... not.
Saturday and Sunday we did some shooting on the movie, attendance optional. But I went because, frankly, I was needed.
Did a buttload of dead makeup, did some effects (I think we shot a car and made gas pour out of the tank). And, ummm, maybe we shot Tall Matt. I don't remember -- it all runs together after a while. I suppose I could consult my notes, but they are at home.
Anyway.
I did get home by 6:00pm on Sunday. So that's something.
Monday, no shooting! So I stayed home with Nik and we experimented with brain cannon squibs.
It took hours of experimentation, but we did finally converge on a good brain cannon design. We also rejected many other designs, some of which really showed good promise in theory.
I love theory.
We used the same triangular packets, folded from vinyl gloves, as used in the dry hits. For this application, we duct-taped a short PVC tube over the blowout window, pack it with some cooked oatmeal lightly stirred with blood, and then seal the opening of THIS with the thumb of another glove.
Looks pretty darned good. Shoots a chunk of brain up to ten feet or so (at 5' altitude) and gives a spurt of blood with it.
Marla proclaimed our bloody brain chunks in the lawn to be truly disgusting. Which they were.
Hmmmm. I also laid up, and cast half of, the stomach. And then I ran out of plaster.
Tuesday was a bit more of the same. More brain cannon tests. A run to a bunch of stores to pick up supplies, including plaster. I laid up the heart, which was a huge pain since it's a very complicated model.
I have three blocks to cast still, but that's almost trivial. I may do that tonight.
Ooh! I did some tests, starting last Thursday and continuing into Tuesday, on the Eating Jim leg. Had a few failures. Was NOT happy with the final successful cast, it was flawed in many ways.
But, fiddling with it, I think I came up with a good way to do the gag. These pictures just hint at it, because frankly, I was just screwing around here (and the muscles have already been cut out, and so forth):
(warning, big pictures)
www.simreal.com/deadbacks/index.html
And I got to do housework Tuesday, too! Woo! Laundry and catboxes and I don't know what all! So exciting.
One thing I didn't get to do was relax. Okay, Monday we went to Michelle's and played Ninja Burger for a few hours, so that was actually fun and relaxing.
So, three hours of real downtime across a four day weekend. That's good, right?
(I know I sound like I'm complaining, and in a way I am because I'm tired, but I also love the work... it's fun!)
Posted by Edwin at July 6, 2005 10:06 AM