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Interview: Bill Terezakis
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By Steve Fronczek
23 May 2008
Future-Past.com was recently granted the opportunity to interview Bill Terezakis who is Owner and Chief Designer of WCT Productions. WCT is a highly specialized design facility producing Prosthetics and Animatronic effects for the motion picture and TV industry. Bill's work includes such productions as Thir13en Ghosts, Blade: Trinity, Smallville, The Last Mimzy and Freddy vs. Jason. Bill has been the Special Makeup Effects Designer in charge of the Animatronics, Prosthetics and Make-Up effects design for Battlestar Galactica since the Miniseries. His motto is "For anything you can or can't imagine." This exclusive interview was made possible by the great folks from Intersun Luxury Liners, Caprica City, Caprica.
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Can you explain briefly for my readers what a Special Makeup Effects Designer does?
In my case, I read a script specifically looking out for the things that fall beyond the boundaries of the show’s regular makeup. Once identified, I take my imagination into Photoshop where I begin the design process. When I am happy with a particular concept, I then present it to the production. Special Makeup Effects deals with a wide range of possibilities. In the past we’ve built just about any and every thing ranging from a subtle paper cut on the finger to the most elaborate of animatronic characters.
What got you interested in special effects, was there a particular film that inspired you to design make-up effects?
Monsters were a huge part of my childhood. But when I was, I think, six or eight years old I saw Planet of the Apes. I became obsessed with these ape characters -- still am to this day. I used to put gloves on my feet and stuff wet Kleenex under my lip to puff out my mouth then pretend I was Cornelius. I have fond memories of asking my older brother how they made the ape faces and he told me that melted cork was the material of choice. That year for Halloween, I found myself trying to melt a wine cork I had skewered with a souvlaki stick over the red hot element of the kitchen stove. Needless to say, it did not work, the cork does not melt and become this magical sculpt directly over your face sculpting medium, and I ended up going out that year as an Italian HOBO with copious "cork soot" beard stubble.
Where did you obtain your schooling and or experience?
Most of my early schooling came from careful observation of what I saw in movies or from magazines or the rare book I would come across. I have been making monsters since eight years old. My parents were very understanding and totally supported my need to create things of the bizarre. For the most part my education came from the hobby in my parents basement back in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When I was eighteen, I went to an academy in Los Angeles for a year. Once there though, I felt what they had to offer was redundant of what I had already learned on my own. The good thing about the academy was “doing it’ for a solid year and of course being in L.A. was quite thrilling at the time.
Any interesting anecdotes in your career working as an effects artist?
There was this one time in particular where I was asked to design a set of "humongous breasts" for an actress to wear in a comical breast feeding shot. As it turned out on the day she was scheduled to come to the studio for a torso casting, four hours later she was a no show. I called the production to see what was up and they had no idea where she was. Apparently the director and producers did not tell her what their intention was for the shot, and she was concerned about revealing her chest for the casting. Because of the nature of the build, I assured her that there would be no need to be nude for what we needed to do, and besides, I will have an all woman crew taking your mould. Somewhat relieved, she finally arrived at the six hour mark. We did our casting, all went well, and then we began the build.
Two weeks later I arrived on set with the "ka-hoo-naz" and she took one look at them and said "There is NO WAY I'm going to wear THOSE!!! I don't want people thinking this is what my ji-jong-gaz look like for real!" Granted they were quite realistic looking, but I think the throbbing varicose veins would have been a tell tale sign that they could not have possibly been real. Anyways... The director loved them and thought that maybe if they were to catch the actress on a good day that they might be able to persuade her to don the "Grotesque Glandular Montrosisies" spur of the moment. I was asked to have a technician on set everyday for six weeks, in the event she had a change of heart.
Do you have a favorite make-up artist?
Allot of favorites; Rick Baker, Dick Smith, John Chambers, Rob Bottin and Steve Johnson to name a few.
How did you become involved with the Battlestar production?
Ron French, a producer on the series -- and all around good guy -- and I have worked together on several other projects in the past, He was prepping the pilot and there was an old age makeup that was required.
Were you familiar with the original Battlestar Galactica? If so, how would you compare the make-up effects from then to what you are accomplishing now?
Absolutely. I was fascinated by the three faced black woman, singer thingy. The robodog and of course the Cylons.
(ed. note: In the original series Starbuck and Boomer encounter an alien species called the Tucana.)
How closely do you work with the various actors and actresses to come up with their effects makeup needs?
Once the makeup effects concepts have been approved, I then have the actor come to my studio for casting what ever body part is involved in the makeup and or gag. I will describe in detail what they are to expect from the experience of dealing with the particular makeup effect. If anyone in particular were to require any special requests or need, I would of course address the issue.
Tell us about the make-up/prosthetic effects work you did on Battlestar Galactica.
I recently did Alessandro Juliani "Lt Gaeta's" leg wound. Alessandro is a great pleasure to work with. The leg wound was designed as a "strap-on" silicone prosthetic device equipped with a bleeding blood rig. I knew ahead of time that the wound would be seen thru a tear in his pant leg, so this allowed me to build a prosthetic that could be applied on the set in mere minutes as oppose to a lengthy application in the trailor.
I also did Mary McDonnall "Roslin's" bald head, but it is going thru a re-design as we speak. I haven’t seen the episodes as of yet but there are a couple things that I feel can be improved upon. Hopefully I will get the opportunity to evolve the look.
Jamie Bamber commented in a Q&A session recently that during the episodes where he was "fat Lee" he dreaded getting the "fillet of flounder" prosthetic glued to his face every morning, but remarked the prosthetic effects were some of the most brilliant he'd seen done for a TV show. How did you get the skin tones and texture to look so realistic?
When Jamie came to my studio for a head casting, we had matched his skin tones with the color swatch system Maureen, my partner, has developed. Once we’ve matched the exact base color in Jamie’s skin, we then tint our translucent skin materials, in this case gelatin, until the desired tone and opacity is achieved. The color texture is achieved by Patricia Murray with multiple passes of various reds and browns thru airbrushing.
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