Young Creature Designers Face Off

(exciting music)

[Woman] The battle to be the next

big name in movie magic begins again.

Well, Face Off is competition reality

for the world of special effects makeup.

It's in the vein of like a Top Chef or Project Runway,

but whereas you can't taste the food,

you can't wear the clothes, you get a great

visual effect and you really get to feel

a part of something for a whole, full hour.

[Glenn] The thing is, with each season

it's a completely different formula

based on the way the contestants get on

in the lab, the way that they work together

on the team challenges, and then

the challenges keep changing.

[McKenzie] Yes.

So you can't really go back and say

like, what are some of the things that did make it

or what was tough? I can't do that

because if we would take part of season three's cast

and put them into a challenge in season two or season one,

they may have excelled there, where they fell down

in season three based on the person

they were working with, personality types,

particulars of that challenge,

so that's also what I think keeps the show fresh

and hopefully will keep everybody watching.

Patrick Tatopoulos has gone to do the new 300 film,

Battle of Artemisia, so he is in Bulgaria,

and in his place right now is Neville Page.

It's been a lot of fun, and such a treat

to see these young designers doing their thing

so well in ridiculous short periods of time,

because, you've seen the show, it's not like

they have weeks and weeks to do a makeup.

It is a couple days, so it's pretty incredible to witness.

Patrick brought production design eye to the judge team,

and it's very crucial that we're looking

at them on different levels,

and I think it's one of the pieces

of the formula that makes the show work.

So when they brought Neville in,

I myself, I think we found out the day we got there, right?

Yeah, we did.

Like the first day of shooting.

We didn't know who he was.

Are you serious? Oh my god.

Yeah, we didn't know it was him.

They didn't tell us. It was a surprise.

I geeked out, because I have like all these DVDs

that Neville put out regarding Photoshop

and Z-brush design, and was like,

oh my god, that's awesome.

We are so thrilled that it was him.

(Face Off theme music)

we get to represent this gigantic group of people

that don't get to step in front of the camera.

They go completely unsung for the most part,

aside from an awards ceremony here and again, you know?

And it's an incredible honor to be able

to represent all the brothers and sisters in this art form.