As many of you may have read, I had the chance to venture into the world of the weird and wonderful this Sunday at ‘The Prosthetics Event’ held at the Aston Conference Centre and descend into the world of movie make up, animatronics, body casts, dentures and more! I went alongside two of my good friends who worked on ‘Conflicted Mind’ with me and will be working with me on future projects, Kirsty McNamara and Natasha Cleverley, who are both talented make up artists.
Now I bet your wondering to yourself, why would someone who wants to be a Director/Producer want to go to an event about the art of make up and prosthetics? Well, in my mind originally it had been to simply get a better understanding of this particular department of the film industry; its limitations, its advantages over cgi and simply to see if I could gleam some inspiration. It then rapidly evolved into a little side project after I booked out a camera and with the help of a tutor and my friends assistance, I gathered a shoulder mount and audio recorder. It was an ideal time to practice my camera work and later my adobe premiere editing skills (stay tuned for a video!). But then, as I travelled my way through the masses in the conference centre I quickly discovered that it had so much more to offer than I had expected.
They were all joined at the event by Spencer Wilding, well known for his acting work in films and TV shows such as The Wolfman, Batman Begins, Game of Thrones and most recently Guardians of the Galaxy, the latter being a heavy influence on the events proceedings. He talked particularly in depth about his experiences on the set of The Wolfman and how his first test make up session took between 9 to 10 hours. He discussed how the amazing work created by people of the trade really helped him to zone into the character he was playing, so much so that he literally felt that he was the Wolfman, and told of how he prowled the set sensing the fear of the crew. I tried to find a video of Spencer behind set on one of the films in which he was in make up but all I found was this scene of him in the film Green Street 3.
We also were treated to a lecture from Chris Clarke who works as a Animatronics specialist and has contributed to films such as Alien vs Predator, Resident Evil, Harry Potter and War Horse. He spoke to us about the sheer detail that has to go into the design and concept of these sometimes gigantic animatronics, in particular he showed us a number of examples from the film war horse and detail that had to go into the design of the horses nuzzle to give it the realism the film required. He was then joined by an actor who was put into a large orangutang suit with an animatronic face and lips that he could control from remote. The orangutang then proceeded to terrorise the audience and staff alike. This was perhaps the field I knew the least about and was quite interesting to learn about, below is a video shown to us of the workings of the horse.
We were also treated to a live demo by host to the event Neill Gorton of a ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ themed prosthetics application accompanied with a talk about the use of dentures and another about the use of contacts for film use. This was actually a really interesting talk as the three present spent a lot of time talking about their experiences of working on film sets and the very real dangers of the use of make up in films. I was particularly captured at some of the names of projects they had worked on and were currently working on, such names as; Star Wars VII, Dr Who and Saving Private Ryan really revved my engine and it was so painful to hear them say that they really couldn’t disclose any details about their current or future projects. The end result of Neill Gorton’s make up design took a little over an hour and despite him stating that the design was by no means an examples of his full talent, looked absolutely sublime. The day was rounded off with a really nice interview with David White who is a really brilliant established make up artist famous for working on so many projects such as Captain America: The First Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Maleficent, Guardians of the Galaxy, Blade II and Walking with Cavemen. The interview was a really nice round up to the day that opened up into a Q&A session. The interview really highlighted the inner working of the make up department of the film industry and its relationship with other departments within the business. Overall I could write on and on about all the amazing things I have seen, but surely you’d rather wait and see the video, to behold the bizarreness with your own eyes. Watch this space!
The Journey Begins 