Tag Archives: Cinema
Zombie Women of Satan
Gore galore was created for the Comedy Horror “Zombie Women of Satan” which was written and directed by Warren Speed.
Lets be honest this is a film for the boys who like nothing better than to crack open a beer, sit with a curry and to leave their BRAINS on the door step.
This was the first feature film that I had the opportunity to supervise both the physical effect gags and the make-up effects. It involved two mad weeks of pre-production, working out of a small dusty room with my good friend and artist Jez Hunt. We created a whole variety of effects from duplicating weapons such as knives, golf clubs and baseball bats, to making and applying the gory appliances for the many silly if not horrific sequences.
We used every cheap gag that we could think of, the budget was low but the effort was huge. Many effects worked out wonderfully, inevitably some however were less successful but strangely added to the comedy. The film truly was a baptism of fire for all involved.
Dense Fear
This was a project that I decided to take on purely on the bases that I have always wanted to create a werewolf.
Dense Fear and Dense Fear 2 are both written and directed by Newcastle born Tony Gardener. The films have become a labour of love for Tony which he has been making over several years. Much of the film Dense Fear 2 had been shot before I became involved. I originally was going to supply Tony with a few simple make-ups and a werewolf puppet head that I had sculpted for a personal project several years earlier.
However publicity got involved, professional film making friends took an interest and became involved and suddenly I was nolonger just doing a few bits and bobs, I was now creating a full transformation on a very low budget.
Impossible? Realistically yes, but if you’re willing to put in the time (5 months unpaid evening work) the impossible for low budget films became possible and Tony got to reshoot his transformation. The full sequence will be showcased on here soon…I hope 🙂 Hurry up Tony and finish the film.
Below you can see ‘The Making of’ film, and some workshop images, cheers guys!
Making of Dense Fear Transformation sequence from Fantome Line on Vimeo.
Some making of pictures!
GRP moulds before cleaning, to be ready to fill with silicone gell.
The appliance sculpture.
The first puppet head
Underskull and crude mechanics.
Here it is….this is the graded version to match Tony’s film, their is a higher resolution version on Vimeo which I hope to add in the future.
Their is a load of things I’d do differently next time should I be lucky enough to get the chance, from better materials, better hair work, better this and better that. Hope you enjoyed and you can see Tony’s full length feature on YouTube.
Bogeyman
The Bogeyman film was my first attempt at writing and directing. It worked on some levels and not so well on others, but it was a great learning experience.
As well taking on the directorial duties I also created the fiendish title creature, but in hindsight, if I was ever to direct again, and indeed I hope I do, I’d leave the FX duties to a trusted colleague.
Amongst the things that I created were prosthetic make-ups; a puppet version of the bogeyman; a sand effigy of the lead child actress as well as some set pieces and props…I was busy.
I’d like to reshoot the film one day, but next time without all the compromises that we had to make for such a low budget venture, but with all the exciting effects tricks that I had originally planned.
Oceanic
Oceanic is a dark twisted horror directed by Michael Pentney back in 2005. It starred the now late Iain Etchells and his multi tallented brother Neil for whom we aged to appear as Iain’s older self. This was the first project that I joined creative forces with Jez Hunt, we have since worked on many short films together including two features creating all kinds of weird, strange and surreal effects.
Oceanic was also the first project that I successfully used silicone to replicate human skin and it also started a creative working relationship which continues to this day with Alex Nichol, Michael Pentney and Jez Hunt.