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SAG Special Issue 2012

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CELEBRATING THE CRAFT Casting The Actor® H THE ART OF CREATING THE STATUETTE e's not yet dressed and holds the masks of comedy and tragedy, contemplating which persona he will assume when he steps in front of the camera. He's 16 inches tall, but notoriously heavy. And most actors would give their eyeteeth to take all 12 pounds of him home. Eighteen years ago, The Actor® was designed by Jim Heimann and Jim Barnett and sculpted by Edward Saenz. Since then, it has been the task of the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank to create the celebrated statuettes for the Screen Actors Guild Awards®. Under the supervision of Brett Barney and Angel Meza, a team of 10 craſtspeople labor over a period of three to four weeks each year to produce the distinctive awards that have become identified with the show. The lost-wax process is an exacting one. The artists start with a mother mold, which is made of silicon. From this mold, they then create the wax. Unfortunately for The Actor, he doesn't begin his journey into the world with any arms! To create his famously reflective pose, the arms are attached separately, since in this complicated process, the arms could break off when the wax is pulled from the mold. When fully configured in wax, the statuette weighs 10 times less than it will in bronze, not including the base, which approximately doubles the weight. The wax figurine has to be flawless in order to maintain the integrity of the final product. From there, the wax gets treated with ceramic material to create a casting mold that's going to 29 SCREEN ACTOR - Special Issue 2012 SAG.org Maury Phillips/WireImage.com

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