Spectral Motion
Mike Elizalde is an Academy Award nominated prosthetic makeup designer, animatronics designer, and Screen Actors Guild puppeteer. He is also President and Creative Director of Spectral Motion, Incorporated.
Born in Mexico in 1960, Mike immigrated to the United States with his parents when he was five years old. That’s when Mike’s interest in movie monsters began. His earliest creative influences included films like Frankenstein and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The images in those films would stay with Mike his entire life and light the path for his career as a creature designer.
But it was perhaps the Dick Smith Advanced Course that had the greatest impact upon Mike’s career as a special make-up effects artist. Mike learned his foundation skills from the greatest make-up artist that has ever lived, Dick Smith. With these invaluable lessons, Mike, along with his wife and business partner Mary, established Spectral Motion, Inc. in 1994.
Elizalde is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild and of the Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Union, Local 706. He is also a ‘Magician Member’ at the world famous Hollywood Magic Castle. Under Mike’s leadership, his company has created mind-bending prosthetic makeup and creature effects for such blockbuster films as X-Men: The Last Stand, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pacific Rim, and Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.
Today, Spectral Motion is recognized not only as one of the leading special effects studios in the industry but also a leader in robotic systems including software control system design, fabrication, and installation. Spectral Motion is a frequent vendor to Walt Disney Imagineering making contributions in the areas of theme park rides, parades, and research and development. The company also develops robotic art installations that will be featured in the newly opened Broad Gallery in Los Angeles, California.
Weta Workshop was established in 1994 in Wellington, New Zealand by Richard and Tania Taylor, Peter Jackson, and Jamie Selkirk. Their goal: to provide special makeup effects, props and other services to local film and television productions. Today Weta Workshop is a 65,000 square foot dream factory employing over 200 artists and craftspeople, creating everything from weird creature makeups to the design for fantasy vehicles, weapons, and entire worlds for blockbusters like The Hobbit, King Kong, and Avatar. The Workshop’s extraordinary work has earned it five Academy Awards.
Mike Elizalde is an Academy Award nominated prosthetic makeup designer, animatronics designer, and Screen Actors Guild puppeteer. He is also President and Creative Director of Spectral Motion, Incorporated.
Lee Romaire Studios, Inc., founded in 2004, designs and produces extraordinary live action creature, character and mechanical effects for the entertainment industry.
Raised in Connecticut, a few miles from New York, Andrew Clement was taking the train into the city to work in the effects business even before graduating high school. He gathered any experience he could in the east coast effects community, sometimes even working for free, until it was time to attend S.U.N.Y. Purchase. While working towards his Visual Arts/Theatre Design degree, he began working on shows such as Saturday Night Live, and the films, The Princess Bride and Ridley Scott’s Black Rain. In 1985, Dick Smith began his legendary Advanced Professional Make-Up Course, and Andrew became his very first student. Armed with this life changing knowledge, he began commanding larger and more lucrative jobs.
In 1988 Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. formed Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc., which was destined to become one of the top effects labs in the industry. In 1988 Alec had enrolled in Dick Smith’s Advanced Course and found it to be a tremendous help in ADI’s quest for artistic excellence.
At a young age Mike Marino became a student and protege of legendary make-up artist Dick Smith. Through Dick’s Advanced Professional Makeup Course, Mike built the foundation and inspiration needed to excel in the field of Special Makeup Effects. Now, with over 20 years of experience in the film industry, Mike has worked with leading artists in the field, including Rob Bottin, Rick Baker and many others. As owner and designer of Prosthetic Renaissance, Mike has been able to realize his goal of leading a first rate team, elevating the art of special makeup effects.