Bog Boy Prop for Latvian Detective Film Created at a Berlin Special Effects Workshop

One of the key characters in "Klajumā aiz meža" (roughly "In the Clearing Beyond the Forest"), a psychological detective film by Latvian director Reinis Kalviņš, is a dead boy found in a bog. The prop for this character was made by Twilight Creations, a Berlin workshop specialising in special effects and make-up art. The film is soon to open in cinemas across Latvia. The boy has no lines and his face is barely noticeable on screen, yet making the prop took several weeks.

Workshop representatives Jörn Seifert and Tamar Aviv told the news site Delfi how the prop was made and how it travelled from Germany to the film set.

A workshop with major film credits

Seifert and Aviv founded Twilight Creations in 2005. The workshop has contributed to the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011), Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" (2009) and the latest "Matrix" instalment (2021). It has also created make-up effects for fantasy characters, realistic injury effects and highly detailed props.

Seifert says his career choice was shaped by an interest in monster and fantasy films. He learned about a make-up school in Berlin from a magazine article given to him by a childhood friend. Aviva specialises in skin and ageing. She entered the world of props after visiting the Babelsberg film studio, where the company was then making body replicas for the film "The NeverEnding Story".

How the bog boy was made

The model for the prop was a Latvian boy named Gusts, who travelled to Berlin with his father. He was scanned with a 3D scanner to build a digital model. According to Aviva, casting a body in the 2000s would have taken at least two days, whereas the scan took a single day.

The director wanted the boy's body in a calm pose, as if he had fallen asleep. Aviva notes that this is a sensitive subject and that the challenge was to show a dead child without a horrifying look and with respect.