Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/987074
42 • THE ARTISAN SPRING 2018 Vivian Ongall, Lori Sasaki, Carla McKeever and Sean Samson. (Additional BG characters were provided by Paul Jones.) Every week, we faced a fluctuating schedule and had to accomplish massive amounts of work, often adding days, changing cast and modulating crew requirements. On top of all of that, they had to manage a warehouse of never-ending prosthetic orders on set that had to be catalogued, checked and prepped for their big day. Here is how we made it work: Our main make-ups were Saru (Doug Jones), L'rell (Mary Chieffo) and episode-specific Klingon leaders. We also had AIRAM (the Augmented Female played by Sarah Mitich) on the bridge for many of these days with various featured Federation crew members like Osnullus. Then of course, there was Sarek (James Frain) and the remaining house-specific Klingons, depending on the day's work. James often had more than 20 full make-ups working on a single day, and many of those days lead to three- or four-day stretches with just as many if not more. Just the prep and logistical planning (mani- fests, inventory management, etc.) alone was enough work for an entire team, but it all had to be done by this highly skilled squadron of FX ninjas between takes. In shop, we had an army (led by myself, my wife Michele Monaco-Hetrick, Brad Palmer and Ken Culver) working around the clock to stay in pace with the episodic needs. Indeed, far too many to name here, but each and every one absolutely integral to the success of this project. We mas- tered all of the paint jobs and designed all of the blends to facilitate for a 95 percent complete make-up to be shipped out to set so that the on-set application teams would need only to focus on blend lines and eyes after the massive application process. The on-set team was usually limited to one artist per character, even the giant full head Klingons. The genius that is James MacKinnon concocted a delicate dance that allowed one artist to jump over for a few minutes as a second set of hands to slide the cowl on and then jump back onto their own character … all orchestrated with slightly staggered start times to make full camera-ready application happen in under 2.5 hours per character, every day. Tim Gore led a team of incredible painters throughout the season, maintaining continuity on hundreds and hundreds of full sets of make-up. In certain cases, due to a script change, we would need to change the house color of a Klingon last minute, so we painted everything with PPI Illustrators and waited to seal until just before shipping so if need be, we could activate the colors and go back in without muddying it up. Insanely stressful to say the least. When an artist comes to a project, it is my belief that one can only either diminish or augment the project—there is no in-between. If it is just "another job," then indeed you are of the diminishing sort, having snatched away the "extraor- dinary" and suffocated the "remarkable" before even making a start. Giving up on the creative battlefield too easily and genuflecting to routine … throwing yourself on your sword before the dread enemy called Deadline. That does not nec- essarily mean that you will get fired. To the contrary, you likely will not. Just as long as the "job" gets done, the mighty wheels of production grind on and the clocks tick away on schedule. However, that perfunctory performance … the one that "just gets you through," it is not going to procreate the same level of work, it will not evoke the same level of emo- tional response, it cannot participate in the same quality of creation as works attained by artists with illimitable passion for the subject matter. The men and women with whom we worked on this show, at every level and in every department, both in shop and on set; they are all in possession of that type of passion. That is the very essence of the fuel needed to take on a show of this magnitude. It is a platform of performance that must not only be attained but maintained ... by an entire army of artists spread across thousands of miles. Each feeding and nourishing the other as countless challenges appear from the darkness, only to fall before their ceaseless commitment. This is not hyperbole, nothing less would have done. In the end, I was awestruck not only by the art on the screen ... but even more so by this group of artists and their col- lective ability to succeed against insurmountable odds. Not just succeed, but to have done so with a remarkable grace. The kind of grace under pressure that one may well have learned from a few Starfleet captains and a man named Gene Roddenberry. Of them, all that I can say is that we will for- ever remain in your debt. •