Special effect make-up looks great. Is fun to wear while performing because of the truth it can add to a scene (nothing like a swollen-shut eye to help me get in character). But the squeaky clean feeling after scrubbing off the layers of fake blood, dirt, and latex is amazing!
Just toss in a pineapple scented bar of soap to lather with and I am apt to start singing something from The Sound Of Music.
While working on the film “Intermedio” out in the Mojave Desert with special effect make-up artist Richard Miranda (his work can be seen on Army of Darkness & one of the Freddy Kruger films.) He mixed gelatin and boiling hot water together to make a thick gooey paste. Which he let cool just a touch, then smeared it onto the back of my head. After daubing on blood and a few blotches of tissue, it looked like you could see my brain.
It was totally gross looking.
I kept it that way until I was back in my hotel in Hollywood. Which was a blast, because I took a stroll down Sunset Boulevard before making it to my hotel for the shower. The looks on people’s faces were fun!
I find my path crossing often with special effect make-up guru Crist Ballas. (His resume is amazing. Touting such credits as Star Trek, Batman & Robin to name just two).
He was the one that applied the moss onto my body for the Rolling Stone magazine ad where I am playing the video game. Most of that is real moss. Not computer generated. The ad wound up not running because the advertiser found it to portray gamers in too negative a light. Which is surprising to me only because it was supposed to run in Rolling Stone… do I need to spell out the humor?
Crist also did the kick-butt swollen eye and face in as a part of director Josh Thacker‘s film “Subversion. That was one of the longer prosthetic make-up applications. It was around four hours of me sitting in the chair while Crist did his magic. The challenge was that my face started to itch, and ya can’t touch it because much of it is covered in latex. So ya just wait until the end of filming then scrape it off as quick as ya can.
Take a look at the short film “Subversion” below.
I am off to shower. Viva la Shower!