Steve Johnson
Every artist has his or her own signature – in Steve Johnson’s case, it’s usually the wide-open gaping mouths of his characters. Check his credits and you’ll see for yourself. Of course, this has a double meaning, as Johnson’s work is also always jaw-dropping.

When Rick Baker came to Houston, Texas for a convention in the late 1970s, the teenaged Johnson was one of the eager admirers who approached Baker, enthusiastically telling him that he wanted to be a makeup artist. Sensing the young man’s passion, Baker encouraged him, telling Johnson to look Baker up should he ever move to Los Angeles. Not a long while went by before Johnson did just that and began an informal apprenticeship with Baker and another young makeup artist, Rob Bottin. Johnson spent those first few years on both Baker and Bottin projects, including “The Fog,” “Humanoids From the Deep” and “An American Werewolf in London,” where Johnson assisted with the creation of several puppets and effects.

Several years later, Johnson was working in the historic “Ghost Shop” established to create ghouls large and small for the film “Ghostbusters.” Several Johnson creations were quite memorable in the film, including “Slimer,” who found room in his huge mouth for all types of food when he wasn’t sliming Bill Murray.

Johnson created frightening creatures for several other projects in the mid-1980s, including “Fright Night,” an underrated vampire film, and “Poltergeist II” before branching out with his own company, XFX. Among the earliest XFX projects was James Cameron’s “The Abyss,” for which Johnson created benevolent aliens that had to work underwater, changing colors while maintaining a transluscent appearance.

In the early 1990s, Steve Johnson’s company provided brilliant vampire effects for John Landis’ horror romp, “Innocent Blood,” playfully labelled “A French Vampire in America.” Not long after that, Johnson supervised the construction of Syl, the leading alien visage in “Species,” based on H.R. Giger’s designs. Johnson also did many tests and designs for suits in Tim Burton’s aborted new version of “Superman” and built an enormous oversize animatronic title character for the never-completed film of “The Incredible Hulk.”

In the late 1990s, Johnson was tasked with several huge projects, including numerous undersea creatures for “Sphere,” robotic effects for “Virus,” and a horde of believable robotic suits for “Bicentennial Man.” Additionally, he created makeup and effects for many rock videos and TV
commercials, including the characters in the unique Duracell Battery campaign. By the turn of the century, Johnson had moved his company into an elaborate new facility, and one of their first big projects was the sequel to “Blade.”

Rob Bottin
Rob Bottin was only 14 years old when he first became an active participant in movie magic. His mentor, future Oscar-winner Rick Baker, may have been the best teacher a student of special makeup effects could ever hope to have. As Baker’s special makeup apprentice, Bottin’s first film assignment was Dino De Laurentiis’ lavish 1976 remake of “King Kong”. Their next job was working on the colorful aliens in the celebrated cantina sequence in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” (1977). The neophyte effects technician soon started Rob Bottin Productions, his own effects company, at age 18. He received his first feature credit as special makeup effects designer and special effects designer on Joe Dante’s “Piranha” (1978), and later did the monster effects on another Roger Corman feature, “Humanoids From the Deep” (1980).

His career really took off with his special makeup effects (and a bit part as the decaying captain of a lost ship) in John Carpenter’s “The Fog” (1980), and Joe Dante’s “The Howling” (1981). For the latter, he created a special makeup milestone with his werewolf transformation. The werewolves in “The Howling” became animals without camera cuts or dissolves; Bottin’s wolves’ noses elongated and sprouted ears and hair. Much like mentor Rick Baker’s work in “American Werewolf in London,” and Dick Smith’s effects in “Altered States,” Bottin’s wondrous creations in “The Howling” ushered in the era of special makeup effects.

Topping himself, Bottin reteamed with writer-director Carpenter for his 1982 remake of “The Thing”. His outlandish, over-the-top special makeup effects may be viewed as Bottin’s signature work. Myriad effects, including a husky dog that comes apart and transforms into a hideous monster, and a man whose head falls off of a human body and becomes a spider, were breathtaking. Bottin worked again with Dante, creating cartoonish creatures for the “It’s A Good Life” segment of “Twilight Zone - The Movie” (1983) and the comic fantasy “Explorers” (1985).

In the mid-1980s, Bottin also created multiple characters for Ridley Scott’s fantasy “Legend” and the robotic suit and makeup effects for Paul Verhoeven’s “Robocop.” It was his elaborate work on Verhoeven’s scifi adventure “Total Recall” (1990) that finally won Bottin an Oscar. In the 1990s, Bottin’s films included “Seven” and “Mission: Impossible” and he created numerous character makeups for “Fight Club.” Always eager to direct feature films, Bottin has long been rumored to direct and create makeup for “Jason vs. Freddy,” an all-out battle of horror heroes.

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