Ding-Dong, The Witch Is Done

FINALLY. After three days of shooting and two postponements, we've wrapped photography on the Wicked Witch of the West! Thanks to Norm's careful adjustments and preparations, today was our smoothest, most efficient day yet.

I drove Sean and myself over, and we arrived right at the same time as Norm, about quarter to nine, nine being our agreed upon start time. We unloaded our respective vehicles and started setting up, and most importantly got those sweet, sweet AC juices flowing. The atmosphere was just a little tense because none of us knew what to expect from today, given our Witch history. Right around nine Marie showed up with her son, and we got started ASAP.

The contact lens actually went in pretty easily, all things considered. Took a few tries, but not nearly as many as our other three goes. Just a bunch o' ol' pros, here. Norm then immediately started with the mask. He'd ordered a new batch of Skin Tite for us, and he again used that to adhere the mask to Marie's face. Once that had set up he used more Skin Tite to blend the mask to her face, and painted over all that with greasepaint. It looked fantastic, probably the best it's been yet.

You'll have to take my word for it. Here's a picture of Norm.

Norm had taken the time to redo the glove aspect of the hands entirely. The tops, the original appliances, were the same, but the gloves were all souped up. Marie slipped into them, and that was that, no problems at all with fingers this time. A couple nails popped off towards the end, but at that point it didn't matter.

Overall, the make-up experience was much more successful. The lip held up very well, and Norm only had to touch it up a couple times. We were able to move through the last of the Witch material very quickly, much faster than last time. And we'd saved all our dialogue for today, too.

Dialogue, y'know... The script words that you talk with.

One small little hiccup, and a highlight for me, was Marie swinging her cane up to hit a subordinate, only to make contact with a tracking marker, which broke apart and crashed down next to her. Her startled, frightened reaction was hilariously un-Witch-like. Expect to enjoy the footage of that bizarre juxtaposition at some point down the line. For now, here's a picture of the broken marker... Lucky you...

Almost... FREUDIAN, innit?

Probably the most important scene we got today, which we hadn't got any shots from on our other shoots, was the Witch's final scene. It's all pivotal and stuff. YOU know why.

Because it's the scene where the Witch destroys Dorothy and gets the shoes, right?

We also had a little more fun with the Cap of Quelala. Because making somebody wear that thing is NEVER not funny.

It reaches comedic heights Dane Cook can only ASPIRE to.

After we'd wrapped on the most important new stuff, and while the lip was still holding strong, we had time to reshoot a little bit. There was material from the first shoot that was serviceable, but not entirely to my liking. Namely the scene in which the Witch summons the crows.

She tried to call the crows, but unfortunately she didn't have any bars on her whistle.

Shortly after we finished with that, poor Marie started to feel very nauseous, and was afraid she might vomit. Ever the trooper, she didn't want us to get her out immediately, she wanted to finish all the material first. We blasted through the last shot we needed, her tearing out a bit of her hair. Which we'd saved until last for obvious reasons. Once that was in the can, Norm and I rushed Marie out of the mask, and she immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

The nausea seemed to have passed for the most part, and Marie was agreeable to do one last insert with the gloves on. A simple swap of the umbrella for the cane. And so I present to you here the very last shot of Marie Rizza as the Wicked Witch of the West.

She just brought a cane to an... umbrella... fight...

And that's it... we're done with her... Well, on a photography level, anyway. There's still so much editing and visual effects work left. And after that we'll need to do ADR with Marie. It's still a weird feeling, after we've all been so worried about getting this done, and coming down to the wire to get that Banner Elk stuff... It's all over with.

Our Witch responsibilities have all just... MELTED AWAY...

Oh SNAP! How could I not?