There’s never been a more trying time to be squeamish about blood.
Turning on the television these days means there’s a pretty good chance of getting assaulted with a graphic decapitation or a dismembering. On cable, the blood flows on smash shows as varied as “Game of Thrones,” “American Horror Story,” “Penny Dreadful,” “Fargo,” “The Walking Dead” and “True Blood.” Streaming sites (Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove”) and network shows (NBC’s “Hannibal”) are getting in on the bloody good fun, too. Heck, even the History Channel has its own gore-fest in “Vikings.”
“It’s the competition for eyeballs, but obviously people are transfixed on gore, just carnally,” says Todd Masters, the makeup effects producer on “True Blood,” which continues its final season Sunday night. “It’s part of being a human, being an animal — we see it, and our heads turn. It’s like when you see an accident, you have to stop and look.”
“Accidents” abound on all these shows, but how their makeup effects teams approach them is different.
Masters and “The Walking Dead” special effects makeup supervisor Greg Nicotero both cite the work of Dick Smith as setting the industry standard in the ’70s, with his craft on such films as “Taxi Driver” and “The Exorcist.” Countless movies and shows have since used his mixture of Karo syrup and food coloring. Early versions included Photo-Flo (the solution used to process photography), says Masters, and in his work he’s used everything from beer malt to soup to peanut butter as a base.
“There’s a zillion formulas,” he says. “Blood is such a big component of [‘True Blood’], oftentimes we have to have it sticky or it has to be stringy or it has to be drinkable.”
In fact, one actress on the show demanded a carb-free version, which Masters had to create. He’s mum on who it was, but it definitely wasn’t Anna Paquin — who, in her first time drinking blood from a prosthetic arm hooked up to a pump, consumed what Masters believes was gallons of it rather than the small amount required.
But each show seems to have perfected a recipe to fit its needs. “Vikings” head of makeup and special effects Tom McInerney says it’s too difficult to find Karo syrup in Ireland where they film, so they turn instead to a fructose syrup coupled with a special food coloring that doesn’t stain clothing — a necessity when costumes need to be reworn. (Naturally, he won’t divulge the brand.)
Over at “Penny Dreadful,” which airs its season finale Sunday night, special effects makeup and prosthetics designer Nick Dudman uses his own brand of blood, Pigs Might Fly.
“The trick is basically to come up with something nontoxic but that stays the same in any temperature,” he explains. “A lot of these sugar-based things will just rot, or turn violently alcoholic.”
But coming up with the blood is only half the battle.
“I stress to my makeup crew to never use a brush to apply the blood,” says Nicotero of “The Walking Dead.” “Blood spray tells a story — the more the spray, the more violent the story.”
McInerney echoes that motto — on the “Vikings” set, he lines up actors and blasts them with a blood-filled garden hose. For the new season he’s currently filming, he’s even created a cannon that uses compression to launch blood skyward.
Getting covered yourself is also a risk. “The most important thing when doing blood gags is a paper suit,” says Dudman. “[After one elaborate scene], I looked like I’d been butchering cows.”
The detail shots require just as much work as the big, gory spectacles. To get blood to trickle down a precise path, Dudman paints the desired area on the skin with soap. On “True Blood,” Masters and his crew have to pay attention to the blood puddles that emerge every time a vampire is killed. His team creates stacks similar to “vomit” gags you can buy at a novelty store.
Dudman believes all this focus on gore is cyclical, but for now it’s drawing viewers in droves.
“There’s this morbid fascination of watching a horrendous massacre without actually committing to something that is really quite real,” says McInerney. “[It’s] suspension of disbelief, but if you can get as close as possible to that belief, you win.”
Blood by the numbers
- 10 gallons: amount used every time a vampire dies on “True Blood”
- 105 gallons: amount used for the first day of shooting “Penny Dreadful”
- 120 gallons: amount used when 20 zombies fell through a roof on “The Walking Dead”
- 264 gallons: amount used per season of “Vikings”