Face Casts

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

The pictures below sort of summarise what goes on during the making of face casts...

http://www.warofthering.net/pp321/data/3012/56Face_Cast2-med.JPG http://www.warofthering.net/pp321/data/3012/56FaceCast3-med.JPG http://www.warofthering.net/pp321/data/3012/56FaceCast4-med.JPG http://www.warofthering.net/pp321/data/3012/56FaceCast5-med.JPG http://www.warofthering.net/pp321/data/3012/56FaceCast1-med.JPG

Basically, the actor/actress sits in a chair with a plastic bag over him/her and hair covered. Then the gooey stuff for the prosthetic face is applied around the eyes, nose, mouth and eventually all over the head and neck. When the stuff is dried, the cast is pulled off, and because there is such a strong suction force, you feel you could hardly breathe for a couple of minutes, as Liv Tyler says. After that, the actor/actress sits through a couple of hours so their features can be painted on the cast.

Poor guys...

[Saruman]

It looks quite painful! But the last picture shows that it is worth it.

[Kenzie]

yhea lol thats for sure!!

what exactly do they use the models of their faces for??

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

Hmm... I know the scale doubles for the hobbits had to wear face masks occasionally... I think the cast is to facilitate the creation of the masks... as for Liv, I can't recall why she needed to have hers done. Maybe it's for her stunt double?

[Kenzie]

yhea on the EE DVD they sasid that someone had to do her riding for er or somthing like that

[A! Elbereth]

Y'know... it makes me want to try it. Just once. ;)

[Bonos-Girl]

yep, liv is scared of horses so for the parts where you can see the horse its her stunt double, for the close-ups she's sitting on a barrel on the back of a truck or something like that....

[Kenzie]

yhea that cracked me up watching her bouncing on the barrel!! lol

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

yes it certainly cracked me up too. I'd have felt so embarrassed lollol

I really think they did a great job with the face cast. In the last picture, you can see that the shape and features of the face cast corresponds nicely with those of Liv's. So it's worth it afterall :thumbs:

[Kenzie]

once they take it off their face i take it that they flip it inside out right???

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

Flip it inside out?/ Meaning?? :huh:

[Bonos-Girl]

i don't think they do...cos then everyohting would be wrong...like her ears would stick inwards and stuff....

[Kenzie]

oh yhea that would be kinda weird

[Saruman]

As far as I understand, you use the peeled off 'mask' as a mould, but I'm not sure.

[Kenzie]

oh and you would pour somthing into it??

[Saruman]

I think so, but I may be wrong.

[Kenzie]

that would make sense (or at least for than the flipping it inside out theory i had lol)

[Moses]

they take a mould of the face. Pour a liquid gelatin into that mould and then peel it off

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

oh and the face mask is the stuff that's peeled off? That's cool! :thumbs: and more convenient too, since they need quite a lot of them, I think. lol

[Kenzie]

yhea i would say so in case one of them gets ruined

[Elfdaughter]

Looks wierd!

[Hobbit]

Not exactly the procidure I would like to sit through.
But in the end it's worth it I guess.

[Kenzie]

yhea having goo spread al over your face... sounds like fun!!! :rolleyes: lol lol lol

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

Well, the following is a quote by Sean Astin that I got from 'Orlando Bloom Multimedia'. I thought his comments regarding the creation of face casts was quite hilarious lol

Sean Astin
It became like a suit that you just put on everyday. It was two and a half hours every day. You show up and it's dark out, and you transmogrify into this different character by having cold, wet, sticky uncomfortable glue put all over your skin. Actually, the feet were quite comfortable - except when we were running on the shale of Mount Doom, an active volcano (called Ngauruhoe) we filmed on for six weeks. Everybody ended up with cut feet. After a while, I started to take for granted the mastery, the real artistry that was involved in creating the feet. Each day, each pair of feet was its own work of art that these artists would hand-paint. The guy who put mine on - his name was Sean Foot! You got very close with your Weta prosthetics folks and makeup folks. It was like a traveling circus. I'll never forget when they took the mold of my head. I get claustrophobic, and the idea that they were going to put this compound all over my face, plug up my ears and eyes, and almost my nose and mouth, so I can just barely breathe, and then not remove it until it's completely hardened - I was just thinking, "What if there's an earthquake or a power failure, and they all run for the hills?" Right before he put the stuff on me, Howard at KMB gave me this nice little bit of psychology. He put his hand in the gloop and said, "You know, some people tell me this can be quite a soothing experience," and he put it right on my face. So the whole time it was on, I was like, "OK somebody thinks this is soothing." I just kept telling myself, "Don't worry - it's a soothing experience." That turned out to be a great metaphor for the whole year and half. At times when you were ready to go mad, you'd realize, "Wait a minute - why not give myself over to this process and enjoy it?"

[Kenzie]

lol thats funny the guy who did his feet's lat name was foot lol

[Saruman]

I remember that Sean Foot got a little annoyed by the end of it, though!

[Kenzie]

yhea i could see that happening lol

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

oh I was hoping you guys would pay attention to the part about the Face Cast rather than Sean Foot lol
I'll edit my post and put the more important parts in red...
there, looks better lollol

[Hobbit]

I know Sean Astin is a cool yet "odd" guy.
I would like to know how he's gonna enjoy the operation.
It looks kinda horrible to me...

[Frodo's Love]

Hehe, that scene with Sean Foot was quite funny.lol
And I think Sean Astin was accepting this operation more willingly than that one with the prosthetic feet every day.;)

[Hobbit]

That's understandable ;)
But I think the hobbitear operation seems the worst: sitting for hours with your head to the side and your head leaning on your neck and shoulder. It just seems painfull.
Then I'll gladly enjoy this one!

[Kenzie]

yhea... but the face thing would be kinda scary lol ... i'd be thinking "what if it gets stuck! what if i can't breath! and i sufficate!" lol

[Bonos-Girl]

yep...that would be sooo scary..i'm quite glad i never need that done to me! lol

[Kenzie]

yhea same here lol ... though if it came down to it i'd have it done

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

Hmm... anyone knows the exact material for the cast? Liv says they poured something like vaseline all over the face, but I seriously doubt it's vaseline lol Vaseline is flammable! lol

[Ludibunda]

It's probably hard to have to breathe through your nose - better not have allergies. We make plaster casts of uour faces in highschool art cast. Mine looked so eerit, I used it with a headstone and wrote an epitaph, ha! ha!

[Kenzie]

i don't think they use a plaster on their face ... it seemed more wobbily than that ... maybe a type of jelliton?? or somthing along those lines??

[Moses]

They rub vasaline over the subject's face to stop from the mould to sticking and the substance which they pour over is a type of altigen (I think thats what it is called). The same thing that Dentists use to make a mould of your teeth out of. They after that has set they pour foam latex into that mould to make a 'face'.

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

oh so the vaseline is just to prevent the mould from sticking .*imagines poor Liv yanking away at the mould if the crew forgets to apply vaseline lol*

Thanks for the info. It sure is enlightening :thumbs:

[Hobbit]

Thanks Moses. Cool info! :thumbs:
But I still don't get the point of this whole operation: I mean where do they use the face forms for? :huh:

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

lol Didn't you read the previous posts? lol I think they are moulds for creation of face masks for scale doubles and stunt men.

[Hobbit]

Yeah, I forgot, sorry :blush: lol
You will forgive me do you Win? lol
I guess I kinda forgot becouse I thought Liv didn't needed a stuntwoman or scaledouble but she did use a stuntwoman at the flight to the ford part, so they had to make moult for her face aswell.
Thanks for reminding me, Win

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

There's nothing to forgive, Hobster lol

[Kenzie]

well liv does have a stunt double... in the horse chase when she was rescuing frodo in the first movie ... they had to have someone do that for her ... but i don't know if they wore a mask?

[Hobbit]

I think so... remember that when you see Arwen pass in full speed she still looks allot like Liv while it is actually a stuntwoman, so I guess Arwen's stuntwoman wore a mask (of which the making is discribed in this topic)
Lotsa work for a mask though: the entire operation with the gelatine stuff and all just to make the stuntpeople look a bit more like the actors lol ;)

[Kenzie]

yep quite the project it seems... the aplying of the geltine stuff ... the peeling it off... the molding of other stuff (don't know the names of it) then you have to painti it and all to make it look like a face... thats a bit of work!!

[Moses]

I was actually gonna have a hand at making a latex mask (which I might add is a different process to this one) just for fun though the ingrediants are hard to find and expensive as well u need a spare couple of weeks,

[Beleriel]

At school we use some stuff called mod-roc to make face masks. We use it because it dries faster. It is readily available from all good art stores I think. I wonder if you could use it to make a mould for your latex mask?

[Kenzie]

there ya go thats a good idea!!

though it still looks pretty trickey!

[Moses]

U would use that mould stuff u were talking bout to make the mould then u could make a mould out of that mould (so u get the actually face as in 3D) then u would apply a type of putty to that 3d face and make stuff like fake nose, different face texture and then when that hardens u would make an outer mould of that, pour in latex and then push the inner mould inisde that to get your latex mask.
Confusing....yeah!

[Kenzie]

yhea quite confusing ... you lost me at the second step lol lol ... but i get your jist...

[Hobbit]

While reading an interview with Jasmine Watson I've found another purpose for the face casts (I've posted another thread about that article). On the question if Peter Jackson or any of the actor's were involved in creating the jewelry, Jasmine Watson answered:

Peter wasn’t very involved in the initial stages, but always gave final approval on a design before it went ahead. Actors sometimes were involved. Liv [Tyler, who plays Arwen], Cate [Blanchett, who plays Galadriel] and Miranda [Otto, who plays Eowyn, a woman warrior] had clear ideas of what looks good on them. Because there wasn’t time to fabricate jewelry while [they] waited, we took head casts of Cate and Liv, and molded the crowns [they wear in the films] to those so they were ready when they came for final fittings

So the face casts were (also) used to test the jewelry and see if they looked good on the actors.