How Was Makeup Done On Old Star Trek Productions
A connoisseur of special makeup effects and an admitted Trekkie, makeup artist Joel Harlow signed on to return for Star Trek Beyond after working on the 2009 reboot, without any hesitation. Boasting a blockbuster resume of three decades, information technology'southward in the Star Trek films specifically that Harlow finds " the opportunity for inventiveness." Indeed, Harlow led a sprawling team in designing special makeup effects for 56 alien races represented in the film, all of which are rooted in natural inspirations.
All told, it was a lengthy procedure, from sculpting and design, to pre-painting and application, in a journey that took Harlow from Burbank to Vancouver. And while the Star Trek universe features a recurring bandage of characters, that fact certainly didn't salve the film'south makeup artists any work going into the product. With the Ten-Men flickLogan in the rear view mirror and Curiosity'sBlack Pantherto come, Harlow discusses visual inspirations, new challenges and the makeup artist's workflow.
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Having worked on the last Star Expedition picture, what fabricated you want to come on board for another?
Star Trek is very dear to my eye. I've been a fan of the Boob tube bear witness, the original TV show, the subsequent Television set shows and the films. It was a no-brainer, really. The beginning i, the 2009 reboot, information technology was an amazing experience that I'thousand very fortunate to have been a part of, and the chance to exist a part of that world again and work with those people again is something that I would bend over backwards to do. Information technology was a very, very easy decision.
You lot've been on all kinds of blockbusters, from Inception to much of Johnny Depp's recent oeuvre. What stands out as unique nigh these films?
It'due south only the opportunity for creativity. I've never worked on a pic, this one in particular, where I've been afforded the opportunity to create as many and as various corporeality of special character makeups as Star Trek Beyond. That universe opens itself upward to virtually any makeup challenge that we, as a makeup effects crew, wanted to tackle. Fortunately on this ane, I had a nifty coiffure that were merely every bit enthusiastic equally I was. And we actually wanted to push the envelope of what had been done before, and actually aggrandize the horizon of character creation, and I call back with the assistance of everybody involved, we did that.
With a picture comprised of a constant stable of characters, is any fourth dimension saved in the pre-product procedure that would free you up to conceptualize further?
Really, the simply character in the makeup effects special character globe was Spock. Everything else in Star Trek Beyond was completely new. Because we were every bit far out in the universe as we'd e'er been in the context of the films, information technology immune u.s. the freedom to introduce a lot of new conflicting life forms, a lot of new races. Really, non having to adhere to any pre-established designs, that's where the creativity came in. Still, in that location'due south an aesthetic to a Star Trek film, as opposed to any other any sort of sci-fi franchise motion picture, that you lot really desire to be loyal to.
That artful is primarily makeup driven. The characters are makeup driven, prosthetic-driven, as opposed to puppets and animatronics. Although at that place is some of that, typically they're humanoid prosthetic makeups that you're dealing with, and that's why we all got into this business in the first place. It was a dream come truthful.
When working on a film of this scope, is there a testify bible or expect book you produce as a reference indicate for the makeup you will create?
It'due south not typically what y'all would imagine it to exist. That sort of reference archive comes from nature. We've got our aquatic characters, we've got our reptilian characters, we've got our mountain mammalian characters. Information technology's really simply some of the weirdest life forms on this planet that nobody is actually aware of, never seen. With the cyberspace now, yous tin can observe out what's deep, deep in the body of water, or what's deep, deep in the rain forests. A lot of those shapes and those color patterns played into what we were designing very heavily. Simply every bit far as pre-designed alien characters, at that place actually wasn't any for this—aside, like I said, from the Vulcans—that we drew upon.
What were the new challenges going into Star Trek Across?
The new challenges were specific to each of the conflicting races. Jaylah certainly had her laundry list of challenges that we had to conquer; Krall had a completely dissimilar list of challenges. Syl, Kalara, they all had their ain specific fix of challenges, both pattern and build-wise. The technical aspect of each of these characters, some of them were wearing craniums that were gigantic, and the weight becomes an issue at that signal. So for that 1 graphic symbol, whichever one it is…if information technology'south Natalia, the alien with the nautilus beat caput that we see at the stop of the motion-picture show, certainly that 5 seconds, ten seconds of screen fourth dimension required months and months of R&D work to make sure that that skull, that shell was light plenty to be worn by the actress, and still wouldn't shift, delivered the shape that nosotros wanted.
Jaylah had to exist elegant. She had to be able to express a lot of character. Information technology had to be something that was visually striking right off the bat. And and then Krall, he goes through a several-stage makeup transformation, and he was one time a Federation officer, so we had to accept him through those stages, being almost completely alien to almost entirely homo. And so each i of those stages was its ain challenge.
Was it overwhelming to create looks for each of the background characters appearing in the film?
Yes. The sheer volume of conflicting characters in this film, it'due south staggering—56 dissimilar races. And each of those spent months and months being created in the store, and then we took that store up to Vancouver. Every footstep of that procedure, whether information technology's sculpture, design, molding, casting, pre-painting and then finally on-set application, if any 1 of those steps wasn't delivered 100 percentage, then it'southward like building a house—your foundation is substandard, and yous're fixing mistakes the rest of the mode. Each one of those characters had to be treated similar a hero chief character. On days when yous had 20, 30 of these characters playing, you lot really had to have competent makeup application artists on-prepare to deliver them. Otherwise, all that work that had come before is for cypher, you know?
Fortunately, I had an amazing coiffure on this. Whether it was my coiffure who handled most of the sculpting and molding in Burbank, or my crew that handled most of the casting, pre-painting and application in Vancouver. It was really these two crews meeting, even though a lot of them had never met each other, that combined, created characters that hopefully resonate with the fans. Certainly for me, they delivered what I had intended, which was amazing makeup effects.
What are the materials used with these character makeups? And what's the range of time one might spend in a chair each morn, having them applied?
Let's simply say nosotros're dealing with one of our background characters. Information technology's a multiple piece silicon apparatus that has been pre-painted, because a lot of these characters, since they were alien, their skin tones are going to be vastly different than the skin tones of human beings. It'south non going to be a traditional flesh-tone paint job. It's going to be patterning, it's going to exist irised colors, and a lot of that has to be added beforehand, otherwise you're into hours and hours in the chair. Having these pre-painted appliances, a lot of them were done generically considering we didn't know who was going to exist playing these characters until we got up to Vancouver.
Nosotros had our fittings and our tests, for sure, and picked the people that had the facial structures that best suited the characters, and all the pieces lined upward. There were more pieces for the generic characters than in that location were for the main cast. Like Jaylah, who obviously had her head bandage. Idris [Elba], we had his head bandage; Zach [Quinto], we had his head cast, and so on. For the generic characters, there was a lot of pieces, sometimes upwards of six, seven, viii silicon, overlapping prosthetics that you have to utilise in sequence, and blend off, and so tie in the paint job or the patterning or whatever it is. I would recollect the shortest amount of fourth dimension that anybody spent in the chair was probably ii hours, and the longest was the Natalia grapheme at the end of the film, and that was about six and a half, seven hours.
That was a long one, simply she'south my stepdaughter. I've put her through makeups before, so I knew that she could handle the whole thing. She never complained once.
When you encounter plain functional makeup—the alien'due south head folding back to reveal a piece of alien technology she was hiding—what exactly are nosotros looking at?
The character is Syl, and she'south hiding the technology in her head—I call back its the omnivoid, is what it'south called. What we had is we had a closed version of the caput where the fingers are interlocked, and that's what she wore through almost of the film. And and so for that sequence, nosotros would shoot her with the fingers closed, and then we had an open version where we could position the fingers open. We would reapply the back of the head, reapply the makeup in the open version and and so shoot that, and our friends in the visual furnishings department did a transition between the two, of the motion of it actually opening. The showtime and the end of that transition, that's all practical.
Do the flick'southward running action sequences present challenges for makeup? Are constant bear upon-ups necessary?
Yeah. I don't know how much the general public knows about makeup, but every fourth dimension you have off a prosthetic makeup, it's shot. You tin't reuse it. Yous've got to take a new ane for the adjacent day, and and so you're into casting multiple copies and pre-painting multiple copies, depending on how many days the character works. Certainly throughout the twenty-four hour period, the makeup, just by nature of being worn and being moved and under diverse tensions from the actor's face up, is going to start to show its age, information technology's going to showtime wearing.
Then aye, that team of makeup artists that got people ready in the morning time then goes to ready, and everybody has their own graphic symbol or characters, and they make sure that when the camera is on those characters, they look 100 percent. The lips are blended off, the eyes are blended off, and there's no seams or edges anywhere. Everything looks every bit it should. All the alien characters had teeth, and contact lenses, and all that goes in before we shoot with them.
What'southward up next for you?
I am finishing up some re-shoots on Logan, the final Wolverine motion picture, then I'm prepping correct now a movie for Curiosity called Blackness Panther. They're all heady; nothing's going to take the quantity of makeup that Star Trek Beyond has. [laughs] I've worked in this business a long fourth dimension, and I've never worked on a show that offered that much opportunity.
Source: https://deadline.com/2017/02/star-trek-beyond-joel-harlow-justin-lin-oscars-interview-1201856360/
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