Practical Magazine

Old School Movie Magic
April 2018 $12.49
FANTASY
MAKEUP ICON
Ve Neill tells all
The Makeup Issue

Practical April 2018
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3 Table of Contents
Practical v. Visual
As computer-based effects gain more popularity in the
special effects industry, some argue that makeup effects
are a dying art. So what exactly are the pros and cons
to FX Makeup and CGI?
14
Monster Maker
Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker discusses his
work on some of his most iconic films.
18
World’s Collide
FX Makeup and CGI are combined in Guillermo de Toro’s
The Shape of Water, makeup artist Mike Hill explains
the process.
26
Featured Content
Across the Globe
A list of the best makeup schools across the world and
your chances of getting in.
Fantasy Legend
Oscar-winning makeup artist Ve Neill discusses her role on
hit reality show Face Off, her work, and future in the field.
The Godfather
A definitive timeline of the “Godfather of Makeup” Dick
Smith’s work.
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38
44
On the Cover
Fantasy Legend
Ve Neill Interview
pg. 38

Practical April 2018
MONSTER
RICK BAKER
MAKERinterview
Six time Oscar winner, Rick Baker, discusses the joys and tribulations working on “Men
in Black 3”, why CGI has made filmmakers sloppy, and reflects at length about his
work on two classic projects: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and the original “Star Wars.”

19 Interview
«
Rick Baker with his monsters and aliens
words by
Mike Ryan
photos by
Ryan Schude
I
met rick baker, winner of seven academy awards for best
makeup, at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens, New
York. It was a fitting location for the interview considering
Baker’s illustrious career: At the museum, Baker was roped
off, with an empty stool next to him, like he was his own
display. Actually, if Baker were up for it, perhaps he should
be his own display—a constant reminder of movie-making magic,
before computer-generated effects made everything too easy.
Or, as Baker calls it, too “sloppy.” Thankfully for all of us, Baker
is still too busy to be considered a museum piece.

Practical April 2018
In “Men in Black 3,” was Jemaine Clement’s
Boris the most difficult?
Well, Jemaine was one we focused on a lot.
What was hard was getting the studio and
everybody on the same page that I was on.
What I thought he should be.
That’s interesting. What did the studio want?
In the original script, Boris was described as
being like Dennis Hopper in “Easy Rider.” And
I thought he should be much more intimidating
than that. And more alien. He wasn’t very
alien at all. And it turned out, in the end, it was
a virus. I said, “I don’t buy it.” And I kind of
pitched a whole different idea. To me, he should
be much more Charles Manson or Sonny Barger, who
was head of the Hells Angels — he should be an alien.
I mean, from a distance, he looks like a scary biker. And
you avoid eye contact. If you see a guy who looks like
that walking down the sidewalk in front of you, you’re
not going to be [freaking] staring at him.
The hard thing for me was that we made
things for scenes that weren’t in the movie
anymore. It was designed specifically for
a scene, we pretty much got it finished,
then, all of a sudden, “We threw that
scene out.”
I’ve seen human beings who don’t look that different
than Boris.
When I first pitched my concept for Boris, I showed them
a distant image. I said, “See that guy? He looks like a
human.” Then I should them a little bit closer and I’m
like, “OK, now you can see him a little bit better. You’re
not going to want to look at him.”
Especially when a monster shoots from his arm. Was
that your idea?
Well, it’s funny, that kind of evolved. In the original script,
an organic creature turns into a gun. A regular gun. And
I said, “You know what? I don’t buy that.” And they go,
“Why?” And I said, “It doesn’t make sense.” They’re like,
“It’s like Transformers.” I said, “No, it isn’t. Transformers
is a machine, turning into a different machine. It’s not
an organic creature turning into a machine.”
It sounds a little like “Terminator 2.”
But at least that was a liquid. But I said, “I don’t buy
it. Why don’t we make it a creature?” Also, I said that
I thought the creature should be part of him. Without
this thing, he doesn’t have his power. And Will had the
idea that his weapon should shoot quills.
OK, even with something like the quills, with all of the
rewrites, does that affect you at all? Like, “By the way,
this character now has this power.” Did you ever think,
“I wish you would have told me a month ago”?
I mean, it happens in every movie.
«Worm Alien from Men In Black Franchise

21 Interview
Worm Alien Animatronic
«
OK, with any movie that you’ve ever worked on, what’s
the worse example of that?
Well [laughs], this is probably the worst example. The
hard thing for me was that we made things for scenes
that weren’t in the movie anymore. It was designed
specifically for a scene, we pretty much got it finished,
then, all of a sudden, “We threw that scene out.”
Can you use that elsewhere?
That’s the thing. It’s like, “OK, we’ll use that for Men in
Black headquarters.” So, all wasn’t lost. But it’s happened
to me, I would think, on every film I’ve done that
we did something we worked really hard on, but it’s
not in the movie.
You’ve done amazing work on movies that aren’t the best.
[Laughs] Most of the movies in my career, yes.
Nothing against The Wolfman... I only use it as an
example in this case because you did win an Oscar.
No, it’s true. For me, I try to do the best I can do, no
matter how the movie is going. It’s still my name and
my name is on it and I want the work to be as good as
possible. You always do hope that the movie will be as
good as your work is. I can’t tell you how many films
I’ve done where people have said to me, “I wish the rest
of the movie was as good as what you did.”
You don’t see a lot of actors winning Oscars for bad
movies.
Yeah. I mean, it was a joke when “Norbit” got nominated
for makeup. And the thing is, the Academy is looking at
the work, not the movie, for this specific craft category.
Almost 30 years later, did you have any idea we’d still be
talking about the video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”?
Heh. You know what? John Landis told me that was going
to happen. He said, “You’re gong to be remembered more
for this than anything else you do.” I was like, “You’re
kidding? This is a music video.” But, when we filmed
the zombie dance, it’s in the middle of the night in a
not great part of Los Angeles—like in a meat-packing
district next to a place where they just slaughtered animals.
But it was a crazy day for me because I had all of
these zombies to makeup. It was crazy, beat the clock
thing. And I’m standing there, watching people do that
“Thriller” dance for the first time. And it was like, “Look
what I’m looking at! Look at what these guys are doing.
People would pay money to see this.” It was a cool thing
to be involved in.

Practical April 2018
Do you look at movies that are completely
CGI and think, You know, you
should have called me?
You know, I embrace the technology.
But I hate when it’s used wrong. And
it’s something I think we can do better.
What I really do hate about the digital
revolution is that it’s made for sloppy
filmmaking. “Fix it in post.” It’s like,
“I don’t even have to think about this
now. I can just not make this decision.”
And I don’t think that’s always the
best way to go. I do hate that part.
To that point, you worked on the
first “Star Wars.” I’ve read Ewan
McGregor compare his acting in
the prequels to that of working with
a tennis ball, compared to Mark
Hamill who was actually looking at
a creature. Do you think it makes
that big of a difference?
I do think it makes a difference. I
mean, I do think it’s cool that you can
do things that you can’t do any other
way. But, just because you could have
10,000 werewolves running down a
What are your memories of working
on the original “Star Wars”? I know
you did some work on the Mos Eisley
cantina scene.
My involvement in “Star Wars” came
in post-production. Ken Ralston and
Dennis Muren were working on it and
they had already filmed the cantina
scene, originally. With different aliens,
but not as many. George wanted to
embellish on it. So, I came along
and no one knew “Star Wars” was
going to be “Star Wars”. Fox didn’t
I mean, you will always be fine. But
are you worried about young people
starting out in this craft? Like in 40
years, filmmakers may decide that
we don’t need this at all?
Well, yes. People are trying to do that.
I just worry about, not just the people
in the craft, but what you’re going to
be seeing. There’s a real magic that
happens when you have a really
good actor in really good makeup
on really good set. Now, you have
a guy with motion capture dots on
his face and he has no idea what he
really is on that motion capture stage
— you’re not going to get the same
performance. I mean, you have Andy
Serkis who is really good at that, but,
most actors ... I mean, Eddie Murphy,
so many times, didn’t know what he
was going to do until he sat in the
makeup chair.
“Did you see ‘Star Wars’? Do you
know the cantina band, playing in
the cantina? That was shot six months
later, in a whole different country, by
completely different people.”
wall, doesn’t mean that you should.
The backlash it’s getting is that they
do things that totally take you out
of reality that you’re not buying it
anymore. You don’t care. You know,
the first “Star Wars,” when I saw that,
I was so [freaking] excited. Everything
was just so exciting. I saw some of
the later ones and they had some
sort of huge scene in outer space
with a zillion ships and all of this
stuff going on. And I was just like,
“Why do I give a sh*t?” You know?
Technology, when it’s used well, is
great. Not that it wasn’t done well
in “Star Wars”...
want to spend any more money.
George wanted to add some stuff,
but there wasn’t any money to do it.
We couldn’t do stuff as elaborate and
cool as I wanted to do it. But it was a
one-day shoot, basically. And some
of the masks we made were mass
production kind of masks — I figured
we’d throw it in the background. And
George actually featured some of
them more than we should have.
It’s one-day shoot, but it helped
create one of the most iconic scenes
of all time.
Oh, I was so glad I did it, for so many
reasons. One, because it’s “Star Wars.”
But also because movies are a series
of cuts. And it’s crazy, people in the
industry don’t understand. Many

23 Interview
Aliens from the cantina scene in Star Wars: Episode IV
«
«
Cantina Scene Masks
time I’ll say, especially when we did much more practical
effects, “Let’s shoot it in post with a smaller crew.”
That’s how we did the American Werewolf transformation.
And they say, “It won’t work.” And I say, “Did you see
‘Star Wars’? Do you know the cantina band, playing in
the cantina? That was shot six months later, in a whole
different country, by completely different people.” They
were never in there at the same time Harrison Ford was
in there. And they’re like, “I can’t believe that.” And I say,
“It can be done.” You swear those guys are there. We did
a closeup of Greedo...
Two different actors played Greedo.
Yeah. And the shot where we did a closeup of him, where
Han shoots him, we shot, again, later. Different people.
A series of pieces of film, cut together.
On any movie you’ve worked on, what character are you
most proud of? Even it appeared on screen for a second.
It was actually a movie titled “Harry and the Hendersons.”
Harry, I think, was my favorite. You can watch that movie
today and I think it still looks good. For one, it was cool
because I was one of the puppeteers who controlled his
face. And it was our first radio controlled, animatronic
guy. Like I said, I think he holds up. “American Werewolf,”
a lot of people still say great things about it, but I look
at it and think, Oh, we could do so much better. Harry, I
could improve upon, but not the same amount. I think
he still looks pretty damn good. •
Rick Baker at his Hollywood Walk of Fame Star
«

Practical April 2018
words by
photos by
Kathie Huddleston
Ryan Schude
FANTASY
LEGEND
VE NEILL interview
Makeup legend Ve Neill discusses the new season of her
show Face Off, how she created her Oscar-winning makeup
for Beetlejuice, and why she’s having the time of her life.
Neill has brought us some of the
most unique character makeups of our
time and won Oscars for Beetlejuice
(1988), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Ed Wood
(1994). For over 40 years she’s worked on
some of the most well-recognized and
notable films and TV shows of our time. Beyond her three
Oscar wins, she’s been nominated for five more Academy
Awards and won an Emmy for The Shining miniseries (1997),
a BAFTA Award for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of
the Black Pearl (2003), and Saturn Awards for Pirates of the
Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), Interview with the Vampire:
The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Batman Returns (1992) and
Beetlejuice.
Ve Neill creating Hunger Games character Effie Trinket
«

39 Interview

Practical April 2018
Makeup for Pirates of the Caribbean character franchise
If we did it out of silicone now it
be so much easier. But back then
it was foam latex and it all had to
be hand-painted every single day.
«
This season is very different from seasons’ past. What
can you tell us about it?
This is like an alumni of a school. They all tend to work
together and help each other. A lot of these kids are
friends outside of the studio, so it’s kind of great. They
all hang together and they’re all friends. So it makes it
a lot more congenial when they’re in the lab and they
tend to help each other more. I think that’s kind of an
interesting dynamic this year. At least that’s what I think
is going to happen because we judges don’t get to see
everything ahead of time. We only get to see our little
bit at the end.
I think it’s going to be really interesting to see everybody
working in teams for the entire season. And we’re not
eliminating people every episode either, only every
other episode. So you have a chance for redemption.
So if you mess up on that one, you have a chance to
redeem yourself next time. If you don’t, well, sayonara.
Do you get attached to the artists? Is it difficult to
eliminate them?
For me it’s always hard to send somebody home because
it’s so devastating to tell an artist they’re going home.
Many times I’ve cried. You might not ever see it but I
get all teary-eyed. When we have to send people home
it’s really sad and we all talk about it. Because they all
try so hard and you’re doing your darndest. You might
have an off week where maybe that’s not your niche,
that you don’t do so good at that one particular thing.
But this season they’re working in teams and so if one
of them is weak in one area, the other can pick up the
slack. It’s kind of helpful and hopefully you’ll see it works
out well that way.
Do you have any disagreements as judges on who to
send home?
Sometimes we have disagreements. I don’t remember
exactly specific things but sometimes where it’s like, “No,
I just don’t agree with that,” but then I get outnumbered
or maybe one of the other guys gets outnumbered. You
just have to say, “Okay, fine. You win.” You like something
more than the other one for whatever reasons those are.
We all have our own reasons for liking things. Maybe
something doesn’t make sense to one of us and it does
to the other one or maybe we don’t care. It’s usually me
that doesn’t care if it makes sense. If it looks good to
me, I like it. It doesn’t necessarily always have to work.
I was looking on IMDb -- you have 82 credits to your
name starting in 1977.
I have 82? Oh, my God, I’m old [laughs]. I actually started
before that. They just don’t have them all, I think [laughs].
Thank God! Unfortunately for me there’s some movies
that I did that were very famous and I can’t really say I
did them. I’m kind of stuck.

41 Interview
I was hoping we could talk about
some of your most notable projects.
Looking back, is there one project
that stands out in your mind?
I have so many favorites for different
reasons. It’s very difficult for me to
come up with one. All the films that
I did with Tim Burton have been
fantastic. I mean every single one
of them. Just always so much fun
and so creative. Several films I did
with Joel Schumacher, like the early
Batman [Forever, 1995]. And just on
and on. And of course Mrs. Doubtfire
with Robin Williams. That was probably
one of the more difficult ones,
only because that was 13 overlapping
pieces that had to be placed in
exactly the same spot every day and
I did that makeup 54 times.
Applying a complex makeup on Robin
Williams 54 times must have been
very interesting.
That was probably one of the more
difficult projects and it was foam
latex. If we did it out of silicone now
it be so much easier. But back then
it was foam latex and it all had to be
hand-painted every single day. And
we’re talking about putting it on a very
active human being who was ... very
active [laughs]. But it was fun and so
delightful. Robin, what a dream he
was. He was such a joy to be with.
So there’s difficult things that make it
still joyful. I have so many favorites,
and I love all the films I did with
Johnny Depp. He’s so willing to be
somebody else. Well, Pirates. I did
the movie Blow (2001) with him and
aged him from a teenager all the
way to 60-something years old.
Edward Scissorhands
(1990). Sweeney
Todd (2007). I’ve
done quite a
few pictures with Johnny and he’s
just so fantastic. He’s just like your
dream guy.
I imagine there’s quite a lot of people
who wouldn’t mind having hung out
with Robin Williams and Johnny
Depp for hours on end.
I’ve been very fortunate in my career,
and then, of course, I just finished
a couple of years ago the whole
Hunger Games sequence with all
those fantastic young actors. I mean,
Donald Sutherland. I know just all
these fantastic actors that you see
everywhere all the time and if not
you hear their voices [laughs].
You know what was so fun about The
Hunger Games for a makeup artist?
We did everything from dirt and
prosthetics and blood and guts all
the way up to high-fashion makeup
and runway and just gorgeous beauty
makeup. So it spun the gamut on
that. We got to do everything on
those movies. For a makeup artist
that was a dream project to be able
to do everything. Like one week
making Jennifer [Lawrence] look like
she’s going down a runway and then
the next week I have whip marks on
Liam’s [Hemsworth] back. For us
it’s really fun to do everything.
The Pirates of the Caribbean
movies must have
had a lot of different
kinds of makeups, too.
Yeah, absolutely. We got
to do so many fantastic
looks in that. The first
film we got to establish
all those crazy-looking pirates. The
second film we got to do all the
cannibals and all that crazy makeup
with the bones and the body painting
and all that stuff. And then I got
to do that crazy eyeball paint job on
Johnny. And we always have Keira
[Knightley] in there somewhere running
around, and we have our trollops
that slap Johnny. So we have like all
these fun period female makeups.
And then we’ve got our nasty, filthy,
sunburned, rotten-toothed, yelloweyed
pirates [laughs].
Looking back at Star Trek: The
Motion Picture (1979), that had
to have been huge for you, since it
was so early in your career.
Oh, yeah, that was my first big union
film that I worked on. I had worked
on several films before that, but nothing
like that. That was a giant film for
me, so going to do that with Fred
Phillips, who was kind of my mentor,
was really a fun job. I mean, I was
still very young and it was really a
lot of fun.
«
Makeup for Mrs. Doubtfire

Practical April 2018
«Ve Neill
Where you able to push things farther
in Star Trek than in some of
your earlier projects?
And Fred was really good with me
because he knew I could do prosthetics
cause that’s how I knew him. The
guy that I learned from and I worked
together. We could never go on the
union set. So I would always call up
Fred Phillips and say, “Hey Fred. We
made this stuff. Can you go put it
on?” We had a really great relationship
with Fred.
He put me in charge of putting all
the Klingons together. I got to basically
design all the hair work and
the paint jobs for all those Klingons
in the movie. That was really fun for
me as a young woman.
When you tackled Beetlejuice as a
character, what did you think?
Tim Burton is very good about designing
because he’s an artist himself. Tim
had some pictures up on his wall in
his office, just some pencil sketches
of what he wanted him to look like
and it was kind of like a derelict. So
the first couple of tests I did he said,
“He’s too real and too creepy-looking
and we don’t want to look at him.” I
said to him, “Let me just go back
and do something kind of fun and
kooky. I’ll go to the other extreme
and you tell me if you like it.” So I
went and did what we saw on the
screen and he loved that. That’s how
he got developed.
I actually sent somebody off to the
hobby store to get me some of that
crushed foam that they use when
you make little railroad sets and little
villages. I told him to go get some
little bushes and some crushed foam
and all the packages. I said get me all
different colors in all different densities
and they give me some moss.
And I said, “I’m just going to make
him look like he’s been living under
a rock.” That’s how that look came
up. He comes out of that grave and
it’s like, “Okay, he’s just been living
under this thing getting all moldy
and full of moss.” So that’s how he
came about.
You’ve been in the makeup industry
for a long time. Have you developed
techniques that others use now?
Well, it’s like anything else. It’s like
Dick Smith’s book is one of our foundations
for all of our prosthetics
now. He was kind enough to share
with everybody. Nobody wanted to
share with me when I got in because
I was a girl and they didn’t want me
in there anyway.
So I have made it my life’s mission
to make sure that I share with everybody,
and in actuality, I am now
Director of Education at Cinema
Makeup School, which is probably
one of the best makeup schools in
the country. So I get to put my two
cents in there as well and make sure
that the students are getting the best
education they can with all the latest
updated techniques. There are lots of
girls and there’s lots of really good
girls doing it, let me tell ya.
What are you working on right now?
Right now I’m not working. I’m looking
for a job. Films don’t typically start
up until March or April. So something
will happen between now and then.
I’m actually working off and on on
the television series Feud. It’s about
the feud between Bette Davis and
Joan Crawford. It’s being done by
the same production company that
does American Horror Story and their
whole crew. So they’ll finish that off
next week and then they start on
American Horror Story in a couple
of months and I’ll go back on to that
show. I’ve been helping them out
a little bit and doing commercials
and odds and ends and stuff. And I
have a lot of my own projects that
I’m working on as well.

43 Interview
CGI can really be a fantastic
enhancement to our makeups.
I don’t really think it will
ever take the place of an
organic-looking makeup...
Not working usually means
sitting at home reading a
book or watching TV? Maybe
you should take a vacation, Ve.
I want to retire pretty soon. Working on Face Off is a
vacation for me. That’s lovely. But I have things I’m
doing. I’m starting a cosmetic line. I’ve also started
an online platform for teaching, so I started an online
school. And then my brush line was just revamped. So
our critiques. As I said there’s plenty
of them that I see often, they’re like
our extended family. It’s an experience
for them. A lot of these kids are
from the Midwest and places where they don’t have a
lot of the technology and/or resources we give them on
the show. It’s really good for them to have all that and
see how it all works, and they meet all these people,
that they stay in touch with.
Klingon General for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
«
that’s coming out shortly. I have a lot of projects in the
fire. I want to have all that stuff all set up for me so that
I have an income when I retire. And that way I can just
do movies whenever I want or not have to do anything.
Until they call and say, “We have a makeup emergency,
Ve, and only you can help us.”
And that does happen, funny enough. [laughs] I stay busy.
Sometimes I’m busier when I’m not working. It’s like how
do I have time to work? I mean I’m so damn busy ... I’ve
been very fortunate. I’ve had a extremely lucrative and
very wonderful career and I’ve been very lucky.
But I love working on Face Off. We have a fantastic crew.
The contestants are always so wonderful and love to hear
«
Ve Neill’s character makeup for Beetlejuice
When you think back on your career and you look at
the new up-and-coming makeup artists, what are your
thoughts about what they’re facing in their career?
Well, technology has advanced so much since I started.
We still use the old techniques, but there’s so much new
technology that works so much better and so much faster.
And you can do things that you could never do before.
I think it’s a really exciting era for makeup artists to be
working right now, because not only do they have all the
advances that we’ve made in makeup, they also have
the advancements that we’ve made in visual technology.
CGI can really be a fantastic enhancement to our
makeups. I don’t really think it will ever take the place
of an organic-looking makeup, but enhancements with
CGI are really a fantastic tool. Especially now because a
lot of the CGI artists will start working with the makeup
artists in post so that they can make it look right, so they
don’t wipe out everything the makeup artist has done
and they only make it better. •