For almost 20 years, I worked as a make-up fx artist and I had a lot of amazing, interesting and exciting experiences. I also put up with a lot of insane crapola, and the kind of behaviour that people get away with in the film world is just unbelievable. Yet every time I go on some unhindered rant about the evils of Hollywood and all of the asshole celebrities I had to work with, another voice rises up to remind me of all of the supernaturally kind and graceful actors and crew members there are to be found as well. It's a land of excess and extremes: Being 20 hours in to a shoot on location in a farm field somewhere as the dawn was cracking into my skull through my swollen eyes and some stressed out 1st AD on their 16th shot of espresso is screaming at me to do the previously agreed upon 30-minute gag in 5 minutes, and I'm tripping harder than had I taken a quad-tab of acid fumbling with the the contents of my set bag, then sitting down for too long and shovelling back jube jubes cornnuts chocolate nacho chips and greasy premade lasagna trying to stay alert and not burst out laughing like a 5-year-old at the painfully bad MOW shoot I'm working on that everyone else around me drank a tall glass of "this is awesome" Kool-Aid to get through.. I often reverted to a 15-year-old FTW version of myself in order to cope.

And even after so many years spent in that world, I never felt comfortable being on set and I never felt like I fit in. I was a bit of an anomaly, as I rarely watched any of the films or TV shows that I worked on. If I did watch a film it was more of the Cinematheque-fare rather than a popular TV Series. And I just couldn't stomach all of the gross social ladder climbing, sexual harassment and bullying that went down. 

I love the art and craft of make-up fx though! It's a perfect symbiosis of art and science. Each project is totally unique, and when working with the right crew, it can be super fun. And there's a lot of freedom in being a make-up fx artist. No one really understands what we do or how we do it, so we're kind of like these mystical reclusive wizards that exist in our own anarchic parallel reality.

When I first started learning make-up fx, I was a regular on the FX Lab messageboard and met a lot of great artists on there who helped me out. I also took Dick Smith's course and got a chance to talk to him on the phone, which was so cool. I was lucky to be living in Vancouver when the make-up fx world was still small and there weren't a ton of people around with solid shop experience and on-set experience combined. So despite my social anxieties and sometimes misanthropic disposition, I was able to make a career for myself.

I entered the film world at an interesting time when everything was shifting: film to digital, foam to silicone, Gen X/Boomer to Millenial crews, and open substance abuse to vegan dinners and vaping... I got to experience the tail end of the cowboy days, and be part of a huge wave of female makeup fx artists to stand on our own (there were some exceptions back in the days like Milicent Patrick and Margaret Prentice, but not many).

I'd love to hop in a DeLorean and go work as Christopher Tucker's assistant on The Company of Wolves or intern with Dick Smith on The Hunger. Or deck myself out in a purple mullet, hip bag and shredded jeans and join Todd Masters crew circa 1988.

Beyond the Black Rainbow Photo Credit: Dan Siney

Beyond the Black Rainbow Photo Credit: Dan Siney

Fitness Commercial

Man Wolfs promo video

more to come as the archives are unearthed... I decided not to post anything from the Hollywood shows I've worked on (at least for now), partly because there are always so many people involved in each make-up and I wouldn't want to be stamping my name onto something that wasn't mostly done by myself and also not wanting to deal with getting permission.