The Headshrinker
Project Launch

The Headshrinker


In an effort to contain the angry souls of their vanquished foes, the members of the Amazonian Shuar tribe would literally "shrink" the heads of their enemies. This process, which involves removing the skull and insides of the head as well as sewing the eyes and mouth shut, is frowned on by western society.

Fortunately, the folks at NeoPangea have found a way to replicate this super cool process without any of that messy head-hollowing-out business.

To celebrate the November 15th premiere of  National Geographic Channel’s (NGC) "Search for the Amazon Headshrinkers," which kicks of the network’s 2nd Annual Expedition Week, NeoPangea has teamed with NGC to create "The Headshrinker." This versatile application allows you to upload any photograph (your boss, your mother-in-law, that shifty cousin who owes you $50...) and transform it into a realistic-looking 3-D shrunken head.

From there, you can customize your creepy creation by  choosing from four different head shapes. You can add different accessories including bones, braids, and jewelry. You can change the color of your shrunken head’s hair or add facial hair to match your own, or create some crazy-freak-alien-hybrid. To further accentuate the experience, you can select from Amazon-inspired environments and different types of background music.

Once you’re done, you can share your morbid masterpiece through e-mail, embed on your Facebook wall, or shout to your BFFs on popular social networking sites like Mixx, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, reddit, and MySpace.

"We really had a good time with this one," said NeoPangea Creative Director Brett Bagenstose. "In fact, the creations turned out to be far more bizarre than we had originally intended. Once we started rotating the images to put the picture’s eye or nose where it’s mouth is supposed to be, it opened up a whole new world of gross opportunities. And yes, I enjoy having a job where a ‘gross opportunity’ is a good thing."

"The Headshrinker" is the latest collaboration between NeoPangea and the National Geographic Channel. Their first joint effort, The "Aftermath" timeline, earned the West Reading-based company a National Addy Award.

"National Geographic Channel offers such diverse and interesting content, that partnering with them is always an exciting challenge," Bagenstose continued. "Working with Nat Geo, we’ve had an opportunity to imagine what the end of the world would look like and what the intern would look like with his eyes stitched shut. I can’t wait to see what we’ll get to imagine next."

"Search for the Amazon Headshrinkers" premieres Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 9 p.m. ET on National Geographic Channel.

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NeoPangea is an innovative digital agency that specializes in digital video production, Web design, 3D design, interactive experiences, and live-environment multimedia. It has created successful promotions for Fortune 100 brands across the globe such as the National Geographic Channel, Comcast, and Wal-Mart. For more information, visit www.neopangea.com.

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channel (NGC) is a joint venture between National Geographic Ventures (NGV) and Fox Cable Networks (FCN). Since launching in January 2001, NGC initially earned some of the fastest distribution growth in the history of cable and more recently the fastest ratings growth in television. The network celebrated its fifth anniversary January 2006 with the launch of NGC HD which provides the spectacular imagery that National Geographic is known for in stunning high-definition. NGC has carriage with all of the nation's major cable and satellite television providers, making it currently available in nearly 70 million homes. For more information, please visit www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/.