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Making a Monster: The Creation of Screen Characters by the Great Makeup Artists by Al Taylor .. PDF

Here at last is the ultimate book for horror and science fiction film cultists, a book devoted in its entirety to Hollywood's makeup men and the characters they've created, from Frankenstein to Star Wars. MAKING A MONSTER is the behind-the-scenes story of these unsung heroes of the film industry, this small fraternity of specialists and technicians whose creativity and attention to realistic detail make the illusions of the screen frighteningly complete. For what would Boris Karloff have been without the bolts in the sides of his neck or Christopher Lee without his fangs, and what would The Thing have been without ... the Thing.

Authors Al Taylor and Sue Roy have told the story of the careers of thirty of the most well known American and British film and television makeup artists and supplied hundreds of revealing photographs showing how they do their work, from the first plaster molds and latex facial pieces to the final highlights and shadows.

MAKING A MONSTER features Jack Pierce, who worked with Bela Lugosi on the original Dracula; Dick Smith, who prepared Linda Blair for The Exorcist; Tom Burman, designer of the aliens for Close Encounters; Stuart Freeborn of Star Wars; Rick Baker, the man inside Dino De Laurentiis's King Kong suit; John Chambers, the man responsible for the popular Planet of the Apes series; Roy Ashton and Phil Leakey of Britain's Hammer Films, the studio responsible for the rebirth of horror movies in the 1960s; Jack Dawn of The Wizard of Oz; Ben Nye of The Fly; and many, many more.

MAKING A MONSTER will reveal the secrets behind your favorite fantasy film, be it The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Time Machine, The Birds, Jaws, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Filled with detailed accounts of actual makeup processes and ingenious solutions to difficult problems of filming, with an introduction by veteran horror film actor Christopher Lee himself, MAKING A MONSTER provides a unique view of this highly specialized and highly creative aspect of filmmaking .

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