Success Stories
Learn about the successful careers of some of our former students. We just had another Academy Award nominee in 2016, Love Larson.
How Dick’s Course Helped Weta Make LOTR
Land That Job!
The Dick Smith Certificate Opens Career Doors
I had trained as a straight makeup artist for one year and another year as a prosthetic makeup FX artist at a well known Australian makeup college. I worked as a freelance makeup FX artist and also have my own makeup FX business and have been in the industry for over 15 years. Even after all this time spent working in the industry, I felt like I’d reached a learning point in Australia that I just couldn’t get past. There was no new information out there, not that it doesn’t exist, just no one was sharing it.
Then I enrolled in the Dick Smith Advanced Professional Makeup Course. Dick’s course got me to a level of work high enough to beat out hundreds of other international applicants for a place in the prosthetics department at Weta Workshop in New Zealand on Peter Jackson’s film “The Hobbit.” This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I would recommend this course to anyone either starting out or looking to further their knowledge within the makeup FX industry.
– Russell Sharp, Australia
Lee Romaire Studios, Inc., founded in 2004, designs and produces extraordinary live action creature, character and mechanical effects for the entertainment industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.