How are head shots and deep throat gashes filmed?
I was watching a movie the other night and the main character slits the throat of another person. The camera stayed on the victim the whole time this happened. I'm wondering how this is achieved.Similar question is head shots (via gun fire) where someone gets shot in the head and you see an entry wound and the exit splatter all without cutting away then coming back. I'd imagine some kind of exploding blood pack on the back of the head for the splatter, but what about the forehead wound/neck gash spurting blood all over? Some of the cuts go pretty deep too. How do they film/setup these types of shots? How are these types of "live" shots achieved without cutting away to another shot, then coming back?
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1 Expert Answer
Jeremy B. answered • 06/23/20
Tutor
New to Wyzant
BS in Digital Cinematography with 15 years video production experience
Digital effects have advanced so much in the last 30 years that its become possible for even a filmmaker on a very tight budget to create something with Hollwood level cinematics. Also makeup artist can craft realistic prosthetics that can gush blood on remote command. It's up to the creativity level of the special effects supervisor and their crew. I'd suggest checking out "El Mariachi" regarding what can be done on a very limited budget.
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Andrew V.
For throat slits, in older films, the trick was to cut away from act without prosthetic, and then cut back with prosthetic. The prosthetic would consist of some mixture of latex material, with fake blood underneath and pumped in. The higher budget the movie, the better the prosthetic could be so perhaps you wouldn't have to cut away and cut back so fast. These days you can digitally combine shots, so you could combine the gore gag with a different shot. Plus, in general prosthetics are better and cheaper so you may not always have to hide them as much. Same basic idea for headshots, except you can generally hide the prosthetics easier by having it in the hair or a blood pump attached to their back. There are some fun behind the scenes clips on YouTube of how they did the headshots in 2004s Dawn of the Dead. This is coming from someone who has spent a lot of time on horror movie sets.04/09/20