Blog Archives
Byker Grove
Sadly the long running, award winning programme is no longer on our screens but the hit TV show was my training ground for television.
My first job was to help out the art department as a prop maker and scenic artist back on seasons 7 and 8. My first role was to create tag/street art for the mischeivous character Terry, who got up to no end of trouble leaving his mark, ‘Godzilla!’ on the streets of Newcastle.
Later I was trained up as a set dresser and eventually an art director for seasons 9 and 10. Byker Grove was a popular and fast moving childrens drama, the script threw many challenges and with the help of an experienced and friendly crew we met those challenges head on.
Wire in the Blood
The hit ITV series from Coastal Productions, “Wire in the Blood” showcased a number of grizzly scenarios and stories. My involvement came in season six when I was asked to create three mutilated suitcase victims.
In the story the bodies are discovered inside suitcases with their limbs hacked off, I guess they just don’t make suitcases big enough for serial killers these days! Then the mutilated corpses where thrown into a lake with the hope that they’ll never be seen again. Unfortunately for the killer but fortunately for me the bodies are discovered and I was given the task to realise their horrid demise and I had only a short amount of time to do it.
I began the job by doing research, what does a body look like after its been mutilated and thrown into a lake for several months? Well I found my answer from some rather disgusting images care of the pathology department. With research in hand, I drew up some designs and discussed the look of the corpses with the art department, who adviced me on just how grotesque to go with our poor victims.
So based on those instructions I set about creating the bodies by taking life casts from some very helpful volunteers. From those casts I created sculptures of the dead victims before making moulds and eventually the silicone castings.
The silicone rubber was pre-pigmented before applying into the mould, building up translucent layers one at a time. The bodies where then fitted with a wooden skeleton and filled with an expandable polyurethane foam.
The final bits to add was some congielled blood, gooey stuff to make the skin appear slimey and of course finished off with wigs and hair. NASTY!
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.
Ghost Street
The award winning short film GhostStreet was the brain child of Newcastle upon Tyne based production company Dene Films.
The film tells the story of the supernatural and other worldly events that a girl experiences after she is knocked over by a speeding motorist when making her way to school.
The film featured a number of make-up challenges which where designed and created by leading make-up artist Michael Birtley. Knowing that he had a huge workload and wanting to do something spectacular Michael gave me the call to help him create the ‘skater boy’ make-up effect.
So I helped Michael take a lifecast of the young actor, Lee Fox Williams. from that I sculpted up the face appliance that was later cast from gelatine. I then assisted Michael to apply the make-up, additional cuts and grazes were created with the use of Bondo, a mixture of Pros-aide adhesive and Cabosil.
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.
League of Gentlemen
The hit BBC series The League of Gentlemen offered up many special effect challenges, some very disturbing others barely noticeable.
My most memmorable effects where realised through the poor mishaps of Mr Chinnery the Royston Vasey vet. From exploding tortoises to farting dogs, many animals sadly met their end to the caring and sympathetic hands of Mr Chinnery, played wonderfully by Mark Gatis.
However their was more than just veterinary mishaps for our effects team to contend with, we burned down the local shop, created storms over the visiting Papa Lazaroo’s travelling Fair, built man traps and provided the jokeshop with some deadly surprises to name but a few.
I began work on the League of Gentlemen when I was working for Emergency House Special Effects in Yorkshire back in 1999. Where has all the time gone? I was fresh off the Byker Grove programme still young and impressionable and admittingly pretty green, basically very unprepaired to take on the mountain of work that included modelmaking, atmospherics and fire effects.
Thankfully I had two very calm and experienced special effect supervisors to help with the physical effect gags, Evan Green-Hughes and Stephen Breheney, but it was with the modelmaking, the area of work that I enjoy most that I learned so much from doing. I admit, some illusions came of flawlessly, and others were well..take 2.
The League of Gentlemen was a wonderful working experience, one I’d hope to have again, and in their very own words it was “a f**king pleasure.”
Centre for Life
I was asked to create an Alien for the Newcastle based production company Superkrush to be filmed as part of a promotional advert for Centre of Life, an award-winning science centre full of exciting exhibitions, activities and events for all ages.
The model alien was sculpted, moulded and cast from silicone in just two days. The brief was to have an alien model that at first would appear to be real, but as the camera pulls away we see it as a floppy doll being played with by excited children visiting the Life Centre.
Soft Prey
Soft Prey is a short film directed by Nick Evans. It’s more of a comedy sketch and after reading the script I fell in love with the surreal nature and humour of the film.
My role was to create the ‘Soft Prey’ from which the film takes its title. Being more of a costuming job than a special effect it did offer up several challenges such as how to build a huge rubber suit which can one emcompass an actor and two appear at times to be two dimensional.