December 15, 2010

Bank Robber caught with SPFXMask


Take a look at this person here. If you notice a certain fake quality about him, then you are not alone.

There is a person here, but it is underneath a mask. That’s right, what you are seeing here with this Stone Cold Steve Austin lookalike here is nothing more than a mask.

I have a video of this after the jump so you can see the masked person for yourself. You will notice the realistic movements of the face that include twitching, moving the forehead, and other things that you wouldn’t think a person in a mask could do. Man, that guy’s real face (assuming it is a guy) must be dipped in glue.

It makes we wonder if we can actually have that Mission Impossible technology that allows for someone covering their face with a mask in order to impersonate someone else. I think we all know that effect was just switching with another actor, with some trick photography to make it look like the MIF team was putting on masks.

I’m not certain that this mask would fool me, but that is because I know it is a mask, and I’m looking to see what makes it fake. The real trick is whether or not this would fool me if someone came up to me on the street with these. Especially if they were trying to impersonate someone that I know very well, like they did in Mission Impossible.


Some of you might remember when we discussed how SPFX masks can create a very realistic Mission Impossible effect of disguising the user. A recent event last spring has proven their effectiveness.

The man on the immediate left is Conrad Zdzierak, and he is a Polish immigrant who held up several Ohio banks wearing the mask to his left.

I’m sure he thought he was committing the perfect crime as the cops were looking for a suspect with an African-American face. The police even arrested an African-American man that they believed to be the culprit, and the scapegoat’s mother thought it was her own son when the Police showed her a surveillance photo of the robbery.

Of course, Zdzierak couldn’t keep up his charade forever, and his girlfriend found the “smoking gun” of the mask and stolen money and called the police on him.

You might be wondering how Zdzierak obtained the mask in the first place. Apparently, he ordered the mask from SPFXMasks, and told them it was for a movie. He even had a set of African-American hands to match with it.

Okay, we are clearly moving closer to an era where we can’t trust the face of the persons that we see. Authorities are beginning to suspect that a man known the “Geezer Bandit”, who has pulled off a string of robberies in Southern California, might not be as old as they suspected.

25 comments:

  1. tell me about it; an elderly man came to canada last month, took of the mask on the plane and was busted. was a young chinese guy escaping china, for whatever reason.....crazy shit for real

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  2. Yeah, you can noticce how deep his eyes are.

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  3. Yeah I saw the thing on the news about the Chinese guy getting busted on the plane. News broadcasters made it seem like this could be the next step for terrorists getting into the country.

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  4. The ONLY thing I could spot were the deep eyes. But that's because you told me it was fake. That's incredible stuff man. Not really in a good way though! Hope the crime rate doesn't increase.

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  5. that is one very ugly man. and very creepy looking.

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  6. Wow, looks impressive! I'm afraid this is gonna be the modern version of a bank attack

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  7. Wow, that's crazy. I think we're looking into the future of robbery.

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  8. This is amazing. It looks so real, I'd be interested to see more!

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  9. Man... the eyes give it away. Still pretty crazy.

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  10. Looks very interesting.

    How much one of those would cost?

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  11. @Joel C Anatoli

    Just checked it out and the prices seem to be between $689 and $789 + Shipping. It might seems pricy but you can get back your money in only one bank robery! ;)

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  12. holy crap, this is crazy... people are too creative for their own good!

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  13. @ Mr Bouchard - could you check your RSS settings? The last update of yours in my Dashboard was about three weeks ago. I don't see you at all in Google Reader. Do other followers get your updates?

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  14. yea, but the idea is astonishing.

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  15. Wow, that's crazy expensive, but you're right, lol, you only need to use it once to get a return on your investment.

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  16. i guess it's a good investment if you're robbing banks. i could imagine it would get hot in there tho

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  17. That is creepily realistic. The only give away was if someone paid attention to the eyes.

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  18. These masks work. Don't ask how I know... they just do.

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