Director Ben Aston is a major proponent of practical SFX over the use of CGI. This is an important thing to note when looking at his upcoming short film adaptation of Maria Hummer's short story
He Took His Skin Off For Me and a major reason why he recruited former assistant to Ray Harryhausen, Colin Arthur, to mentor his team. And the results of an SFX test created by the team are quite simply stunning.
"Is this what you want? he asked, and I said yes, so he took his skin off for me."
He hangs the loose skin in the closet and comes downstairs to join his girlfriend at the dinner table. This whole thing seems like a good idea. He's become what she always wanted him to be. But it's not all perfect. It's the small things. The stains. She has to wash the sheets every day. At night he gets cold, so they have to turn up the heat. This means more bills. And gas isn't cheap...
In fact, money is more of a problem than ever. He's losing clients at work and they begin to fight about it. She tells him they're the wrong clients anyway. Old friends come over for dinner, but the party does not go well. He is quiet and withdrawn. The house is covered in stains - more than she can possibly clean. They stop talking. The silence is deafening. She begins to worry that he resents her. He does.
Aston has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the project and given that they're only looking for seven thousand pounds it doesn't seem like it should be difficult to attain. Check the pitch video - which includes much of the VFX test footage - below for a taste of what makes this stand out.