Latex Intestines

For Dead Time we needed to a fair amount of guts and the vegetarian talent had said no to using real ones (fair enough really) so we had to come up with a way of making some convincing fakes. In the past we have done this by making flat sheets of latex and then rolling them in to tubes but this usually ends up with short lengths that are full of holes and have a visible seam at the side. The new approach gets round all those issues and gives a pretty good result.

 

The finished guts

Me modelling the gut poles.

To start with you need a tube to form the guts around. We used lengths of plumbing pipe that double up as tracks for our home made dolly (thats another post for another time). This stuff is really cheap and you can get pretty long lengths of it in most hardware/DIY shops.

Next up you need some liquid latex and some latex thickener. The thickener is not essential but it did make the process a lot easier. Again, you can get both of these items pretty cheaply online. We use Tiranti which is a great site for all kinds of modelling and casting supplies.
Color you latex with acrylic paint or even food colouring and then add a few drops of thickener and give it a good stir.

Once you have your latex nicely thickened coat the pipe with it to the length of guts you will need. Longer is better for realism's sake but it also makes it harder to peel of the pipe later so if you can get away with short length then do that.
Once the pipe is coated leave it to dry before applying further layers of latex. Three or four layers should be enough. Use less and you will tear the latex when you peel it off, use more and it will bunch up too tight to come off the pipe at all.

Peeling the gut.

Once your final layer is dry you can peel of your intestine. Coat the whole thing with baby powder to stop it sticking to itself and then start peeling at one end. The first few inches might come off a little ragged where the lates is thin but after that it should roll off like a beauty. The more smutty minded of you will no doubt make a lot of jokes about flesh poles and zombie condoms but of course we did none of that kind of thing.

The peeling process depends a lot on how thick you made the layers and how smoothly you applied the latex. With two pairs of hands you can just pull, roll and fold it until you reach the bottom. It is pretty tough stuff so can be quite rough with it.
Make sure that you keep applying baby powder to the inside as it is exposed and when you reach the bottom you should have a fairly disgusting looking ring piece of latex that you can unroll ready to be used.

What you are left with looks a bit wrong.

We stuffed ours with cotton wool soaked in red food colouring and then covered it all in syrup blood and it looked pretty good.

If you need guts then give this technique a go and post any additions here for the good of mankind. We would also love to see any pics that you have of your guts in action.

Tick off another project

We have just put our entry for the 2 Days Later short horro comp in the post with less than 24 hours till the deadline for submissions.
The story sees two friends walking back through the woods after a party. When they get home they find out that they have been missing for eight days with no memory of where they have been or what happened to them but soon the dead time starts to catch up with them.

As always things took longer than expected and we where working on this right up to the last minute but the finished product is really good and definitely something we are proud of whether we get selected or not.
We are in the process of setting up a Red Ded Dog YouTube channel and a new web site where you will be able to watch the new film (as well as our old stuff) both of which we hope to launch in the next few weeks. Until then here is a frame from Dead Time to whet your appetite.

When investigating a strange noise, always take a machete.

2 Days Later Shoot

The talent relax with a beer and a face wound.

We have spent the last three evenings this week filming our entry for this years 2 Days Later short film competition and the footage is looking really, really good.

Our idea revolves around two friends who return from a party to find that they have been missing for eight days with no memory of where they have been but who soon realise that something bad happened to them whilst they where gone.

The shoot all went pretty smoothly and despite not having much time for story boarding or rehearsals or anything like that it all came together very nicely. The weather held for us, we got good performances all round from a cast that we pretty much press ganged in to taking part whilst they where drunk and we managed to slosh around a good few litres of blood and slime without trashing my dads newly decorated and carpeted house!

Someone spilt their guts about our storyline!

Our blood recipe was really successful this time and our new technique for making latex intestines was also    a winner. As soon as we have the edit done I'll post it up here incase you ever find yourself in need of a batch of rubber guts. 

Blood

Fake blood is something that any good film maker should be getting through a lot of and while the proper theatrical stuff is pretty expensive it is fairly easy to make it yourself.

You can find loads of recipes online and we have tried most of them with varying degrees of success. The key is definitely experimentation.

You will find lots of people giving very exact measurement of ingredients but the final product will depend on temperature, what you want to do with it and where you are filming. Our advice is to make up your blood ahead of time and really play about with it till you have a mixture that is right for you.

That said here are the basics that you can build on.

You need a base to give your blood the right thickness and consistency. The main three we have used are corn flour, arrowroot and treacle or golden syrup. Whichever you choose it should be added to water and slowly heated.

Corn flour and arrowroot need to be stirred constantly and will suddenly go off. How thick it becomes depends on how much you add. Generally, just go crazy. Both these ingredients are cheap as chips from any supermarket and you can always water it down if it gets too thick.

Cornflour will make a white solution and arrowroot a clear one. Both are pretty good uncoloured if you need any kind of mucus, snot, slime etc.

If you use syrup or treacly just add it to the water and bring the heat up till the two mix.

For colour simply add food colouring. You will need a whole lot of red but also smaller amounts of green and sometimes blue or black. Blood is a lot darker than you think and sometimes appears almost black. Once again, don't hold back on the color as it is cheap and easy to get more if you need to.

Lastly you ned to add some texture as these mixtures come out a bit shiny and transparent. Mix some instant coffee with enough water to form a paste and add this to your blood and that should do the trick.

Once you are happy with it in the pan get some out and slop it about. Make sure it looks good dripping, spread thin or in puddles, whatever you need it to do on camera and just keep tweaking if its not right.

If you get the chance experiment with all kinds of stuff. If the blood has to go in people mouths then use chocolate powder instead of coffee and avoid the corn flour and arrowroot because they taste really rank. I read somewhere that Sam Raimi used the syrup recipe for Evil Dead but that he added milk to it so have fun and if you make any breakthroughs then please post here and share the joy.