting to ensure perfect color matches.  Apparently they had a difficult time removing them because the edges were too hard to find.  A good problem to have in my book!

Here you see one of the nose appliances in place on a vacuum formed lifecast of Meryl and, to the left, the positive and negative mold for the piece.

The silicone noses to make actress Alexandra Roach look like a young Meryl Streep.

An unused old age neck appliance for The Iron Lady.  Silicone.

The piece had great detail.  If you've seen the movie, you know how well it moves, too.

Dumbledore's wig and beard.  All the beards are yak hair, and all the wigs are human hair on very, very fine lace.  You couldn't even see the lace up close.  Yes, I did touch them.

Those are the templates for painting on the lightning bolt scar.  They're the only ones in existence, so naturally they've been DNA tagged.  No, really.  

Unfortunately, Warner Bros didn't send the crate of all the Harry Potter prosthetics that Nick Dudman created.  Such a shame.

Oh, one more thing.  We got a surprise visit from Meryl Streep at the Iron Lady panel!

You can watch recordings of the panel discussions at the Academy website here.

Cyborg Eye

I got a call last week from a couple of friends who needed a cyborg eye for a short film.

So I did a quick piece of concept art on a photo of the actress to make sure we were on the same page.

Perhaps you recognize the "eye" as a slightly modified version of the logo for a product by a very...err...powerful company.

I then molded and cast (alginate and plaster of paris, respectively) the area of her face I'd need to work with, since the piece would have to be an exact fit.  You can see where I pencilled out where I thought I would do the sculpt.  That changed a bit once I got in there in three dimensions.

Don't sculpt in white clay.  You can't see what you're doing.  I don't know why I bought it.  That's just some generic brand Sculpey oven bake clay with a glass mancala bead for the "lens."  Because I only had a few days for the project, I wanted to do as little molding and casting as possible, so this would actually become the prosthetic, hence the Sculpey.

What you don't see is that there are two aluminum wires running through the length of the sculpt inside to give it extra strength and that I stuffed aluminum foil in there so that there would be a hollow area around her eye, allowing her to keep her eye open and keeping the piece as light as possible.

It's very difficult to sculpt pristine, machined looking forms, especially with a clay that's soft and rubbery like this, but once it was baked solid, I took a fine grit sandpaper to it, which cleaned things up a little.

Below you see the piece painted and glued on with Pros-Aid.  I'd like to have had a little more time to finesse it all around, but it was a fun project.  Despite all the corner-cutting, I think it turned out fairly well.