Face Off: SyFy's Makeup Effects Artists Competition Show

I'm surprised this show doesn't have a thread already. :/

For those unfamiliar, Face/Off is a reality competition show on the SyFy channel for movie makeup effects artists. Each week the contestants are given a challenge like creating a unique zombie capable of dancing in a music video, blending a nude model into a photograph with body paint, crossing over Alice In Wonderland with Resident Evil, and so forth. This being the SyFy channel, most of the challenges have a sci-fi or horror theme, and most of the competitors come from backgrounds in those genres. The contestants typically have three days working alone or in pairs depending on the scale of the challenge to produce complete makeups to present to the judges.

The series is judged by award winning makeup effects artists and the occasional guest judges like actors, directors, producers, and so forth. Off the top of my head, John Rhys-Davies (aka Gimli from Lord Of The Rings) judged the Goblin King challenge and Kevin Smith judged the super hero challenge last season.

Season 5 kicks off tonight, so this seems like an appropriate time to kick off a thread for it, as well.

Oh, cool. I vaguely wondered when it was coming back on. I watched the first, second, and third (I think) season. I missed one...

Love this show. It's just so cool seeing what they come up with week after week, especially towards the end when everyone's bringing their A-Game and it goes from weeding out the most obviously problematic to a Sadistic Choice between some amazing pieces.

It's a big event in my house. My sister and her boyfriend work the night shift so we don't watch when it airs. The next day she kicks down the door with breakfast screaming 'FFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCEEEEEOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!! and I lurch out of bed half-dead to watch.

So, quite the premier. I hadn't been paying attention to any of the news about the new season before it aired, so the vets vs newbies twist was a welcome surprise. I'm really thrilled to see Roy, Laura, RJ, and Tate back; they were all some of my favorites in their respective seasons, and I liked Eric and Alana well enough too. I don't really remember Miranda, and Frank was a complete jerk that I was happy to see go the first time, so hopefully he's sincere about wanting to turn that around for the new season.

I'm especially happy to see Laura, though, since I was really pulling for her to win season 3, and feel she kind of got robbed by the American Idol-style audience vote deciding the winner that season. I would have also loved to see Gage from season 1, Ian from season 2, and Eric F from season 4 also come back, but then I'd be having an even harder time deciding who I want to win this season. :P

It's too soon for me to pick out any favorites from the new crowd, at least based on work quality. I do have an initial liking for Laney (how appropriate that Elvira is apparently going to be making an appearance this season, as she looks like a miniature version of the Mistress of the Dark) and Adolfo, who seems like a really nice guy, so I hope their skills back that up. Laney's off to a good start with that faun makeup; it was easily my favorite of the newbie team's work, and did look very nice.

Here's to a great season!

3rd season bugged us too. I thought Roy was robbed by Nichole returning. She did some damn good work, but she screwed up badly enough to get axed. Roy should have been a finalist, Laura should have won.

Wow, how did this escape my radar?

There should be more reality shows focusing on these obscure subjects, like makeup and stuff. It's lotsa fun!

Agreed. I'm really disappointed that this new Heroes Of Cosplay show that's on right after Face Off isn't this sort of show. The way they seemed to be billing it, it looked like it was going to be more like Face Off for costume making, which I would have adored.

Are there any other shows like Face Off out there?

The previous season was matched up with a show called Monster Maker or something like that, about a special effects shop that put together monsters for films.

Monster Maker was ...much less good.

Monster Man, actually. And yeah, not quite the same thing, since most of their work was for Mockbuster type horror films. Was kinda cool seeing them provide the effects for a Devo music video in the style of Ultraman, though.

Alright, after two weeks of seeing them work together, I think I'm ready to officially announce Alana x Laney as my new OTP. Seriously, those two are just adorable together.

As soon as they said the week's theme was "whimsey," my first thought was "Who gets RJ?" I'm really shocked that his and Roy's cat in the fiddle not only didn't win, but didn't even make the top looks.

Yeah, that surprised me as well. It looked so perfect, like it came straight from a cartoon.

I'm guessing that last night's was one where the makeups really didn't look as great on TV as they did in person. The Fiddlecat was fabulous, but I'm betting that there was detail work on the Pumpkin and Humpty that we simply couldn't see.

That's my best guess, too. It's really frustrating when that happens, though.

The Fiddlecat was fantastic. I wish we got more footage of the model playing with the fiddles.

I really wish they'd give us more of the judges' deliberations. Even if it was in a premium extra on the website. But it's so frustrating to not know why they picked one over the others. But then, I also know that on panel-judged shows like this, the judges' discussions can go for hours as the discuss and debate and nitpick... the judges on Top Chef have said that they sometimes go well past midnight

x10 A few seasons ago they had Hot Set which was similar to Face Off and aired after Face Off but the focus was on designing sets based on the theme of the episode there were only 2 teams per episode.

edited 31st Aug '13 6:19:40 PM by Halberdier17

Last year, actually. Is there going to be a Season 2?

Probably not. The show wasn't that good. Imagine if Face Off was two different competitors every week. You never get a good feel for their work. People can have a good week or a bad week that doesn't show their actual skill. The most entertaining episode was Alice in Wonderland and only because one team went absolute, batshit, Salvador Dali insane with it. Wonderland has bizarre logic to it, this woman just threw things around and left us stunned. Like Alice walks through a big eye into the backyard where there is a terracotta soldier and a wooden duck in a tree waiting for her.

edited 1st Sep '13 11:54:00 AM by Rotpar

Also that type of work didn't seem all that conductive for a 2-3 day competition. The people ran up to or over budget really quickly, IIRC, and were always short on time (or at least the time thing was emphasized more than it is in other things I remember).

Yeah, that was a good concept, but poor execution. Building an entire set, even if it's only for a 10x10 foot space is not something you can do in 20 hours over two days. The two-day time period is pushing it hard even for Face/Off — I'd like to see what these guys could come up with given even one day more. And to me it's funny, because the whole "two days" thing has been embraced as some sort of gospel for this type of show, just because Project Runway did it that way. For making an outfit, 20 hours is short but do-able.

But molds cracking is a regular occurrence, because if you haven't done your plaster at the end of the first day so it can dry overnight, you simply aren't going to have enough time to let it dry completely before you have to open it to cast your foam or latex.

Face Off usually has 3 days, including application day.

But yeah, I watched a few episodes of Hot Set, and it just didn't do anything for me.

So, Miranda takes her third win. Personally, I was a lot more impressed with Frank's eyeless tooth mutant and Tate's sea creature, but mainly I'm relieved that Roy didn't get sent home after the disaster with his original design.

edited 4th Sep '13 1:43:33 PM by Wryte

Same I was impressed with Frank's eyeless monster it looked awesome.

edited 4th Sep '13 2:16:52 PM by Halberdier17