A Morning Calm Entertainment
Feature Film
Starring Bolo Yeung, Master Britton Lee
and Richard Norton.

Severed Head Effect
Click on Photos for Larger Image!

"Ironheart" is a low-budget martial-arts film shot in Portland, Oregon. Chimera Studios was contacted to create one of the final sequences of the film - the severing of the bad guy's head by a ceremonial samurai sword. Who wouldn't love it!

The director on the film was Robert Clouse, who directed one of the greatest martial arts films of all time, "Enter the Dragon," starring Bruce Lee. Now doesn't this sound like a great project..., but wait, read on.

Clouse was very specific about the effect. The idea was to achieve the same type of effect seen in 'The Omen," where the actor's head is chopped off in slow-motion by a sheet of glass. "I wanted to take it one step further and create some movement that would play during the slow-mo effect. The head was built to have the mouth move slightly and the eyes roll back in the head."
The actor chosen to play the baddie was Richard Norton, a veteran of the martial arts genre. The crew from Chimera Studios included Tom Clark to create the mechanics and Sue Sittko to build the hairpieces.

We went on set during the filming to watch the scene that we had to insert the effect into. While on set, several photos and notes were taken. These would be used later to recreate the same 'look' in the dummy head. Several days later, Richard Norton came to our shop. He was shown the photos and video dailies taken the day of the shooting so that he would be able to duplicate the same 'look' while under the alginate lifemask.

"Richard was phenomenal. Of all the 'matching' lifecasts I've taken, his was the best."

The entire head and shoulders was cast, including open mouth. A clay positive was pulled from the mold and the eyes were sculpted open. Then the work could begin.
From the lifecast, we fabricated an 'underskull' of fiberglass that could be moved just like the skull in your head. The mouth was hinged and eyes were added and mounted on small metal bars to give the 'rolling' eyes look.

Meanwhile, the 'skin' that goes over the skull was created out of foamed latex and the hair was being designed and built by Sue.

** During the construction of the head, our hair specialist, Sue Sittko, had to take a few days to work on another project in Spokane, Washington. We had agreed to inform her when the shoot would take place so she could come back to town.
When I got the word on a final date, I called the hotel Sue was at and left a message, 'We will be severing the head on Sunday, see you then!' Two days later I received a call from the Spokane police department inquiring who we were and WHOSE head we intended to sever on Sunday! Apparently the hotel manager found the note left in the room and had called the police thinking it might be foul play. I guess it's just one of the job hazards!"**

When the head was complete, the final mechanics were added. A monofiliment trigger was installed to set off the movement once the head separated from the body and some blood tubing was put in the neckpiece.

When we arrived on set, we were surprised to find that Robert Clouse was no longer directing the movie. The scene was finally shot at about 2:30 in the morning with an exhausted crew. The effect that Clouse had designed was all but gone from the minds of all those involved. It became just another cheesy 'head-chopping' scene. What a cruel business we work in. The final result was barely more than a blur on the screen. The photos you see to the right are from our own video camera. They are the only evidence for all of the hard work.

Oh well, that's Show-Biz!

Quoted remarks are from E. Larry Day unless otherwise noted.
(Photos from the film "Ironheart" are watermarked/copyrighted Morning Calm Entertainment Group/Imperial Entertainment)

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