chopping off a hand

[JBHorror]

I'm writing my script and I've come across an effect that I would not know how to pull off. A zombie gets his hand cut off, but he will be in the rest of the movie, so whenever he is on screen he will be without a hand. How would I pull this off? From actually chopping the hand off to showing him without one. Would having him wear a long sleeve shirt to hide his hand be eneough?

[XcollinX]

im thinking a manican arm hallowed out if possible. drop bloodbags in at the end , they'll roll down and stop at the wrist. then just take a hack, it might at first be difficult to cut through, but then again so is a hand.

for the rest of the movie i think u should do the longsleeve deal only have the zombie wear a dark red glove, and have him holding and dangling some tissue paper that has been mixed with fake blood to create the illusion of flesh and veins and arteries in the wrist
=D

[JBHorror]

Alright thanks! The manican arm idea isn't too bad, I'm gonna have to do some more research though. I'll definitely be using the tissue paper thing, sounds like that's the best way to go.

[goriddle]

if the zombie is really grarled you could fabricate a fake hand easily. The commentary and behind the scenes of evil dead 2 and army of darkness talk a little bit about how they did ashes chopped off hand.

[JBHorror]

I'll have to pop my ED2 DVD in then. But they don't actually show it being chopped off, don't they just zoom in on his face as blood sprays up at him?

EDIT: Nevermind, are you talking about how they designed his possessed hand?

[goriddle]

no I am talking about how they made ashes stump look convincing in army of darkness.

[sinshine]

As far as the 'stump' goes...

A long time ago I made a short that required a similar effect. An unconscious victim lie still while the maniac dismembers him limb by limb.

For the actual 'cutting off' of the hand I just cut the scene with three shots: 1. CU of the victim's arm being put into chopping block position 2. MS of maniac raising his hatchet over his head and bringing it down hard as he is sprayed by blood from off screen 3. back to the CU of the victim's arm (now a realistic fake) with the hatchet between the stump and the cut off limb.

To make this look even more realistic, have the actor actually cut into a block of wood or something similar so that his motion is fluid (not as if he is cutting into something imaginary). Also when you cut back to the hatchet and the severed hand, have your actor scrape the hand aside and quickly cut back to a WS of the same action. This motion takes the audiences attention away from the fake hand and allows them to more thoroughly concentrate on what this maniac is doing.

Finally, for the stump I took an empty plastic shredded cheese container (could use a tall plastic cup you get from a local 7 Eleven too, I guess) and use that as the 'base' for your actor to fit his real hand into. Make sure that the bottom of the container is close to the size of the wrist (or area where the stump will begin). I then glued a piece of styrafoam to the bottom of the container, carved some jagged edges and textures into it and painted it a deep red. I then poked a hole through the bottom of the container and styrafoam and fed some small red tubing through it. On the inside of the container (where the actor's hand will be hidden) I attatched a squeeze bulb full of fake blood to the 'inside' portion of the red tubing...so that the actor could pump blood through the wound from inside the container where his hand was curled up in. Lastly, the container was then slipped through the long sleeve shirt the actor wore and his hand put into place. The only thing you need to be careful of is that your actor takes into concideration the 'length' of the remaining limb while acting (in other words, the container over his hand actually makes his arm look longer unless the actor curls his hand up into the container as tightly as he can to allow for a shorter stub).

Over all, the effect looked great and was simple to do. Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but it worked for me.