Lord of Illusions

A supernatural thriller that rips apart the boundaries between sanity and madness, between the art of illusion and the terrifying forces of magic. With heart-stopping suspense, masterful visual effects and non-stop terror, it's a riveting journey into the shadowy corners of the human soul.

Set and shot in L.A. and my third collaboration with Mr Barker, this was a complex design challenge in terms of accommodating many special FX sequences. It also involved staging a magic show and designing the gags in it that would rival the best Vegas act ( but on a budget). There were a number of set builds because of their destruction requirements, and for FX rigging. Many of the sets were built to match existing locations.

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Director:

Steve Hardie
David Koneff
Mark Brown
Eric Shultz
Ron Schmidt
Simon Boswell
Luke Reichle
Alan Baumgarten
Sharon Howard-Field
Clive Barker

JoAnne Sellar
Clive Barker

Film Clip Available

 
 
 
 

 The show for Swann the magician was staged at the Pantages theatre in Hollywood, we tried to create a minimal but impressive
set that had the traditional hallmarks of magic act design. The illusions were designed to be realistic in so far as what you might expect to
see in a theatrical show, without going too overboard with film style special effects that would ironically undermine the "illusion".

  
   
The giant bug with wings, pretty much filled the stage. The gag which introduces Swann the magician was created by the introduction of a clear sarcophagus which flies onto the stage over the audience with a skeleton inside of it, the bug's proboscis fills it with red sand and with a symbolic blast of flame is hardened into a sand block. The assistants remove the clear sarcophagus casing and the block explodes revealing Swann levitating in the air - magic..or illusion?
     
   The design of the bug was two-fold, as it had to be seen to perform its function in the stage show, and then later in a scene under the stage, where it was stored, we see the proboscis used to impale one of our characters, with the red sand flowing like blood. Not only was the effect more interesting, but it also circumvented the censors.    Original sketch for the bug design which was then sculpted with foam, plastered and painted.  
   
 
   
 
Sketch outline for sarcophagus rig.
   

 

  To the right is the other act in the stage show where Swann fakes his own death. Here we had a revolving rig hung above the stage with swords suspended on "bomb-releases" that were triggered electronically to fall. On the stage we had a revolving pentagram turntable welded from steel tube. Swann attempts to free himself of the rig as the swords descend. The final image of his impaled body is symbolic of the Tarot 10 of swords. We hung a large circular mirror at 45° behind the rig to allow the audience a birds-eye view of the scene.
The whole sequence was a put together from a array of shots using reverse load film, full and partial Swann dummies, different types of swords and a wonderful editing job.

  
   
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