I was so happy to be asked to work on this film, "The Girl with the Needle." Really enjoyed it.
My main work on it was a soldier whose face was blown off. This can’t be done solely with makeup effects, so it has to be a combination of VFX and makeup. This…
And this is the makeup, combined with the puppet I made and been digitally put together by Peter Hjort and his team.
This is my first draft of the sculpture, with green in the middle that will be replaced by digital effects. The final puppet will be shown in a later photo.…
Here are some of the prosthetics I made. I made them unusually stiff to make it harder for the actor to move his face, since it was supposed to have a lot of…
For most scenes in the film, he wears a mask that many soldiers wore after World War I to cover their faces. The original masks from the 1920s were made from…
The whole film was shot in black and white, so it was important for me to shoot my paint job in black and white as well, using camera filters so I could see…
This is the mechanical puppet I built and painted green to make it easier for the digital team to remove. I performed every scene immediately after the actor…
You can see the mouth opening a little bit and the fake tongue inside.
Here's our handsome lead actor, Besir Zeciri, before I start torturing him.
When there was no VFX involved, we didn’t use green screen. I painted the middle area black because we knew he’d be covered by the mask most of the time.
When there was no VFX involved, we didn’t use green screen. I painted the middle area black because we knew he’d be covered by the mask most of the time.
When it was black, if you accidentally saw something of it, like in this picture, it would be easier for the VFX to just blend that part.
Here he is wearing his mask and glasses.
It was scary to let go of full control since I have not done that much work combined with effects before. I had to trust the process, and I was really happy…
From the set with a real baby
I also needed to create a cleft palate lip for a baby, using digital effects replacement. I sculpted it completely digitally, and it’s so quick and easy to…
Here is a little test video of the movement.
