Idea #85 - Don’t Worry, it’s Not a Real Brain

Ever wondered how medical scenes are shot in movies? How autopsies and open-heart surgeries are performed, and more importantly, on whom are these gore operations done? Today we watched How Medical Scenes are Faked for Movies and TV and learned about the process behind these scenes.

The eight-time-Emmy-nominated makeup and prosthetics designer, Vincent Van Dyke taught us how organs are 3D printed and even hand crafted, replicating the smallest of details in the human body to look absolutely real.

Apart from parts of the body and its organs, these medical scenes at times require silicone heads and bodies altogether, with weighted armatures and mechanisms within the structure that are controlled manually to pump in and out air, so the body seems to be breathing - like puppeteering the rhythm of its pulse.

These silicone bodies are crafted to fit the script, making the sequence easier to execute. For instances where the arteries need to be cut open, materials like silk organza are used to make piercing and stitching through the skin look real!

Learning about prosthetic designing, we realised that it is just as much, if not more, science as it is art - one that requires the eye of an eagle and immaculate precision and understanding of the human body.