Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/933762
42 • THE ARTISAN WINTER 2018 42 • THE ARTISAN WINTER 2018 HOWARD BERGER: July 2016, I was contacted by Seth MacFarlane to come aboard the starship USS Orville to be part of the team in helping create the universe he had always imagined since he was a boy. A world that was hopeful, positive, colorful, funny and filled with adventure, as well as heaps of alien life-forms. How could I resist? This sounded like the perfect project to be a part of. The pilot was several months away from filming, so I went to KNB EFX Group, the Special Make-up Effects Studio I co-owned with Greg Nicotero these past 30 years, to start designing the 100-plus species Seth had written about in the 13 episodes. KNB artists John Wheaton and Michael Broom began the process by design work. We found that Seth responded best to thumbnail pencil sketches instead of the polished Photoshop art we normally present. Once we landed on something he liked, we would then refine the piece for production purposes and begin the next stages of sculpting, mold making and running thousands of foam latex prosthetics. Key sculptors at KNB were Norman Cabrera, David Grasso, Andy Schoenberg, Alex Diaz and John SPACE AND BEYOND BEHIND THE SCENES ON THE ORVILLE Wrightson. They were charged with the task to take the approved artwork and bring them to life in clay, starting with the bad guys, the Krill, to Chief of Security Alara, to an assortment of alien crew mem- bers. Once completed, the sculptures were moved onto mold makers Mike Ross and Steve Frakes. All molds on the show are syntactic urethane, as we knew there would be hundreds of foam runs out of these molds and stone was not going to cut it. Derek Krout and his team in the Prosthetic Manufacturing Dept. worked 24/7 for months. More than 5,000 foam appliances were produced for the season, including 111 Krill make-ups shot in an eight-day period for one episode. Crazy!!! We began filming the pilot at 20th Century Fox Studios in January 2017 under the helm of maverick director Jon Favreau. Since we were filming in Los Angeles, we could pick from the cream of the crop of make-up artists and hair stylists. In the 15 days of shooting, we employed 13 amazing Local 706 make- up artists. Maxine Morris, Department Head Hair, hired eight outstanding 706 stylists. Photos courtesy of Focus Features B Y H O W A R D B E R G E R | D E P A R T M E N T H E A D M A K E - U P A N D M A X I N E M O R R I S | D E P A R T M E N T H E A D H A I R