GALLERY: From beauty to beast Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Bruce Banner and The Hulk - literature is full of stories of good people who change into monsters during extreme circumstances. In our case, we relied upon a little movie magic to transform a mild mannered account manager into a demented hag. Okay, maybe demented hag is a bit much - but the experts at the Flix Institute in West End don't muck about when they say they will make you look unrecognisable, as Fairfax's Adrienne Le Mura discovered.
The Flix Institute in West End is the only film special effects college in Queensland - and boasts an impressive Hollywood movie credit list on its CV. At stage one of Adrienne's transformation this week, our expert film make-up artist applied morticians' wax to her and sculpted a new, fearsome nose - one definitely scary enough to terrify little children everywhere. Morticians' wax is exactly what it sounds like - it is used by morticians and funeral staff to prepare bodies when someone's face has been damaged in an accident and the family wants to view the body.
Adrienne gave feedback on the process as the intended recipients of the wax would not. "It smells like play dough and it's really heavy on the end of my nose, I feel like a bird!" Adrienne said.
Prosthetics and special effects make-up artist Shay Lawrence found his inspiration for make-up and special effects in one of music history most famous videos. "The first thing that got me into makeup - considering I am into horror and all the creatures - was when I saw the making of Michael Jackson video clip Thriller by Rick Baker," Mr Lawrence said. "I watched the behind the scenes footage, it was the first time people got to see the work that went into that kind of makeup work.
" Adrienne didn't end up be looking like an undead MJ or the ghouls and zombies from the video clip - but she wasn't far from it. Cue stage two of the transformation, which saw Adrienne leaning more towards the evil old witch from Hansel and Gretel with bursting sores spread across her face. The sores themselves are made using a process known as Tinsley scarring, which was pioneered in the production of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and then used subsequently on Gibson's other recent film Apocalypto.
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