How-to Horror: Blood FX 101

Spatula getting a face full of blood spray

The one thing lacking from most mainstream movies is good blood spray, preferably hitting other actors, making neat patterns on the walls, or covering the lens.  Hookman: Redemption will of course have good blood spray.  But how do we do it? It's easy! 


Today we'll teach you the simple way to get quality blood spray for under $10, in no time at all!


The first thing you need is a sick sense of humor. This cannot be bought or obtained, you must be born weird.  Then, these items:
- A turkey baster 
- A couple feet of plastic tubing 
- Corn syrup
- Red food coloring
You should be able to find all of these at a grocery store, except the plastic tubing.  It's typically less than a dollar per foot at home improvement stores (Hookman Top Tip: plastic tubing is free if stolen off of IV drip bags in hospitals!)


Next we'll deal with assembly. Mix a bottle of red food coloring with 16oz of corn syrup. Add about 2 oz. of water to dilute it somewhat for easier spraying. Then jam the plastic tubing onto the end of the turkey baster (electrical tape might help secure it if it's not a perfect fit). Pour some fake blood into the turkey baster, stick the end of the tubing where you want blood to spray from, and you're ready to rock!


As you can see here, we wanted blood to spurt from this hook-hat, so the tube ran up Jimmy's back and up to the tip of the hook-hat.  All he has to do is squeeze the bulb and blood shoots out.

This is the correct face to be making while spraying blood for optimal effect, and fun!

Other ideas for blood tube placement are:
- under clothes
- inside pumpkins
- behind your car
- behind the showerhead
- fridge
- toilet
- your desk at work
- in "the cloud"


It may take you a few tries to get the blood to spray properly.  Try practicing on a friend who doesn't mind being sprayed. It's better if you have a relative who feels compelled to be shot with blood in order to complete a movie.  Just mock up a video camera and go to town!


Here is a look at what it took to get the effect right on the set of Hookman: Redemption. Enjoy!

Disturbing News

This week's post was going to be a brief discussion on the merits of alpacas vs. llamas, but something in the news this week caught my eye.  If you read the Baltimore Sun online, you may have also seen this story on Tuesday - before it was taken down on Wednesday!

luckily I had the blog in mind so I took these screenshots

It's easy to miss it at first, but the middle story at the bottom of the homepage for Baltimore County reads "A Monster at the Loch: Mysterious deaths at Loch Raven Reservoir, manhunt begins..."  When I saw this, my jaw dropped.  I clicked through to read the story:

The article is astonishing - two brothers were fishing at the reservoir when they were attacked and killed.  The attacker apparently used a fairly blunt object to stab them repeatedly, and the forensics point to an ice pick or hay hook, just like we use for our Hookman!  This was too crazy to be true! 

The article goes on, saying that one of the permanent patients in psychiatric custody at Sheppard Pratt had escaped his handlers just twelve hours before the attack occurred... check this guy out:

holy crap - an eyepatch?

The article ended by saying that the manhunt continues, and seeing as how the article was taken down 24 hours later, it must have ended...? I had no idea why the Sun would have taken down the link without comment, so I emailed the author.  Mr. Ronald O'Neill said he was legally bound not to comment on the article because, basically, the police don't want open investigations reported on, and that he had (in their opinions) disclosed "too many gruesome details."  The only thing he would say is that last he knew, the police were still looking for this guy, and weren't reporting any more deaths. 

I think the most overlooked part of the whole story was that the guy carved an "H" into a tree, then filled the carving with blood and dumped the bodies below it.  I asked Mr. O'Neill about that, and he just said "it was a disturbing piece of vandalism."

The original "H" - still stained red from the blood reported to have been rubbed into the carving

This was crazy, I thought.  There's a guy running around Loch Raven killing people wearing an eyepatch, and possibly using a hook. Not only that, but no one was being allowed to report on it!  I thought this whole "H" business was the icing on the cake - like he was taunting the police, or marking his territory.  Apparently the suspect's name is Christian Danielsson - why would he be carving an "H" (I immediately thought Hookman!).  So I did something incredibly stupid - I know the trails around the dam pretty well from filming there for the movie, so I decided I'd go check out a real Hookman crime scene!

I went into the woods Thursday afternoon around 4pm.  There were signs everywhere about trails being closed, and a lot of reservoir police trucks patrolling the roads, so I hiked in the long way.  I got close to the original crime scene, but that was swarming with cops so I took a different trail.  I wasn't 500 feet down a side trail when I saw another "H" and took a picture:

"H" number two

Holy crap.  I probably should have turned back, but I kept walking.  Another 500 feet, another H, then another:

This was without a doubt the same trail the psycho had gone down at some point, marking the way.  I found another "H" that looked more freshly carved than any of the other ones and was about to take a photo of it when I heard someone coming from down the trail, so I ran away.  I didn't know if it was a cop or the hookman, but I didn't care - I didn't want to meet either of them!  I took a side trail to shortcut back to my car (it was getting dark by this point) and I kept seeing "H"'s on every couple of trees, and they were all fresh...

I stopped to catch my breath for a second and noticed the next tree was bare except for one letter, but it wasn't another "H" - this one was an "O"... The next tree, another "O" carved into it.  This was it! The guy was about to spell out "Hookman"!  Man, I wish I had my video camera! 

Click to the next page!

Covert Ops

Mrs. Svletfanzi looks worried about something... maybe getting caught shooting a horror movie in an old folks home?

One of the easiest ways to identify a low-budget film is to count the number of locations used in the movie.  That's why a lot of low-budget horror films are just "in a cabin in the woods" - they couldn't afford to shoot it "in various office buildings in Manhattan," and in a lot of ways this practical constraint has shaped the genre. Conversely, one of the easiest ways to add production value to a low-budget film is to bring the characters into new locations. Hookman has been plagued by that problem in the past, though we've been lucky enough to have a nice big house as the main location, and easy access to the woods.  In Hookman: Redemption, we're making everything better across the board, but it can be tricky to do...

The hospital in Jacob's Ladder.  Sort of what we were going for.  (super creepy & you should go watch it now)

When the opening scene called for a sparse, creepy, nightmarish hospital a la Jacob's Ladder, we sort of scratched our heads for a couple of minutes, then had the best/worst idea ever.  My grandmother lives in a nursing home for older folks in various stages of medical need.  Several floors look like they belong in a hospital wing.  My initial thought was, "Oh, well, it will just look like a really nice hospital that happens to have a bunch of old people."  But that turned out not to be the main concern.

The hospital we wanted to use. Kind of a different look. Also, they feed the old people to alligators.

So as not to spoil the scene, I can't divulge all the details as to why the cast was more than a little reluctant to try to film the scene, but some of the pertinent reasons were:

- we needed to "borrow" a wheelchair from an elderly woman

- certain costumes were extremely embarrassing/revealing

- Stella Maris is a Catholic institution that would frown upon just about every aspect of the scene
- the hospital wing is very busy

- we neither had permission nor intended to ask permission to shoot there

As such, we went inside in plainclothes, stole borrowed the wheelchair, and decided to find a less-populated area of the fine establishment. We ended up in an elevator, and quite by accident found a disused service hallway... PERFECT!

Svletfanzi still looks unsure about the situation

We got through the shooting with only some slight hiccups, such as when a couple who was at the hospital to visit their sick family member stepped into an elevator, only to find a bunch of kids filming a horror movie with a stolen rented wheelchair and a scantily-clad woman... oh well.

Making skin with a balloon and a hair dryer (duh, how do you make it?)

For our next trick, we needed to finish up the scene with some prosthetic and blood effects.  Naturally, we did that in the loading dock of my apartment building (for which we also had no permission).  It was hot and there were bugs and Hilary doesn't like screaming when people might actually hear her.  Also, when it comes to throwing fake blood around, we found out that Kelly officially has the worst aim ever (see the video below).

In the end, everything turned out GREAT!  Plus we WEREN'T caught & thrown out of Stella Maris!  And despite Kelly's best efforts, the blood ended up looking semi-okay, I guess.  Big respect to Hilary (a.k.a. Mrs. Svletfanzi) for putting up with probably the worst shoot conditions of any Hookman shoot ever.  You'll just have to wait until next winter to see the final scene in all its budget-defying glory, so stay tuned!

Taken shortly before Hilary murdered Kelly for having to get sprayed in the face with fake blood twice in one night

He's Alfonso

Who, me?

One of the many original songs written for Hookman: Redemption is entitled "I'm Alfonso (Pop Pop Pop)" and features Alfonso exclusively.  Fans of Hookman: Requiem may recall Alfonso on several songs, even his own "Robot Rap," but in every song except one, he just rapped his verses.  The only song where we got a glimpse of his singing voice was "I Could Be Your Lover (Forever)" - but that was not Alfonso's actual voice! 

Ted Nichols (in the blue shirt) before a gig with his band.
Notice Captain Awesome in the pink? (R.I.P.) 

Instead of getting actor Robert Downs, Jr. to sing his own song, the director felt his singing voice was sub-par, and therefore enlisted the help of Foster "Ted" Nichols, who was the singer for Funky Foster and the Charles Street All-Stars. Ted did a great job.










This time around, however, we wanted more.  The "I'm Alfonso" song was being written in the style of late-90's boy band songs (think Backstreet Boys) and needed a real personality, so we convinced Mr. Downs that he had to sing.  It took many hours and roughly 100 takes, but finally we had something that could be reasonably salvaged with copious amounts of pitch correction, robot effects, and auto-tune!

Fruity Loops: where the magic happens

Before: Listen to the rough mix here




After: Listen to the "fixed" sample here 





The shooting of the music video was slated for the first day on stage at BlueRock Productions in Baltimore, MD.  It took a while...

Mr. Downs has a special talent wherein he can sing the same two verses nearly a hundred times and yet manage to forget them all within two weeks - so that when we get to the studio, he has to re-learn everything in order to get passable lip-sync!  In the end we got some great footage by utilizing a teleprompter, so he could literally read the words off a screen during his dance. 


See a world-exclusive sneak peek of the final video here! (Be sure to watch on YouTube for HD quality)

Background dancers were choreographed by Kelly Szpara. Bim Mamber and Chris Hill provided the lens flares, while Joe Davidson ran playback (and wrangled the stool).  Special thanks to Faith Erline for running the teleprompter so Mr. Downs didn't have to memorize anything!


Stay tuned next week for more updates!

Welcome

Welcome to the Hookman: Redemption Blog, where in the coming months you'll find exclusive photos, stories, and videos that will give you a behind-the-scenes look into the production and post-production of the feature film.

Tum-Tum, Jimmy, Mrs. Svletfanzi, and Spatula discuss the finer points of fake blood.  10 points if you can find Crazy Rachel in this picture.