You can call me Hung Lo

I now have a Chinese name! Our Production Manager gave Gregg, Ed and I names in Cantonese. I’m Hung Lo (Red Man), Ed is Go Lo (Tall Man) and Gregg is Bak Sing Sing (White Ape).

We had another good week here in ol’ Hong Kong. A big thing that has been concerning Gregg and I is the casting and makeup for the Pale Figures. However, both seem to be going very well so far. We have 10 people cast, and need a total of 17. Hopefully by the end of this week, we’ll have the final 7.

The makeup is also going well. Larry Odien, who was one of the three makeup artists with us on Altered, is now with us in Hong Kong, and is heading up getting the special effects makeup department all set up. He won’t be with us for the shoot, unfortunately, but I think by the time he leaves (October 12 is his last day), we’ll be in good shape. Before he leaves, he's going to make sure all of the local makeup artists on the crew know how to do the makeup as well as he does.

As we cast the Pale Figures, the first thing that Larry has been doing is taking molds of their teeth so he can make dentures for them. The Pale Figures are going to have some nasty teeth. Here’s a few pictures of Larry making the molds of one guys’ teeth.


Larry has to take a dental impression of each actors teeth, just like a dentist would do before giving someone braces.


After a few minutes, it’s time to take it out.


Here’s what the impressions look like after they’ve been taken.


After taking them, he has to actually create the mold. To do this, he has to put some green gooey stuff in them.


Alexa, Larry’s assistant, then attaches the green mold to a base, to give it extra support.


And here’s two completed sets of molds. From these, Larry can create a set of fake teeth that will fit exactly into each actor’s mouth.

So that’s your crash course in making molds of teeth. Any questions?

In other news: the search for locations continues to go well. I think we have at least one good choice for just about every location in the film. I think there may be some road locations that we need to find, but we’ve seen some good ones so far. Ed just needs to decide which ones he wants to do for each scene.

The sketches that our Production Designer has made so far are pretty damn cool. I wish I could show them to you. She did a sketch of the entrance to the temple, and the tunnel connected to the entrance. From what I’ve seen, I think the sets are going to be pretty sweet.

Tomorrow we meet with a Stunt Coordinator that we’re basically ready to offer the job to. He comes recommended by Four, our 1st AD, and last week we watched some scenes he did in another movie. There’s no question that he’s qualified. The big question is if he can choreograph fight scenes to look very realistic, rather than like typical action movie fight scenes. We have a good feeling about him, and meeting with him tomorrow will hopefully solidify those feelings.

I think we’re also supposed to meet with some possible stunt doubles tomorrow. We’re a little concerned about the stunt double for our lead actress, because (obviously) we don't want the audience to be able to tell she's asian. Hopefully we can find someone with similar skin tones to her, and then just hide her face in any shot she’s in. There aren’t too many stunts for the lead female character, thankfully. There is a fight scene, so that might be a bit tricky. Maybe she'll be up for doing her own stunts!

That’s it for this edition, kids. Take care until next time!