Tag Archives: Drama
The Dumping Ground
The Dumping Ground
The BAFTA award winning CBBC series the Dumping Ground has been going for several years as a follow up show to the incredibly successful Tracy Beaker program. I have been asked over the course of three series to provide a variety of action props from the realistic to the bizarre. Props include a controllable robovac, a marble run to papier mache frogs! Below are some images of action props made for the show.
Latex/polystyrene rocks made for ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Christmas special.
Sand sculpture, one of four identical sculptures used.
Safe and ‘safe cracker’. I fitted the safe with electronic lights and built the ‘safe cracker’ to look like one of the children had designed it with the ability to manipulate the dial and crack the code displayed on an electronic screen.
Miniature background locusts to pin onto cast members.
Wolf Blood
Wolfblood
Wolfblood is into its 4th series, currently airing on CBBC. I have been fortunate to have been involved in this series since it began. The first series I was involved with creating fog effects for the special effects department and also helping the makeup department with their transformations makeups that were scaled down to claws, wolf teeth and eyes. My role was to take finger casts of our actors and under the direction of makeup designer Michael Birtley, whom I had previously worked with on Ghost Street, I assisted in building the false nails/claws to be worn by our young cast.
More recently it has been the art department who have called upon my skills to create various action props and set pieces to be used during filming.
Latex rocks for a cave in sequence.
Fracking model for school display.
Engraved ‘Wolfblood’ goblet.
Segolia laser pens, first generation.
Beowulf: Return to the Shield Lands
In March 2015, ITV began to film one of the company’s biggest dramas in their history, the multi million pound epic family drama based on the ancient Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf.
The program required all the usual elements typical of a period drama, costume, makeup, production services and of course special effects.
The visual effects that include set extensions and the multitude of CGI creatures were handled by the MILK visual effects company, the practical elements handled by the Rowley FX team for whom I freelance with.
We took on a whole variety of work, the huge exterior sets built in Co Durham and Northumberland needed to be brought to life with smoke elements, braziers, smelting pits, fires and atmosphere. We also worked alongside the visual effects boys and the stunt co-ordinator to achieve other practical gags.
The studio workload was equally massive, particularly the huge interior of the Great Hall. There were dozens of sconces, braziers and other flame elements to keep on top of as well as having haze machines running too.
Filming finished in early October, the drama aired early in the New Year to mixed reviews. Too many people compared it to Game of Thrones which was a little unfair. Game of Thrones is a very intense, gorey, highly political drama for adults, Beowulf was a family drama. Perhaps too simplistic, perhaps it deviated from the original story too far? Whatever the reason, the viewing figures were not high enough for the series to be picked up for a second season. Shame, but I’m proud to have been a part of it.
Photo courtesy of Rowley Special Effects
Emmerdale
I was a member of the special effects team who created the spectacular Fire for the hit ITV soap Emmerdale that aired in January 2011.
I assisted Ian Rowley Special Effects to create the various fires with the use of flame bars, smoke and a spectacular fire ball at the Emmerdale Post Office.
We filmed in November 2010 during the heavy snows that engulfed the UK. If you watch the scene closely you can see the continuity nightmare that was to hinder the crew. Snow..no snow etc. Thankfully much of the scene was shot in sequence so it appears that not only did the good folk of Emmerdale have a raging fire to contend with but horrendous arctic conditions too.
Byker Grove
Sadly the long running, award winning programme is no longer on our screens but the hit TV show was my training ground for television.
My first job was to help out the art department as a prop maker and scenic artist back on seasons 7 and 8. My first role was to create tag/street art for the mischeivous character Terry, who got up to no end of trouble leaving his mark, ‘Godzilla!’ on the streets of Newcastle.
Later I was trained up as a set dresser and eventually an art director for seasons 9 and 10. Byker Grove was a popular and fast moving childrens drama, the script threw many challenges and with the help of an experienced and friendly crew we met those challenges head on.
Wire in the Blood
The hit ITV series from Coastal Productions, “Wire in the Blood” showcased a number of grizzly scenarios and stories. My involvement came in season six when I was asked to create three mutilated suitcase victims.
In the story the bodies are discovered inside suitcases with their limbs hacked off, I guess they just don’t make suitcases big enough for serial killers these days! Then the mutilated corpses where thrown into a lake with the hope that they’ll never be seen again. Unfortunately for the killer but fortunately for me the bodies are discovered and I was given the task to realise their horrid demise and I had only a short amount of time to do it.
I began the job by doing research, what does a body look like after its been mutilated and thrown into a lake for several months? Well I found my answer from some rather disgusting images care of the pathology department. With research in hand, I drew up some designs and discussed the look of the corpses with the art department, who adviced me on just how grotesque to go with our poor victims.
So based on those instructions I set about creating the bodies by taking life casts from some very helpful volunteers. From those casts I created sculptures of the dead victims before making moulds and eventually the silicone castings.
The silicone rubber was pre-pigmented before applying into the mould, building up translucent layers one at a time. The bodies where then fitted with a wooden skeleton and filled with an expandable polyurethane foam.
The final bits to add was some congielled blood, gooey stuff to make the skin appear slimey and of course finished off with wigs and hair. NASTY!
Ghost Street
The award winning short film GhostStreet was the brain child of Newcastle upon Tyne based production company Dene Films.
The film tells the story of the supernatural and other worldly events that a girl experiences after she is knocked over by a speeding motorist when making her way to school.
The film featured a number of make-up challenges which where designed and created by leading make-up artist Michael Birtley. Knowing that he had a huge workload and wanting to do something spectacular Michael gave me the call to help him create the ‘skater boy’ make-up effect.
So I helped Michael take a lifecast of the young actor, Lee Fox Williams. from that I sculpted up the face appliance that was later cast from gelatine. I then assisted Michael to apply the make-up, additional cuts and grazes were created with the use of Bondo, a mixture of Pros-aide adhesive and Cabosil.
League of Gentlemen
The hit BBC series The League of Gentlemen offered up many special effect challenges, some very disturbing others barely noticeable.
My most memmorable effects where realised through the poor mishaps of Mr Chinnery the Royston Vasey vet. From exploding tortoises to farting dogs, many animals sadly met their end to the caring and sympathetic hands of Mr Chinnery, played wonderfully by Mark Gatis.
However their was more than just veterinary mishaps for our effects team to contend with, we burned down the local shop, created storms over the visiting Papa Lazaroo’s travelling Fair, built man traps and provided the jokeshop with some deadly surprises to name but a few.
I began work on the League of Gentlemen when I was working for Emergency House Special Effects in Yorkshire back in 1999. Where has all the time gone? I was fresh off the Byker Grove programme still young and impressionable and admittingly pretty green, basically very unprepaired to take on the mountain of work that included modelmaking, atmospherics and fire effects.
Thankfully I had two very calm and experienced special effect supervisors to help with the physical effect gags, Evan Green-Hughes and Stephen Breheney, but it was with the modelmaking, the area of work that I enjoy most that I learned so much from doing. I admit, some illusions came of flawlessly, and others were well..take 2.
The League of Gentlemen was a wonderful working experience, one I’d hope to have again, and in their very own words it was “a f**king pleasure.”