Cloak. Check!
Prosthetics. Check!
Gloves. Check!
Horns. Check!
Everything was ready for shooting day. We finalized our storyboard, all of our prosthetics had the first layer of makeup on them, and we attached the horns to the hood of the cloak. We had done everything we possibly could to prepare for application day the next morning and we were extremely confident in our abilities to put everything together in time for shooting.
We were ready and our actress was ready so everything should go smoothly, right?
Wrong!

Disaster #1: the cloak
Prior to shooting day, Maddie had created a beautiful red velvet cloak for our Horned King. It draped beautifully over our actress’ body and effortlessly added to our king’s regal demeanor. We had not foreseen anything going wrong with the cloak… nonetheless… it happened.
We arrive to the RTF building at 7am to begin our application process. The first thing we do is put the cloak and horns on our actress. We are pleased to discover that it fits perfectly over her head and for the time being, everything was great.
However, as time passed, the temperature in the building seemed to increase tremendously. Unfortunately for Becca (our actress), she forgot to take off her heavy sweatshirt before we put the cloak on. Maddie, Oz, and I were too busy preparing the prosthetics for application and attaching the horns to Becca’s swim cap to realize that our actress was sweating profusely underneath her cloak. After suffering in silence for a while, Becca finally spoke up and we were forced to stop the application process and attempt to take her sweatshirt off underneath the cloak.
Sadly we couldn’t take the sweatshirt all the way off because her horns were already attached to her head and couldn’t be removed. So Becca had to keep her sweatshirt around her neck and tuck the arms and body of the sweatshirt behind her shoulders.
She looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame but at least she wasn’t miserably hot anymore.

Disaster #2: The Prosthetics
Like the Cloak, prosthetic application went very smoothly… at first.
We apply the majority of the pieces with skin tight and many of them stuck to Becca effortlessly. However, we soon realized that the jaw pieces were too big for Becca and we ultimately had to discard the entire bottom piece (rip).
At last all of the pieces were on. We proceeded to add another layer of skin tight to make sure the prosthetic pieces stay in place and to add texture.
We were finally ready for makeup… and all of a sudden… Becca turns to us and says…
We had to act fast. We ripped the upper jaw prosthetic off of Becca and she runs to the trash can and proceeds to throw up continuously.
We were at a loss. We knew Becca couldn’t remain in the Horned King makeup and costume for very long in her condition. We had to adapt.
After a few more minutes of Becca over the trash can, we decided that we had to cut our storyboard down to the bare minimum: three shots showcasing the important aspects of our project.
We waited until the last possible second to reapply the upper jaw piece and were miraculously able to shoot in under 10 minutes.

Lucky for us, we were ultimately able to get what we needed out of shooting day. I am very happy with what my team has accomplished this semester and I look forward to seeing the VFX work. A special thanks to Becca for being a trooper and pushing through a very rough application day.