p.1 #1 · Creature from the Black Lagoon: Monster Series w behind the scenes shots
This series with local makeup artist Elle Munster began as an effort to build a book of more advanced 'theatrical/movie' style makeup looks to counter the local perception that she was purely a 'beauty/wedding' style makeup artist.
As such most of these images are free from photoshop or any significant post work at all. This image has one exception - the yellow eyes. We had yellow contacts for Helena (our model) but they really hurt her eyes, as she doesn't normally wear contacts. So I told her I would do it in post. But that's it. Everything else is straight out of camera.
The two biggest challenges were making it look like the model was emerging from the water (she isn't under water) and then making the ripples in the water so that it looked like she'd disturbed the water.
I Didn't want to build a full pool in my studio, so after thinking about it for a few days, I came up with the idea of using a very thin layer of water. My initial attempt was to use a cookie sheet filled with water, but it wasn't large enough (I found out on the day) so I rapidly switched to using the top of one of those giant storage Tupperware containers. I lined it with black garbage bag to darken the water.
The edge did show, however, so during shooting, I had Elle (the makeup artist) and my girlfriend tip the edge of the tray nearest the camera up, so the water gently overflowed the far end to take away the lip edge. (we had the actual Tupperware container under the table to catch it)
I couldn't figure out how to make the circles of water (dropping a marble in didn't work - too shallow) until we were about 10 minutes into shooting, then I remembered seeing the 'making of' Jurassic Park, and how they got the coffee on the dashboard of the SUV to ripple for the approach T-Rex - they strong piano wire between the frame of the vehicle, and had someone 'pluck it'.
So I ran a bungee cable under my support table, and plucked it as we shot...
Here's the final image, and some behind the scenes of the set up.
