Home  l  Gallery  l  Behind The Scenes  l F.A.Q.s 
  Guest Book  l  Anarchy Zone  l  CV  l  Links  l  Contact

For British effects artists, one welcome trend in recent years has been the increase in film production in Eastern Europe. Previously most of us were doomed to spend our careers toiling in grimy industrial estates in West London. Now, the opportunity to work in a beautiful city like Prague instead is commonplace, and life is all the better for it! I was invited out to the Czech capital for the third time during summer 2004 to sculpt prosthetics for the film Running Scared.

The first task our department was charged with was devising the 'beaten up' look for the lead character. The final result amounted to next to nothing, three or four little gelatin appliances. But an enormous amount of pussyfooting around went into getting there.

Dave Monzingo spent weeks doing Photoshop treatments, and I painted up three heads like the one on the right: plaster lifecasts of the actor with Chavant wounds modelled on by original makeup effects supervisor Brian Wade.

Like I said, none of this work was ever meant to make it to the screen. They were purely visual aids to help the director make up his mind about the look he wanted. Yes, the director, the gentleman hired for his clear vision and strong imagination. Below, Fraulein Sylvia Graefke does her level best to expose my work for the phoney sham it is.

A fake chest I sculpted for a bullet-through-the-heart effect. The sculpture was duplicated in thin foam latex and positioned over the actor's real chest, concealing a blood-spurting contraption that would pop and spray and generally simulate an gunshot entry wound. You can see the thinking behind it on the right: compressed air runs up a tube to blow guts and goo outwards from the circular chamber.

In hindsight, I probably modelled the chest to look too buff. Not that I suppose the actor objected.

Conal Palmer, Ross Tallent - and some I.R.A. cosplay

On set, the whole thing ended up being a bit of nightmare. The director changed his mind about the position and number of bullet wounds, meaning the chest had to be chopped, changed and jerry-rigged to meet his requirements. That's the problem with practical gags: for an effect to really reach its full potential, filmmakers have to make a decision early in the day and then stick to it.

The whole sequence would've been better done digitally, in my opinion... but of course no-one in the makeup effects crew would ever suggest that, in case they talked themselves out of a job.

For whatever slow-witted reason, the workshop space arranged for us was on the ground floor of a residential building, with people's homes above us. You had to feel for the neighbours in this place. Our working day saw us carrying out all the usual chemical mixing and fibreglass mouldmaking; but on top of that we were also conducting tests on various bullet-hit rigs. So not only were we offending the noses and ears of the folks next door with endless resin fumes and drilling, we were offending their eyes as well by wandering out into the communal back yard and casually blasting bloody chunks out of each other! What can I say, except I'm sorry - it wasn't my choice!

We did end up weeing on our own doorstep eventually though. Matthias Butt and Svea Uellendahl built an foam oven large enough to take creature suit-sized moulds, and did an excellent job. However, we soon found out that the heating elements we'd had sent over from the U.K. were never going to get that big space hot enough to do the trick. Our only option? To use the domestic oven in our apartment, filling the place with that distinctive latex aroma of ammonia/rotten fish. So there was some poetic justice doing the rounds before the job was out.

Some odds and ends: on the right, the sculpture used to create a 'bitten ear' prosthetic. The pictures that I saw from on set made it look like someone just got a spoonful of raspberry jam and flicked it at the actor's ear - but here's the photographic proof that we did make the proper effort.

Below, my magnificent 'shotgun exit wound' creation. When I'm lying on my deathbed and people are asking me if I have any regrets, I'll tell them just one - that I didn't find some little plastic spacemen to populate this picture:

One afternoon, we learned that Brian Wade, our supervisor, had, ahem, "been relieved of his duties". Neil Morrill had been jockeying for pole position since the pre-production days (in a fairly cut-throat and ruthless manner, in my opinion...) and got his wish. However, this was when the weirdness started. It was felt by the powers that be that perhaps sufficient ill-feeling had built up to prompt Brian to show up at the workshop, leading to an awkward confrontation.

The solution of all solutions? They posted a 24-hour security guard on the door brandishing a nightstick, and ther issued us crewmembers with a special secret password to get past said guard unmolested. To continue the overkill, we also had to cover up the windows, Night Of The Living Dead style, in case Brian should pop up outside and leer in. Fairly silly... and of course, nothing remotely of the kind ever happened. The film industry loves its drama. I don't miss that nonsense one bit.

The Terminator. Yep, nothing fishy here

With a new sheriff in town, the way some effects were handled changed at short notice. For example, a sequence where a gangster receives a fatal shotgun blast to the head: the original plan was to built the performer's face up and out with a prosthetic piece and then tear away at this excess to create the damage. (They did this in the first Terminator film, and we all remember how flawless that illusion was, eh, kids?)

However, the new regime decided that a more effective, splashier approach would be just to make a fake head and then spectacularly blow it apart. The problem? The actor had already had his head cast for the prosthetics fitting and had no inclination to repeat the process. So we were stuck with a lifecast with a neutral expression that in no way suggested, "AAARGH, I'M BEING SHOT POINT-BLANK IN THE FACE". Jump to it, sculptor boy.

A real rush job ensued - I had to resculpt the head in the afternoon and then fly back to London the next morning - but it turned out decent enough considering.

A few of the lovely and glamorous
Running Scared prosthetics team. And Neil Morrill.
(L to R: 'Long Distance' Klara Varadi, The Morrill, Sarah Wirtz,
Sandy Sauerwein, Sylvia Graefke, Nicola Pandel)






I saved the best pictures for last. Due to cash-flow difficulties and mismanagement, it somehow fell to me - the last of the U.K. crew to leave British soil to begin the job - to shop for most of the workshop equipment and materials for the project mere days before I was due to fly out. (I have to say, I was mightily unimpressed by this at the time. Don't forget, I was hired as a sculptor. Imagine being invited to a dinner party and then having the hosts say, "oh, and would you mind going to the supermarket to buy all the food on your way over?" Ahhhh well, never mind.)

To cut a long story short, the materials budget was sent over to London in cash via Western Union. At one point I had about seven grand in notes at my house. I started off being very responsible and organised, with all the money counted out into round hundreds and neatly bundled up with rubber bands. Then one night I was in the pub with Justin Pitkethley, and he said, "Nah nah nah, you've got to take a picture like in the movies, with all the money spread out on the bed!" You know what? Justin was right.

OK: so who likes BEER,
ICE CREAM and VIDEO GAMES?

I can't leave this topic without thanking Mike Measimer - a past Millennium FX-er who recommended me in the first place - and Justin Neal at MouldLife. Justin saved our skins so much on this job that we probably owe him a square yard or two. Please visit his website and buy lots of stuff, because he deserves to spend his retirement on a beach somewhere.