A marathon of makeup
This has been a hot summer for computer-generated effects at the movies. Hardly any comic-book superhero movie has thundered through theatres without noisy, thumping, wall-to-wall special effects.
The more eye-filling the effects, though, the more some movie buffs have learned to appreciate the oldfashioned human touch, that “handson” look that can only be achieved through hours of painstaking work and a keen eye for detail.
The modest and yet surprisingly successful reality-competition series Face Off — four seasons now, and counting — is rooted in the idea that some of today’s most convincing movie and TV effects are done on the sly, using prosthetic makeup and oldfashioned elbow grease.
Face Off features a two-day marathon of its fourth season, starting Saturday and concluding Sunday on Space. The season’s challenges include everything from creating alien races at minimal cost, to the opener’s Game of Thrones-inspired makeup test, Make It Reign, in which contestants are challenged to create makeup fit for a queen, based on a glimpse of an actual crown.
The season’s mentors include veteran makeup artist Michael Westmore, an Oscar winner for the 1985 film Mask and nine-time Emmy winner largely for his work on various Star Trek incarnations.
Prosthetic makeup is not just about space aliens and wacked-out sea creatures: Westmore earned Oscar nominations for his age makeup in Peter Hyams’ 1984 science-fiction film 2010: The Year We Make Contact and the 1986 filmed-in-B.C. prehistoric epic Clan of the Cave Bear. He was considered, too, for a special honorary Oscar in 1980 for his makeup effects for Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull.
The season’s guest judges include Bryan Singer, John-Rhys Davies, Gale Anne Hurd, Jon Landau and Michael Nankin. Face Off has been hosted in recent seasons by Westmore’s grown daughter, Passions actress McKenzie Westmore. McKenzie came by her interest in TV and film monsters honestly, while growing up in the Westmore household.
“I had a couple of severed heads,” she admitted to reporters recently in Los Angeles. “My first image of walking into my dad’s lab was the Sleestak, the green head from Land of the Lost with the big, black bulging eyes. I remember turning on the light, seeing that, turning it off and running back up to the house screaming. So that was my first memory.”
There was more where that came from. “I saw Poltergeist when I was five,” she said. “I have a great love for my family’s history. My grandfather did Gone With the Wind. My greatuncle created The Creature From the Black Lagoon. I grew up by my father’s side.”
The weekend marathon sets the stage for Face Off’s fifth season, which debuts Tuesday. Halloween is early this year. (Space — from 11:30 p.m.)