The other day my wife and I were enjoying a restful Saturday where aside from a few media things, the focus was on taking it easy from a very hectic week. As we were having lunch, Star Trek TNG came on the television and we watched along as we ate.
My wife asked me about the new series and then offered up something that really made me stop and think. She said that knowing how intensive and time consuming the makeup for the series is, she wondered if the new show would take a page from GRIMM and CGI in the creature appearances.
The Star Trek series have always taken great pride in their makeup effects and have been recognized by nominations and awards in this area. That being said, I remember Michael Dorn once telling the story of how the worst thing you can do for an actor is to give them a job. He joked about how all you do when you are not working is complain about wanting an acting job, but the moment you get one the complaining about early morning arrival times and long hours in the makeup chair begins.
GRIMM has elaborate creatures on the show each week as they morph between their human and creature appearances. The show uses CGI effects to complete this transition as during our meetings with the cast and crew at San Diego Comic Con, we were told this allows them to be as free as they want to be with their creative process without having to worry about a difficult and lengthy series of makeup sessions.
Another bonus would be the change to get performers who might otherwise balk at several hours pre and post shoot in a makeup chair to agree to appear on the show.
Some may question the quality but GRIMM has been nominated many times for their makeup effects by the top awards in the industry and as such has shown that they are in the mix with the biggest names in the industry for their creations.
While I would think that Star Trek will likely go with the traditional approach that has been used throughout the series, one has to think that the option to use digital makeup must be appealing as it would allow them to have a few more options at their disposal and Enterprise showed that they were not against using digital characters in some of the episodes.
