8 Crazy Facts About Movie Makeup and Fake Blood
By Lexi Novak
Maybe it’s because I’ve been marathoning too many slasher movies lately (good luck sleeping after the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre), but I am fully impressed with how special-effects teams have mastered fake blood. Here are eight things you may not have known about the sticky stuff.
1. The formula is simpler than you might expect. “The most common is corn syrup with food dyes,” says Jordan Samuel, the head of makeup for the 2013 filmCarrie. “A makeup artist named Dick Smith came up with the recipe years and years ago, and it’s sort of the standard in stage and film. It’s really easy—you can make it at home.”
2. It’s all about timing. “Oxygenated [fresh] blood is bright red. Old blood is brown. [Director David] Fincher is so particular about blood,” says Kate Biscoe, Gone Girl’s makeup-department head. “He would always tease me in the beginning and go, ‘No, it’s not right. We’re just going to have to use pig’s blood.’ And then I would be like, ‘Is he serious?’ So I literally went through every blood in the industry until he finally found one that he liked. I was like, ‘Phew. We’re not using pig’s blood.’”
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3. Bloody movies require a lot of blood. “I made three or four 45-gallon drums,” says Carrie’s special-effects coordinator, Warren Appleby. “I think the only [film] that tops that volume of blood is The Shining. I just read it was in the hundreds.”
4. Color is crucial, and often, it’s not even red. “There’s hundreds of manufactured bloods of all different colors and thicknesses,” says Appleby. “It ranges from chocolate brown to almost pink—what you choose really depends on the lighting. If you’re shooting in black-and-white, you can use chocolate syrup. It’s what they used in most Hitchcock films.”
5. It gets tricky around the face. “After seven seasons [of True Blood], I feel like we’ve finally mastered the blood tears,” says Brigette Ellis, the show’s makeup-department head. If I know somebody is going to be crying, I’ll lay in the tears, and then visual effects will do the actual drop and marry my work with theirs, because there’s only so close you can bring that stuff to the eye.”
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6. And isn’t always gentle on your skin. “I was working on the set of Amityville, and they were doing gashes on my face, and they were using this sugar-and-detergent blood, and I’m covered,” says actress Bella Thorne. “And it just completely freaked out my skin. I had thousands of bumps. And they’re scrubbing it off with oil and alcohol, so it’s like the worst thing you could do for your skin. But those gashes do look realistic.”
7. Splatters aren’t all random. They require planning and technique. “I had tattoo transfers made [for Carrie] so that when I had to put the blood on again, it was always in the same place,” says Samuel. For gunshot-style wounds, Appleby says some effects guys use a condom. “It’s cheap, and it already has a reservoir that you can fill with blood,” he says. “You affix that to the wardrobe, then put a small explosive charge called a squid between the blood bag and the performer. We used vacuum-seal bags—sometimes the condoms don’t break, sometimes they do. As in life.”
8. It makes a mess. “On a big gag, resetting and starting fresh from the top is always going to be the hardest. We’ve had it take five hours because there’s blood all over everyone,” says Ellis. “Dermalogica PreCleanse is a staple. We’re all obsessed with it, even the boys. It’s an oil that you rub on your face and it just breaks down all the makeup.” On the set of Carrie, “we had a small army of guys with mops and buckets and squeegees,” says Appleby. Samuel adds, “When Chloë [Grace Moretz] was finished, she would strip down and we would wash her withJohnson’s Baby Shampoo. Foam shaving cream helps, too.”
photo: David Lachapelle; Steve Eichner/WWD
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