[Steve Dunlap]

Well, here it is, my second excerpt from William Peter Blatty's novel “The Exorcist”.   This is the spiderwalk scene, as narrated in the novel.  I took a couple minor liberties with it to fill in some vagueries in the narrative.  I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I had fun putting it together.  🙂

 

[fatherbowdern]

I love that you put Star Trek playing on the television! Nice scene, Steve.

Father Bowdern

[Steve Dunlap]

Thank you, Fr. Bowdern. 🙂

Since it didn't exactly say in the novel what they were watching on television, I thought I'd do that.  :)  Most kind, sir.

[Sofia]

This shot and the other one at the end when she flicks her tongue out were SO CREEPY!!!Can you please send me that animation as a file too??

 

Your voice as Chris was nice, you sounded a bit like a woman! You should try that for the Demon's voice – having him sound female and male at the same time. 🙂

[Steve Dunlap]

Thank you, Sofia.  I'm glad you liked the video.

I should be able to send you the spiderwalk file, since I did actually save that file. :)  On my next day off, which should be in a couple days, I'll recreate the levitate file too. The tongue flicker is quite a bit more difficult.   I don't know if you can notice, but her tongue is supposed to be flickering as she's spiderwalking toward Sharon.   That was quite difficult, because I had to constantly change the value's on the tongue's movements as it moved through three dimensional space.   But the spiderwalk file, I'm sure I can send you no problem. 🙂

I'm glad you found the effects sufficiently creepy.    I hope I did Mr. Blatty's novel justice.

When I played the video for my roommates, they were pretty creeped out by it too.   I guess it worked. 

Yeaaaaaaaaa! 🙂

 

Next time I do a video with the demon voice, I'll try a couple of techniques.

Altering the pitch slightly to make the voice sound a little more feminine…..or….

Making a second track, and altering the pitch, so it sounds like two voices at the same time.   But keeping it just subtle enough that it leaves you wondering. 🙂

[Sofia]

I just answered your email. 🙂 I sure hope you're able to send me the file tonight, and don't worry, if it works I'll credit ''Stephen Dunlap for the spiderwalk animation''. :) I loved the tongue flicker effect, wish you could send me that one, too!  

Yep, I noticed that the tongue is flickering as she gets to the bottom of the stairs and her eyes roll up into their sockets so you only see the whites. That was so creepy!

At the moment, I'm building The Exorcist house on The Sims 3, it's not possible to convert my Sims 2 house to sims 3 so I'll have to build everything again lol. I know I said I don't like Sims 3 animations but , well, the graphics are amazing and you can actually see the tree leaves swaying in the wind. 

Yeaaaaaah, your roommates have good taste!

[hammer horror]

I would have preferred Space:1999 to Star Trek, but you did a great job.

Chris looks really like Ellen! I find the voice similar too…

It would be great if you could make the end a bit longer with Regan following Sharon in the room… Can you add it?

It also would be great to see Sharon with Regan on the back, still unaware of what is happening.

A question came to my mind… Is it really possible that Regan could  touch Sharon's ankle with her tongue?

[Steve Dunlap]

Thanks, hammer.  I'm glad you liked it. 🙂

 

LOL!  I loved Space:1999 as a kid.  Sadly, I didn't have any of that footage readily available. 

A lot of what I did in the video really had to do with camera angles, and making sure I didn't overly deform Regan during her spiderwalk.  So I probably got her about as close as I could, without doing anything further drastic to her avatar.  I wanted to get her tongue to flick the ankle, but it would've looked stupid with what I had to do to the poor girl already. 🙂

I wanted to carry the scene out further, but I have to admit, I think that was actually a good place to just stop the video.  It felt more suspenseful.   Also, unfortunately, I cannot get that particular door to open up into the other room….it's just a fixture of the environment.  I was forced to work with that limitation.   The only reason I was able to make the upstairs door connect to Rags' room was because I could eliminate the original door that was there, and replace it with an active door.   I probably could've done the same to the downstairs door, but I think it would've affected the study/den in an adverse way.

 

(I love these behind the scenes discussions. :)  )

[hammer horror]

Maybe you and Sophia should work together 🙂

Yes, I understand what you mean with more suspenseful… but I would have liked to see Regan snaking after Sharon …

[fraroc]

i personally never read the book, but wtf is with the spiderwalk? It looks a bit absurd….. I think the one from the movie is better.

[Steve Dunlap]

Well, I never really set out to “one up” the movie, which I thought did a great job with what they had for the spiderwalk scene.  All I wanted to do was show an interpretation more like the novel.   I know I have a lot of limitations to work with.

 

Thank you for your honesty though. 🙂

[fatherbowdern]

fraroc, Steve actually showed to the best of his ability (with the software he has)  a more vivid version of what WPB actually wrote. Steve, perhaps fraroc's comment is geared more toward the written word translated by you versus an insult to the product you produced. It's a fine job considering the limitations of your software!

Father Bowdern

[Steve Dunlap]

Oh, I took no insult or offense on fraroc's views at all, good Father.    Indeed, I appreciated his appraisal as much as anyone else's.  

I thank everyone for their input.  It is truly appreciated. 🙂

 

All is well. 🙂

[fraroc]

I personally loved it, but  I really do think that making Regan bend back that much was pushing it, I LOVED the movie spiderwalk, I know that demonic posession allows for sickening contortionism, but the movie spiderwalk made it seem more real.

[Steve Dunlap]

In many cases, I agree, fraroc.  (And I am glad you enjoyed the video.  Thank you.  :)  )

In some ways, I kinda feel like Regan's head doing a 180 or a full 360 was sort of to make up for the lack of the “bowing back” in the spiderwalk scene (before that scene was “exorcised” in the original '73 release).    It would take quite a contortionist to pull off the bowing back.   IIRC, I don't think Mr. Blatty was crazy about the notion of Regan's head being able to do a full rotation, but, again, I see it as a kind of compensation for the lack of the bowing back.   (The demon forcing Rags' body to do the physically impossible, and still survive, or maintain physicality.)

If you watch the original uncut scene of Regan's movie spiderwalk carefully, (the version that never made it to the theaters, even in TVYNS), you'll notice that when Rags switches from her back crawl to her forward crawl, her head counter-rotates to match her new body position….adding that freaky “head spin” effect.   It's subtle, but it's there.

In my version, even though I don't think it is mentioned in the novel, I decided to make Regan's eyes fully white (eyes lolled into the backs of her sockets) to try and add to a creepiness factor that I kinda felt was missing in my version, because it is such limited CG capabilities.  Admittedly, her spiderwalk, to me, looks a little comical…again, attributed to the limitations of the program….so that's why I added in the “white eyes”.  🙂

LOL!  Another anecdote….I actually had to limit the camera angles when it came to Regan actually doing the spiderwalk.   In overarching her back (as in the novel), all of a sudden (because of the bone-structure nature of the avatar) Regan looked like she was…..well….there's no other way to put it….there was an inexplicable bulge in her crotch that made me more than a bit uncomfortable.

In the end, I think the camera angles paid off (especially when her descent is viewed from the side of the stairs, obscured by the rail and banister, and we only see the top of her arch).  I think it added to the build up.   We wonder “what the hell is that?”, and then the big reveal at the bottom of the stairs. 🙂

 

A little “behind the scenes” insight and retrospective.

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