Shane Morton adds SPFX to Orville Peck's - The Curse of the Blackened Eye

Here’s the video I worked on for Orville Peck’s,The Curse of the Blackened Eye…This was a very personal project for Orville and a lot of thought went into this video. Media Team brought me in early to read the treatment,which I loved, but of courses usual, I went waaaaay over the top with concepts and preliminary artworks…

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When Im brought on to do makeup designs for a project,Ill take a photo of the actor and do some quick digital paintings to get the conversation started about the direction we can take with this stuff. Norman Reedus was cast to play “The Curse” and I had this crazy idea to make Norman into a dripping kinda sad character that is in this constant state of rejection and constantly oozing and leaving snail trails everywhere. There was a lot of weird comedy that I thought could be mined here, and while they loved the idea,Orville really wanted an “Ashen”look with raw skin showing through here and there for the character,so we went with something far more subdued than my crazy early ideas {which would have also been a logistical nightmare, with all of the slime involved} Here are some pics of Norman getting a makeup test. I don’t think he’s done too much of this type of stuff as he had never even had his hair gelled up before, so I made it very easy on him with a quick water based makeup application that took about 15 mins with airbrush and a little splatter for texture. Norman is a really talented actor so I was glad we didn’t cover him up with alotta prosthetics and slime anyway. We had a good time and alotta laughs, and we have mutual friends, so it was fun to get Brent Hinds to come down for a set visit and get some hang time with him too…

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Here are a couple pics of Kevin Meaux,a talented artist that works with us in the Lab, in another test makeup, which again, is just a quick airbrush job, but still too over the top for what they were going for. I finally nailed it with the test on Tim Reis,the Producer and also one of my favorite artists I work with regularly…

We made lotta tentacles for this video. These are the 13 ft foam and rubber ones, but there were also 3 ft silicone ones that had movable rods in them so they could squirm really well. “The Curse” was originally going to have tentacles for hands, but alotta stuff got cutout{alas,no shots of the Cursed Tiki Bar I made for this made it in either, but that’s showbiz, Ha!}… we are all still very proud of the big tentacle gag that made it in as its one of the cleanest special effects we have pulled off,so many people were fooled and thought it was a cgi gag,but it is all practical and in camera…
I hope you enjoyed this peek into the creative process. I had a blast on this shoot, and Im looking forward to making more magic with these talented artists again…and soon!
Beast Witches,Shane{“Prof.Morte”}Morton

SPFX, Music Video, SPFX MUMadeline BrumbyMarch 12, 2022Silver Scream FX LabOrvillePeck, ShaneMorton