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Article
by Joe Fordham
For
an 18-year-old young man entering the field of makeup effects
at Richard Edlund's newly formed visual effects facility -- Boss
Film Studios -- the early 1980s was an exciting time. "Boss
Film was a great group to jump into," recalled makeup effects
artist Todd Masters. "Steve Johnson and Randy Cook were there
-- Screaming Mad George, Pat McClung, Mark Stetson. Everybody
was coming through Boss at the time. There was a great camaraderie;
and a lot of those connections have been far-reaching."
Masters'
introduction to the Hollywood effects community was preceded by
an apprenticeship at a young age in his hometown of Seattle, Washington.
"I made little 8mm films as a kid," said Masters, "experimenting
with clay animation and drawing. I showed a couple of my films
to a small animation house, and started working there when I was
12. I was a big kid, had a really deep voice, and by the time
I was 13, I was head of the cel painting department. They eventually
realized how old I was because I was always taking the bus and
could only work in the summer or on weekends. But it was a good
experience because it taught me a lot about animation."
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The
enterprising youngster sought career advice from peers by
scouring city phone books at the Seattle Public Library.
"I read about Ray Harryhausen in London, England, so
I called him on the phone!" said Masters. "He
was nice enough to talk to me about how to make better molds;
and through his help, I hooked up with Jim Danforth and
Craig Reardon." Employment followed at Alpha Cine in
Seattle, where Masters worked as an optical effects assistant
for the postproduction facility's visual effects wing, Alpha
Effects. Masters' personal creative interests, meanwhile,
gravitated toward puppetry and makeup effects; and, by the
age of 18, he had applied those skills to commercials and
a local television Halloween special -- experience that
led to his employment at Boss.
Masters
opened his own makeup effects studio, MastersFX, in 1986.
The studio cut its teeth on the HBO horror series, Tales
From the Crypt -- initially providing set dressings
for creature designer Kevin Yagher's animatronic Crypt Keeper
emcee, then creating Emmy-award-nominated makeup effects
for later seasons. Since then, MastersFX has produced makeup
effects for four seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate
Atlantis, FX Network's gruesome plastic surgery drama
Nip/Tuck, the ABC TV miniseries Stephen King's
Kingdom Hospital, and has earned an Emmy award for HBO's
Six Feet Under.
Despite
the workload, Masters only recently expanded his Arleta,
California, base of operations to a larger 8,000-foot studio,
where he maintains a core staff of 12 artists. To cater
to increasing Canadian production, MastersFX opened a satellite
studio in Vancouver, with a staff of four supervised by
makeup artist Mike Fields. "This business runs in cycles,"
noted Masters, "so we've been cautious about growing
and not getting too big for our britches."
MastersFX
feature film assignments have been as diverse as horse wound
prosthetics for the equine star of Hidalgo, a cobblestone
roadway of living faces for What Dreams May Come,
and biomechanical Borg warriors in Star Trek: First Contact,
for which the studio created the disembodied head and shoulders
of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). The Borg queen effect remains
a favorite of Masters' for its blend of practical and visual
effects. "They were originally going to do it as a
big CG shot," Masters recalled, "but we did it
as a simple gag. In a big motion control camera move, we
lowered Alice into the set on a slant board that angled
her body away from a prosthetic representing her severed
neck and shoulders. Then they repeated the move without
her so that we had a clean background; and ILM put it all
together. It's a really cool shot, because you're not really
looking for the trick. It's Special Effects 101 -- you have
the audience look at something else while you're stealing
from the kitty."
Mix-and-match
techniques played a role in a recent series of commercials
for Michelin tires. MastersFX fashioned a full-body suit
of the chubby pneumatic man, using lightweight foam construction
with a silicone skin to create a wrinkle-free, slightly
translucent finish. The performer wore foam latex hands
and a fiberglass helmet head with an open window in the
face. Digital Domain then applied tracking markers to the
performer's face, and digitally generated cartoon-style
expressions. "It would have been impractical to try
to create Tex Avery animation as a physical effect,"
Masters observed. "It would have always had an animatronic
look. But, by having the character physically in our world,
Digital Domain could see exactly how the light worked with
the materials we used."
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An
annual MastersFX Halloween party has been an industry staple for
nine years, growing ever more elaborate with each year's event.
"They're out of control!" Masters remarked. "When
I first got into the business, makeup artist Ve Neill was hosting
them, and I thought they were a wonderful way to meet people.
Most of us in this industry don't have the time to connect and
network. Screaming Mad George hosted a couple; Steve Johnson did
one. We did our first one because we thought it would be a cool
way to show our artists' work, the stuff that never sees the light
of day -- original ideas that are unbudgeted, unscheduled brain
burps. It was a great celebration of our art -- not just MastersFX
art, the art of this industry -- and it started spreading. Most
Halloween parties you go to in real life suck. They aren't at
all like the Halloween parties you see in movies, which always
have all these great aliens and creatures -- but ours are!"
Party-maker
and businessman, Masters maintains a passion for his craft. "The
business is more organized, more of a business than it was in
the early eighties," Masters observed, "but it's still
a lot of fun. It's a very hard job -- you get up extremely early,
work really late and get a lot of slimy stuff on your hands --
but it's still a blast. When people ask you what you do, you can
tell them, 'I'm a monster maker,' and that's always a good answer."
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Star
Wars: Episode III: Lucasfilm reportedly had 6,500
cheering fans leaping out of their seats at the 35th annual
San Diego Comic-Con this weekend. The excitement was triggered
by the announcement of a title for George Lucas' final
Star Wars film, due out May 19, 2005. Click
here to read the official news at Star Wars.com. The
site also reports Del Ray will release hardcover publications
of The Art of Star Wars: Episode III and Star
Wars: The Making of Episode III by J.W. Rinzler April
2, 2005. The art book will include the complete screenplay
of the film by Lucas.
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Transformers:
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report
DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures have acquired the movie
rights for a film featuring Hasbro's Transformers -- robot
toys that morph into all manner of vehicles and contraptions.
Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto will produce the live-action
feature for Angry Films, in cahoots with Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
Steven Spielberg will executive produce. Paramount will
oversee international distribution rights, while DreamWorks
handles domestic. The film is aimed at a summer 2006 release.
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Watchmen:
THR reports Paramount Pictures has picked up
this DC Comics adaptation being prepared by filmmaker
Darren Aronofsky, with a screenplay by David Hayter. Eric
Watson will produce with Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin.
Comic impresario Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons created
The Watchmen as a 12-issue comic book in 1986,
which THR describes as "a crime-conspiracy
story that provided the first realistic look at the behind-the-heroics
lives of superhero archetypes."
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Hover
Car Racer: Variety reports Walt Disney Pictures
has acquired the rights to this futuristic novel, by thriller
writer Matthew Reilly, about a 15-year-old race car driver
who qualifies from the International Race School to race
on the international race circuit, which includes a tournament
through the streets of New York City. Alfred Gough and
Miles Millar will produce for Beacon.
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Sky
High: THR announced Kurt Russell will play
Commander Stonghold and Kelly Preston will play Josie
Jetstream in Walt Disney Pictures' comedy about a high
school for superpowered teens "in a world where superheroes
are an everyday occurrence." Mike Mitchell will direct
and Andrew Gunn will produce.
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X-Men
3&4: InlandEmpireStrikesBack.com reports Twentieth
Century Fox plans to make the next two X-Men sequels
back-to-back. Moviehole.com seems certain Bryan Singer
will not direct, due to his new allegiance with Superman,
and also infers that Halle Berry will be the only cast
member of Professor Xavier's gang not scheduled to return.
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The
Tale of Despereaux: The Hollywood Reporter
states French animation director Sylvain Chomet, who previously
directed the Ocar-nominated The Triplets of Belleville,
will next be directing an animated feature based on this
New York Times bestselling book by Kate DiCamillo.
There is no screenwriter attached yet, but DiCamillo has
written a treatment based on her own story, which is described
as 'a fairytale with three unlikely heroes' and is subtitled,
Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup,
and a Spool of Thread. Gary Ross and Allison Thomas
will produce for Larger Than Productions and Universal
Pictures.
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Exorcist:
The Beginning: Click
here for a LatinoReview.com presentation of the first
full trailer for this Exorcist prequel, coming
from Warner Brothers, August 20. This is the theatrical
version directed by Renny Harlin, with a great cast. No
word yet on the video release, which from previous reports
will also include an earlier version directed by Paul
Schrader.
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Industry
of War: Variety reports producers Ronald Shusett
and Daniel Alter have optioned Jordan Raskin's upcoming
Image Comics publication. The story follows undercover
government agents who hunt down missing military technology,
and focuses, in its first episode, on a bio-symbiotic
prototype suit designed for an assassination mission during
the Gulf War. Shusett and Alter are co-writing the screenplay
and will produce through Ronald Shusett Productions and
Alter Ego Entertainment.
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Monster House: Variety reports this Spielberg/Zemeckis
co-production -- about a group of teens who discover the
house next door is a living, evil entity -- will now be
a Columbia Pictures presentation. This was previously
announced as a DreamWorks release, but was acquired in
turnaround by Sony. The film will be the second production
to feature Sony Pictures Imageworks' ImageMotion performance
capture system, soon to be seen in Zemeckis' The Polar
Express this November. Monster House will be
written and directed by Gil Kenan, making his feature
debut.
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Mission:
Impossible 3: The Hollywood Reporter states
director Joe Carnahan has exited the production of Paramount's
third Tom Cruise TV spy show revisitation, due to 'creative
differences,' less than two months before principal photography.
The film is still scheduled to start shooting in August
in Berlin. Carnahan replaced director David Fincher in
Febraury 2003.
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The
Hobbit: Variety has announced that Time Warner
-- which owns not only Warner Brothers Pictures but also
New Line Cinema -- is looking to purchase MGM, after Sony's
unsuccessful attempt. Sony and its two equity partners,
Texas Pacific and Providence Equity, have not yet given
up pursuing MGM but the article notes that should Time
Warner close the deal, it would then acquire the movie
rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth prequel, The
Hobbit, allowing New Line and filmmaker Peter Jackson
to cap their Lord of the Rings saga.
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The
Odyssey: IGN Filmforce reports screenwriter Frank
Cottrell Boyce is adapting Homer's ancient Greek ballad
The Odyssey for Harry Potter producer David
Heyman. The story is a companion piece sequel to Homer's
The Iliad -- elements of which were incorporated
into the final act of Warner Brothers' Troy. Unlike
that film, Boyce has stated that his adaptation will be
pitched more as a mystical adventure, told from the point
of view of Odysseus' son searching for his lost father,
and will include Greek deities. Boyce is quoted in SciFi
Wire: "It is very difficult to get the gods to work,
because in the background there is always the shadow of
Laurence Olivier in a purple-white robe playing chess.
I'll probably use some of the more prophetic bits of it,
where you're predicting how the journey's going to turn
out and stuff like that. There are just some lines that
you can't do without. But I'm going to play around with
it. Troy was quite serious. This is more kind of
Ray Harryhausen territory."
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Green Lantern: AICN reports Jack Black will play
this DC Comics superhero in a 'zany comic version' of
this crime fighter who obtains superpowers from a mystical
green-gemmed ring from the planet Oa. In the original
1940 comic by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell, the ring
gives its wearer the ability to shoot green energy bolts,
create solid objects, walk through walls, the power of
flight and intergalactic travel. This will be a Warner
Brothers production.
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Keyframe™
is digital entertainment. For three seasons KDP has generated
thousands of effects for the huge sci-fi series Mutant X.
Simultaneously, they worked on films such as, Bullet Proof
Monk and Secret Window, created effects for the
TV series Adventure Inc. and PlayMakers, developed
their own internal animation called HUGGLERS™ and won
the prestigious Accolade Award of Excellence for their animation
in The Littlest Light on the Christmas Tree. Keyframe™
is truly one of the elite talents in the industry today.
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