BRENDAN CONNELL: Editor, Cinematographer & Post-production
MAKEUP ©Brendan Connell 2015
Done as a preliminary sketch for the same makeup art featured in this category, I was pleased with how the leopard rosettes turned out for a panther where the melanistic design is ultimately the biggest hurtle to try and overcome. Hope you enjoy.
Ladies and gentlemen: Andrew Olson! I can't tell you how much of a blast this guy was to have on set. Imagine a mix of Heath Ledger and Bill Nighy rolled into one while channeling the best of Liam Neeson's Ra's-Al-Ghul and I haven't even gotten to the fight scenes we was trained to do. Hope you enjoy.
Done as a preliminary sketch for the same makeup art featured in this category, I was pleased with how the leopard rosettes turned out for a panther where the melanistic design is ultimately the biggest hurtle to try and overcome. Hope you enjoy.
Moving along, we have Shannon Freeman as Bagheera, the black panther. Limited to the actors we had, we converted Bagheera from the Aslan character he as into a maternal tutor. Hope you enjoy.
Done as a preliminary sketch for the same makeup art featured in this category, I originally played this as a bit of caricature that was never supposed to have gone this far, but wow, what a payoff! While the prosthetic work never made it into the final design the image was just so stirring and unique that it felt like a physical design that could in fact exist: a compliment towards both the sage and elephant that Hathi was and is. Hope you enjoy.
Oh for some Weta Workship quality prosthetics... Oh well. Trying to bring Hathi to the stage was a personal joy knowing what we could, should, and couldn't do. My idea for the great elephant was a Maharajah and Maggie Sturn perfectly conveyed the feeling of an old, soul, a tutor among tutors for Mowgli. Hope you enjoy.
Done as a preliminary sketch for the same makeup art featured in this category, I wished to try and break away from male subjects and wondered what a wolf could look like, but complimented in a feminine way. Certainly there is a hint of Disney to say the least, but with nothing more than to see the prosthetics and makeup, I wanted to render a very demure and even clement sister to Mowgli in his wolf family. Hope you enjoy.
In 2012 I was able to get the screenplay of my adaptation of The Jungle Book converted into a stage play at my alma mater. I did practically everything except for direct and these makeup designs are mine too. This here is Francisco Arreola as Akela, the Alpha of the Seeonee Wolf Pack. Hope you enjoy.
Again, tabaqui gets resigned to being a hyena instead of one of the Gidur-log (jackal) he was supposed to be. I can tell you Rachel Erikson had such a giddy time playing this player. If the makeup weren't enough she even got a retro purple and green Joker zoot-suit. Hope you enjoy.
Done as a preliminary sketch for the same makeup art featured in this category, it becomes very easy and altogether welcome to try and make anthropomorphic equivalents of Sahib Kipling's immortal characters. That was a trend that resonating throughout the process and Tabaqui certainly took a very "Joker" direction as opposed to Hathi's Gandalf, Shere Khan's Ra's Al Ghul, or Bagheera's Aragorn. Hope you enjoy.
Just try and think of something that is ursinine; something with no patterns, no detail, and the very easy chance of being uniform and bland. This was when we had to get creative and our Baloo, Aubrey Riggs, performed this role well. My guess is we decided for something more panda-like in design than a sloth bear. Hope you enjoy.
Ca-rikki-tikki-rissa! The mongoose, Rikki-tikki-tavi, became our master of ceremony like in Cabaret. There definitely is a Julie Taymor influence here. Salute to Carissa Gilliland, she's a joy on stage as well as in real life. Hope you enjoy.
Starting off as preliminary sketches for a 2012 production of "The Jungle Book" that I was able to produce, these makeup designs are the final products of a wonderful experience in the dramatic arts. Heavy influences from Julie Taymor as well as Stan Winston, Howard Berger, and Dino Acevedo permeate the end results