Like a great many kids, Mark was fascinated with the stop – motion animation of King Kong (1976), but he switched gears with the arrival of the 1980s genre of horror films. “I was a big George Romero fan and I thought Tom Savini’s work was great! I always loved magic and that was the impressive thing about Savini’s effects—the magic elements. He used visual tricks to make you think you were seeing what he wanted you to see.”1
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FIGURE 4.1 Mark Alfrey working on a figure sculpture. Image reproduced by permission of Mark Alfrey. |
Mark developed skill as a sculptor as a youngster and upon graduation from high school moved to California to pursue a career in special makeup effects, earning his first credits on Critters2 and Demonwarp. Mark moved back to New Jersey, where he’d grown up, and had the good fortune to meet artist John Dods, perhaps best known for creating makeup effects for the Beast in Broadway’s Beauty and the Beast. Mark worked with John on several film, television, and theater projects and, with a heftier body of work to show, moved back to California in 1995. Since then Mark has racked up credits including Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Deep Rising, A Kiss Before Dying, The X Files, From Dusk Till Dawn, Men in Black, Dogma, Grey’s Anatomy, and 300.
Mark has worked with and learned from some of the best artists and shops our industry has to offer, including KNB, Optic Nerve, John Vulich, Rob Bottin, and Rick Baker. He says, “Rob Bottin was great to work with because he never held my hand. He usually likes to give you inspiration; he would sit and talk for an hour about what he needed to be sculpted. Then he let you go where you could go.”2
In 2001 Mark began producing a series of instructional DVDs to share his vast knowledge and experience with other artists, myself included. Mark is a generous artist and teacher and continues to work a very busy schedule in Hollywood as well as training new artists for work in the field of special makeup effects. Mark is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after character designers and sculptors and is also an outstanding makeup artist.
‘“The Creature Walks Among Us—Thanks to Mark Alfrey,” by Daniel Roebuck, HorrorShow Magazine, Issue #3.
2“The Creature Walks Among Us—Thanks to Mark Alfrey,” by Daniel Roebuck, HorrorShow Magazine, Issue #3.
