Makeup grad Michael Nickiforek has been keeping very busy… since graduating, he’s become a T.A. in the Makeup Design for Film & Television program – you might remember seeing some of his work at Halloween last year.

But Michael has also been doing contract work at WCT Productions, working on makeup effects for productions like Reaper, Smallville, the pilot for The Middleman, the feature I Love You, Beth Cooper – and some projects that can’t yet be discussed (but you can be sure we’ll let you know when they can!).

Michael, tell us how you got hired on at WCT.

I knew they were looking for workers at the shop, as another VFS alumni Crissy Renaud was working there. I had been working at another FX shop, SFX Studio Inc., prior to WCT. So I emailed WCT my resume and then went for an interview, of course bringing my portfolio. At a shop you are usually only going to show off FX work, plus sculpting and mold-making capabilities. The interview went well… I think the best thing you can do is let them know and feel how excited and interested you are in your work. I can talk anyone’s ear off about makeup FX for hours.

Do you have an official title? What kind of work, generally, are you doing there?

There’s no title, really. If you only sculpt and make molds, then you might say you’re a sculptor/mold maker. I do it all though, from sculpting to painting. I just consider myself a makeup effects artist. The one thing you really don’t do much of in the shop is application. I have done some for make up tests, but not too often.

I usually sculpt, make molds, and run molds, in either foam latex, gelatin, or silicone. I seam props or prosthetics, whether it’s foam latex or silicone. I help paint the silicone props, and have pre-painted a bit of foam appliances. Most of my painting has been with silicone, though. The other thing I do is fabricate directly out of silicone. An example would be if you had a fake arm, you could then create the gory stump by building up silicone and sculpting it while it sets up.

We also create colour-matched gelatin and silicone to have on hand for when we need to run it in the molds.

What’s been the most fun makeup you’ve done at WCT?

The most fun was actually the most recent thing I worked on there. [A co-worker] Erin and I had the task of creating a expanding bleeding bladder for a silicone chest cut appliance. The appliance was a full torso-covering prosthetic made out of platsil gel 10 silicone. Before the silicone piece was made we had to create the blood bladder that would go underneath it. So we ended up pumping blood for a good few hours trying to get the results we needed. There were so many times the blood came out too hard and too far and got us both. I spent a lot of time laughing that night, it was awesome. You forget this is “work” sometimes.

Thanks, Michael! (Stay tuned for more stories about big projects later this summer…)