EVALUATION

When I first found out that we would be studying gothic horror, I was so excited as this is something I am really interested in. I love horror films, stories and programmes so I knew this project was perfect for me.

The first part of the unit was to read a novel and choose a character that you wished to create. I chose to read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I have a lot of trouble with reading so I really struggled at first, but once I finished the book I watched TV shows and films to help me understand and investigate the story further. I chose to recreate the character of Jekyll as he is becoming Hyde. This project was based on continuity and re-creating looks successfully.

I really enjoyed the technical lessons with Sue; I loved learning how to use different materials to create different effects, such as the gelatine to create wounds or moulds of wounds. I found a new love of creating bruises on the skin. I love mixing the colours together and using the bruise wheel to give bruises age. I really enjoyed using the latex also. I have used latex previously, but Sue showed us a whole new way of using it, which is a lot easier and works much better. I would love to explore gelatine further as I didn’t get much time to create mine.

After each technical lesson, I went home and research the different type of wound of effect we learnt during that lesson. I researched things like the different degree of burns, types of bruises, ageing and illnesses, which gave me more ideas about how to recreate these looks. I would have to say I enjoyed bruising and using the latex the most.

I was really happy with how my continuity assessment went. My model fit the look of my character really well and was very easy to work with. The skin, eyes and lips went really well both times and in the images look almost identical. The hair didn’t work as well the second time but I managed to get it as similar as possible. I had two main problems with this look. The first being that the lighting of the camera in the second assessment was very yellow and the second being the blood on the side of the face wasn’t in the same position, which is slightly disappointing. If I could have changed anything it would have been the blood on the side of the face.

The second part of the project was to choose a TV series and pick two characters to re-create into the character profiles given. I chose American Horror Story and wanted to create the characters of Claudia and Mrs Laderman. I did this shoot on location and used an external flashlight to shoot. I am really happy with how this shoot went. The makeup went exactly how I wanted and I think I linked the character profiles with my TV series successfully. Overall I am very happy with how both parts of the unit went and wouldn’t have changed a lot other than the lighting. Next time I would experiment with more special effects and techniques.