Thursday, March 21, 2019
Creating Stage Blood Recipes
Dramatics Magazine: Zombie Prom! Macbeth! Carrie! Sweeney Todd! These shows run the gamut of setting, theme, and tone, but they have one thing in common: the need for spectacularly bloody stage effects. In my experience, audiences love blood and guts. But with all the places to use blood onstage, you could easily spend hundreds of dollars on blood makeup alone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
When my high school did a production of She Kills Monsters, we had to deal with this problem. We had a makeup artist with no prior theatrical experience who none of us really knew, and she did the best she could. Unfortunately, none of the adults had really done their due diligence to make sure everything was safe for any situation, and we ended up in a sticky situation. During one of the performances, the blood packet exploded much more violently than it usually did, and our fairy was caught in the crossfire. We discovered shortly that our fake blood was not eye safe, and actually included liquid laundry detergent. This was probably done as a way to get it out of the clothes, but no thought was payed to the high toxicity of laundry detergent when in contact with eyes. her mother was called, an opthamologist was called, and the school suffered a significant bill for medical consultation, but ultimately she was ok. Articles like this are essential for new theatrical artists trying to create effects like this, as well as consideration of any situation it could be used in. The makeup artist got into a lot of trouble, and while no one was severely injured, it could have been a lot worse than it was.
I always love seeing the innovative creations props and special effect people come up with. The end of the article is correct: playing and experimenting with new techniques and tools is “what we do best in theatre”. I knew that chocolate sauce and food coloring was a classic go to for fake blood, but I had not thought about using toothpaste before. I also had not thought about of all of the suggestion they made for creating gorey wounds with oats, granola, pasta, and peanut butter. I also like that there is washable version of this recipe. Very recently I witnessed a scenic designer get very nervous about fake blood getting on their set dressing, and needing to get those items into a water bath immediately. Having this washable blood could remedy concerns like this. It is very convenient that most of these ingredients are available in a grocery store. It makes the having realistic special effects possible for schools and low budget theatres. I also like that there are allergen-free suggestions in this list because that is not something I think people might think of because this stuff is not being purposely ingested, but is still important to think about.
Throughout all of middle school and most of high school I helped with props for my theatre’s yearly haunted forest and their productions of Night of the Living dead and since we were a non-profit children’s theatre our budget was very little so we also had to make blood and other gore using everyday ingredients. I read this article preparing to be like oh wow that is so much smarter than what we did, but I was very surprised to read that everything Linda Veneris was talking about were also things that we have used and tried throughout the years. I was happy though that they included an allergy friendly section because that was never a problem that we encountered but it is definitely one that could come up in many situations so I am glad this author took the time to find those solutions and make them known so other people who really need them and can’t figure out the solution can just read this article.
When dealing with live performances, especially theater, reality is much harder to achieve than it would be on film and television. The audience watches every move so in a way, there has to be some sort of illusion in order to create this graphic reality. Blood and Guts, and in horror stories, are especially hard to recreate because it can easily start to look childish or like a halloween costume. In conjunction with the acting and other special effects, the moments that need to be heavy and scary can look really real with the right kind of blood. I think people underestimate how much goes into creating something like fake blood because it seems so simple on the surface but actually takes many runs of trial and error in order to create a raw storyline. Specific details such as fake blood could potential bring the audience out of the story because it doesn’t seems real. But when done right can really have a big impact on the story and people watching.
It’s always difficult to come up with a really good-looking fake blood recipe. SO MANY shows require bloody elements and it’s not legal to use real blood, so a good fake blood recipe is very important. This article is extremely useful because not only does it provide a great recipe for fake blood, but it utilizes easy to find, everyday ingredients so that your fake blood recipe won’t blow your show’s budget. I also really like this article because it addresses an alternative for actors with allergies. This is something that is easy to forget about when you’re trying really hard to make something look good and realistic—how will affect the people using it? Todd had a great conversation with us in props about allergies and how they’re really important to consider when making prop food and other similar items. In general, it can be really difficult in theatre to portray realistic things like blood, but it’s always important to consider the feasibility of your plans.
This article simply caught my eye as I thought to myself "hey why haven't i ever had to make fake blood for a show before" and which persisted the question "well how do you make fake blood". I mean there are countless shows that require it and it always seems to be such a unique and sometimes subjective way of making it or using it I probably should know how. Going into this article I really never had any idea how simple the stuff could be. This article and writer made the recipe really simple and something that can be done with just everyday things I never realized just how much we can be swayed by these things. I also wondered just how someone thought of the make up of fake blood in the first place and what made them come to the conclusion for their inclusion in certain things.
Maybe I am already making war but I am not convinced until I see it that by just adding dish soap, this will entirely prevent any staining of white costumes, I still think a lot of Judge Turpins and Pirrelis will be going through white shirts when they get their necks cut. Also is there really no alternative now to using chocolate syrup and corn syrup, nothing not so sticky. I guess I just do not like the idea of all that food product being used. It reminds me, I suppose, of a elementary school science experiment of something to that effect. This article really only covered recipes and not so much delivery methods. There can be so many intricacies hiding the blood in knifes and in collars, and some of the sleight of hand the actors are asked to do to make it effective and realistic is astounding, but that is for another article I guess.
I thought this article was really fun to think about- I hadn’t really considered the possibilities of creating different types of blood for different situations, but it makes sense that you’d want a different blood in an actor’s mouth than you would as a blood pack in a white shirt. I ran into that problem last year- we did a show with fake blood in syringes, and while it was totally edible (it tasted like mint!) I was sprayed with some while wearing a white shirt one night and there’s still a light pink bloodstain that I can’t get out. I’d also never thought about the ways that different textures of food can be repurposed to make different types of blood- I’d heard of chocolate syrup and food coloring before, but had never considered the possibilities of peanut butter or oatmeal to create different types of wounds. I also appreciate how the article is framed around DIY solutions that can be bought in any grocery store rather than having to go to expensive specialty retailers, making the tips contained here more accessible to educational and low-budget theaters.
Stage blood is always an interesting thing. For one you want it to be able to look realistic enough that the audience isn’t distracted by how obviously fake it is, but then you run into the problem of staining the costumes. Concerns also come up when it comes to fake blood possibly getting on set dressings, delicate props, wigs, etc. That was one of the problems we had when my high school did ‘Sweeney Todd,’ since a lot of characters with nice undershirts and outfits needed to get slaughtered, and we didn’t want their clothes to start turning pink. The solution wound up being the costume designer finding a type of fake blood that just washes out completely with water and would therefore leave no stains or marks. The idea was great, however the fake blood was much too thin and watery, so while the effect worked in the moment, afterwards when the characters came back for the finale, their shirts looked pink, rather than bloodied.
Post a Comment