Tag Archives: Short Film
EXHIBITS: proof of concept
Back in February, I made a low budget demon character designed by Paul Gerrard for the forthcoming horror anthology Exhibits!
I was assisted by the extremely talented Juliette Savannah Skye to apply the make up in what turned out to be very difficult conditions..the joys of micro budgets!
However filming went smoothly under the direction of Mike Clarke and I look forward to see the results.
The short is referred to as ‘a proof of concept’ with the hope it will inspire investors to get involved, so watch this space.
One More Day
This is a wonderful short film that was adapted and directed by the very talented young film maker Alex Nichol. The film is an emotional little drama with a healthy dose of the blackest of humour. It is based on a short three panel cartoon created by the genius of Nicholas Gurewitch.
I had great fun creating the production design for the short, finding suitable prop items, creating the illusion of a real fire and providing the simple make-up. Even the grave stone is fake. Enjoy.
Together
I provided some nasty ‘out of the kit’ make up effects for newcomer James Cook’s psychological horror “Together”.
My involvement came late in the shoot of this new short film. I was asked to create two main make-ups. The first being a facial acid burn, the second was to create the effect of letters being carved into the victims skin.
James hopes his film gets to have it’s premiere at the Berlin film festival next year. Fingers crossed that it’s a huge success.
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.
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.