Shot in the eye

Focal 7

Member
I need advice on how to pull this off. In a scene I am trying to film, A guy who is wearing welding goggles gets shot in the eye. The goggles are the old fashioned kind with 2- 1 1/2" glass discs at each eye. In the scene, the guy is shot with a single shot .22 rifle at a distance of about 20 yards. I want one of the discs to shatter (crack, but not completely fall out) with a entrance hole and then his eye to come out of the hole as a fluidy mass much like a chicken egg out of a shell. Then the eye will just hang there in a fluidy mass. I am not going for grotesque, but rather accuracy. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. I have some ideas.......but you may have better ones!
 
the obvious solution would be a second visually identical set of goggles with a fake lens and a small gunk reservoir behind the lens (but in front of the actor's real eye). The actor just swaps to the 'broken' goggles for the post-impact shots

If you actually want to show the moment of impact, that will be so much more difficult - I for one would not want any pyotechnic device pretending to explode millimetres from my real eye.

You need to think very carefully about the camera shots - e.g. will the actor be screaming with his hand up to his eye and then lower his hand to show his ruined eye? - that might usefully cover a lot of the transitions. But on the realism front, is he dead afterwards? If he's lying immobile (dead or severely injured) on the ground, that will also make any effects shots easier or harder, compared to him running around screaming or whatever
 
Thanks for the response. The subject is a mutant, the shot in the eye only serves to infuriate him. He does not die, but rather goes about his business with the eye swinging around.
I do want to show the moment of impact. That's what makes this tough. As far as the actor grabbing for his eye, I don't have a problem with that. Camera distance from the subject will be about 15-20' with a close up of 6' at moment of impact. I can profide more specifics if needed. Thanks
 
Use a Styrofoam mannequin head with an XCU on the head more or less. Dress the head up identical to the actor. Put a packet of fake blood or w.e behind the glasses like said earlier above. Shoot with a high frame rate so you can slow it down in post and not have to worry about moving the head like a real person or mutant in this case. cut to a wider shot of the mutant taking the shock from the shot etc.
just some ideas..
 
Well if you are going for accuracy you could composite the goggle shattering easy enough but .... the eye would not ooze out of the hole. A 22 leaves a very small entrance wound. The loss of blood however would be immense.

So go shoot a piece of tempered glass with a black background, composite this over the goggle. As the actors head jerks back from the impact release the blood pack that has been tucked behind the lens.

Keep eye closed!
 
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