HOW SCARY! The DOORWAY! ...and my gigantic looming disembodied demon head.Back in 2000, one of the first movies I ever worked on was a little Roger Coreman feature called The Doorway. The movie was originally filmed in Ireland in late 1999, but all the FX shots and some new scenes were being filmed in LA in early 2000. They wanted to replace and add some new demons and gore shots and that is where I came in. Because it was a very low budget shoot and because I was around and overly eager, I found myself in the roll of the Mirror Demon!
RAWR! I'm a Mirror Demon! RAWR!© 2000 Almost Human FX
The Mirror Demon was the first of several monsters and creatures I was able to perform as. It was a blast, even though the shooting of my scenes may have taken three hours tops, and I ended up in the final movie for mere seconds. All in all, it was a fun morning, and then we got Chinese food for lunch! Lets see some more pics of the Mirror Demon...
RAWR! I am badly lit!Nothing like the clear light of day to make your monster makeup look... like a makeup.
© 2000 Almost Human FX
Not only did I preform the Mirror Demon, but I also designed the makeup and was in charge of sculpting the head piece and horns for the makeup. I also dealt with a lot of the molding and casting of the various elements. Some really fun memories though I also remember making loads of mistakes that could have resulted in whole parts of the makeup needing to be remade. In the end we pulled it off and there were no catastrophes... which was amazing for how green I was at time.
Now for the hardest part... I did mention that I designed the Mirror Demon, so I suppose I should share my designs with you. I did three in total, though we always wanted to do something that was close to the first one. I think production may have actually chosen the second design and we still went with the first... the benefits of low budgets and lack of control. Fresh from 11 years ago I give you my Mirror Demon designs...
It is nice to see that I have improved over the years, it still creeps me out to see things in these that I still do. There is just so much wrong with these drawings... Enjoy!© 2000 Almost Human FX
These are from my pre-digital days so I had to go find the actual drawings and scan them for the first time to post them here... if you can believe that. What surprised me was just how easily I uncovered them from my achieve of old drawings... but there they were, surrounded by loads of other frighteningly old bad drawings. Live and learn and improve!
I also built a 15th scale miniature of the main house seen in the movie that was burned down for the climax of the movie... but that is another story altogether.
Make sure you run out today and get yourself a copy of The Doorway and have yourself a laugh or two at my expense. The movie does have Roy Scheider in it and there are a couple neat gore effects ...and a few seconds of me!
That is all for another exciting Wednesday, see you back here in two days! Until then...
For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com
hmmm am i strange for being attracted to the doorway demon XD lol
ReplyDeletethis movie leave me with a lot of questions???
ReplyDeleteI'm surprises the Director didn't make a part 2,or how Evelyn came to be in bingeing in the mid 1600s or how she meet Walter Van Buren. i just wish their was a part 2. to understand the story much better...
Well, it is not a good movie, of course it leaves a lot of questions. I am still amazed it even got made. They remade this movie a couple years later with an all new cast, but it is the same story.
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