David G. Beneke Make-up/Effects Artist

9825 Hannum Drive

Los Angeles, California 90034

(310) 204-2539

E-mail: davidgbeneke@hotmail.com

What are Special Make-up Effects?

About 25 years ago the expression “Special Make-up Effects” was coined to define the advancing technology of make-up, merging with mechanics, prop making, costuming and what was once labeled as physical effects, making what was once indefinable and highly compartmentalized (at least by union terms) into basically one art and science. The term in the realm of make-up could mean everything from small cuts and bruises to a full on mechanical suit such as Stan Winston’s “Predator”. On the same token, tiny mechanical do dads, which were once left aside for props and physical effects were given to make-up people to design and make to help conglomerate the look of the character or incorporate its function into the make-up. Specialty prosthetic work has been around for a long time and once under the guise of make-up, somewhere over the years increasingly blurred into special effects. This is to explain why my site contains what would appear to be props one time, on the next page a prosthetic and so on. The design and execution of these said “effects” would be called something different in the old school, but with that merger of technologies in the last 30 years the new craft of “Special Make-up Effects” has emerged and I consider myself a purveyor of this art.