A freaky effect
It was in his senior year at Kings County Academy that Aaron Peerless was assigned, along with several of his classmates, to perform a segment from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Peerless took the lead on the project and put his budding special effects skills to work.
“We did the king killing scene,” he recalls. “King Duncan bled out all over the table.”
The realism might have been a little too much for some classmates in the audience.
“People were freaking out,” he recalls.
But he and his fellow performers all received an A-plus grade.
It marked the beginning of a career in special effects. Peerless went on to enroll at a Toronto school called Illusions Unlimited, where he learned the secrets of the trade. He had to sculpt an alien as an audition to be accepted. His knowledge has paid off.
In 1997, Peerless launched Phantom Effects in Kentville.
“I ran the business out of my house for the longest time,” he says, “and we acquired a studio a few years back.”
Phantom Effects has worked on several movies and television shows, including Lexx and Phase IV. On the set of Lexx, Peerless had all of 24 hours to sculpt a mummy for a season 4 episode called Viva
Lexx Vegas.
“We stayed up all night,” he recalls. “Working on Lexx was a fantastic experience.”
He also worked on an action thriller shot in Halifax called Phase IV, which starred Dean Cain and Brian Bosworth, and on the dark comedy Aliens with Knives.
“I built two alien head pieces and sets of hands,” Peerless recalls. “It was a kind of a quirky, fun job.”
On both the Lexx and Aliens with Knives jobs, Phantom Effects was asked to turn around the projects on very short notice. On another occasion, he was asked to create a pair of bloodied eyeballs for a short film just 12 hours before shooting was scheduled to begin.
“They turn to us because we’ve become good at pulling little tricks out of our pocket at the last minute,” Peerless says. “I think that’s the reputation we’re getting.”
Aaron and his wife Jaimie have long been active in the local theatre community. Aaron even directed a high school play.
Their business has several interesting sidelines. Aaron bought his first motorcycle in 2015, and upon getting pelted by bugs, he came up with a better way to protect a rider’s face without being cooped up in a full-face helmet. His handpainted, custom 3D motorcycle masks have turned more than a few heads, making the rider stand out from everyone else on the road.
Phantom Effects also offers workshops where participants can create their very own special effects, from concept to finished character. Participants can create an entirely original character or do their own version of a current film or television character.
Halloween is a big occasion each year at Phantom Effects, where an annual fundraiser is held in support of various causes, including the IWK, the Children’s Wish Foundation, police services and crime prevention.
For those with an artistic spirit and an interest in selfportraiture, Jaimie creates living art portraits for clients, art installations and various businesses. Clients typically come up with their own theme and provide their own costume. From there, Jaimie creates a one-of-a-kind portrait that could someday become a treasured family heirloom or interesting conversation piece.
“We’ve had entire families dress up,” Aaron says. “It’s like the old-west carnival portraits but way beyond that.”