Happy Birthday - Rick Baker

57 today.

Make-up woman names £53m four

I always remember reading an interview with Rick Baker who said early on in his career as a make-up artist he was approached by some guys asking for one of them to be made up to look like someone else, later after he'd said yes he had second thought's, he figured they might be involved in a robbery so he phoned them up and told them he was going to be real busy on a movie for quite a while.
This story reminded me of that tale. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7050897.stm

Godzilla:King of the Monsters (1985) Unfilmed

Many years before Roland Emmerich brought Godzilla to the big screen Hollywood style there was an attempt to bring him to film in a US version written by Fred Dekker (Monster Squad,Robocop 3) and directed by Steve Miner (House,Forever Young,Friday the 13th Parts 2 & 3)
To be titled Godzilla:King of the Monsters this film was to be filmed in 3D, and the story was said to be very similar to Gorgo in which a mother dinosaur seeks her young who have been taken.

Rick Baker was approached to create and animatronic Godzilla head with a complete range of cable controlled expressions. David Allen was sought to do the complex Stop-Motion effects and FX house ILM and Dreamquest were contacted for FX bids.

William Stout (Conan the Barbarian,The Return of the Living Dead,Pan's Labyrinth) was hired to be the films production designer and he was also to produce a full colour teaser poster to tantalize potential investors. Stout also storyboarded 90-95% of the project along with artist such as Doug Wilder, creator of Johnny Quest. Scenes in the film were to include Godzilla destroying the Golden Gate bridge along with destruction of cable cars, buildings, people etc.... In the end he ends up on Alcatraz and is killed by having a nuclear missile shot down his throat, I'm sure that won't have done the city much good either. He was still going to be a fire/radiation spewing creature. Animator David Allen was unsure whether 3D composite Stop-Motion FX were possible and so was reluctant to take on the work.

In the end this project was deemed too expensive and too risky by studio executives for what was a B Movie character like Godzilla

Rick Baker - CGI Cyclops

Rick Baker the Make-Up artist who created the Make-Up FX for such films as Star Wars, An American Werewolf in London, Bigfoot and the Hendersons, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, Coming to America, Men in Black plus many more has been dabbling in CG for a few years now, recently CG Talk on the CG Society.org forums ran a contest to pay tribute to the films of Ray Harryhausen. Pictured above is Rick Baker's fabulous recreation of the Cyclops from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
A bigger version of this picture can be seen here http://tinyurl.com/2kyuvk
And a CG turnaround can be downloaded here http://tinyurl.com/37gmz6
Rick Baker has always been one of my favorite artists, his make-up work has always been superb and now so is his CG work, I'd love to see someone Rig and Animate this Cyclops !!

Happy Birthday Rick Baker

Make-up FX genius Rick Baker, 56 years old today. In a career going back to the early 1970's Baker has produced some of the most memorable Make-up FX of his generation. In 1971 he was paid just $1000 to create the suit for Octoman and in 1981 he was the very first recipient of the Oscar for Best Make-Up for An American Werewolf in London when the category was first introduced.

Henry Winkler in Click

Some photographs of Rick Baker's Make-up's from the Adam Sandler film Click. Ageing Make-up's are something that most of us have seen applied to many a movie star for their roles in Film and TV, but for Click Rick Baker was given the task of making Henry Winkler look younger. I'd say from the pic here of the Make-up under the dressing room lights that it looks pretty cool. Unlike X-Men 3 where digital artists painted out wrinkles but didn't alter any of the facial structure of the actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan for their de-ageing scenes, Baker's make-up seems to have added genuine youth back to the face of Winkler, he could almost be the Fonz again !! Also pictured is Rick Baker's old age make-up from the same film, there's an amazing amount of detail to the work. I'd love to see both of these Make-up's in film lighting as opposed to studio. Good to see Rick Baker still producing great work !