Glenn Hetrick's Alchemy Studios (formerly Hetrick & Page Alchemy Studios) is a makeup effects company that has worked on the entirety of Star Trek: Discovery and its spinoff film Star Trek: Section 31. Even though its two CEOs, Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page, have received individual credits for the first season of the series, the company too has a separate "Prosthetic Makeup Special Effects and Specialty Armor Designed and Created by" credit – for the re-imagined Klingons in particular – as "Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page's Alchemy Studios", and under which all other uncredited company employees were lumped together.
The company was originally founded in 1989 (but only incorporated in 1993) as the special effects (SFX) company Optic Nerve Studios, Inc. by effects artists John Vulich and Everett Burrell in the Vulich's garage in Granada Hills, before the company moved to larger premises in Sun Valley, California. [1] The company became the first gainful employer of SFX artist Glenn Hetrick after he had moved to Hollywood from the East Coast in 1998.
The company has contributed to numerous motion picture productions, the majority of them in the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres. After a number of small small productions, the company took off when it was contracted for The Night of the Living Dead (1990, starring Patricia Tallman and Tony Todd), and movies that have followed suit included among others Romero's followup The Dark Half (1993), Being John Malkovich (1999), The Cell (2000), the two Returning of the Living Dead outings (both 2005), two outings in the horror series Pumpkinhead (2006-07) and The Feast (2008 & 2009) each, Legion (2010), but most conspicuously The Hunger Games quadrilogy (2012-15).
Even more successful became the company for television productions after it was contracted in 1993 for the Babylon 5 franchise, for whose entire run the company eventually provided services for and which put the company firmly on the map in the industry, as the franchise garnered several Emmy Award wins and nominations in the various makeup categories. Commissions followed for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2002), its spin-off Angel (2000-01), The X-Files (1998-2001), Heroes (2006-10, starring many Star Trek alumni, including company owner Hetrick in two guest starring roles), Mad Man (2012), CSI:NY (2008-12), another CSI spin-off CSI:Cyber (2015-16), Extant (2014-15), and two Marvel Comics television series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (2015-17) and Inhumans (2017), before the company embarked on Star Trek: Discovery in the same year. All these series, including Discovery, have added to the company's list of Emmy Award nominations and wins.
After Hetrick had worked for a period of time as an independent contractor, he returned to the company in 2005 as its CEO, becoming its owner as well six years later, when founder Vulich sold him the company (Co-founder Burrell had already left the company in the early 1990s because of a conflict with Vulich). [2] [3] Along with longtime friend and colleague Neville Page, who became co-owner, Hetrick restructured "Glenn Hetrick's Optic Nerve Studios" in 2016 into "Hetrick & Page Alchemy Studios", or "Alchemy Studios" for short, shortly before the company was contracted for Discovery, adding digital visual effects (CGI) production to the array of services as well. [4] [5]
Page however, parted ways with Hetrick in 2021 for otherwise undisclosed reasons after completing his tenure on Discovery's fourth season and left the studio he had co-headed, to strike out on his own. Now sole CEO/owner Hetrick has subsequently renamed his company yet again to Glenn Hetrick's Alchemy Studios.
Page incidentally, as did some other Studios employees, had already freelanced a year earlier on the first season of Star Trek: Picard in the studio's own makeup department headed by James MacKinnon; Alchemy Studios itself had never been under consideration for either Picard or the followup series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (where the makeup departments too were an inhouse affair) and remained employed for Discovery and Section 31 only.
A past employee of the company had been Larry Odien who, for a previous employer, was known to have worked on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as an uncredited SFX technician.
Star Trek: Discovery staff[]
- Blake Bolger – Costume Fabricator (unconfirmed)
- Ken Culver – Special Makeup Effects Artist (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Emily Dorosky – FX Makeup Painter (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Rocky Faulkner – FX Makeup/(Key) Prosthetics Artist/Department Head[2]
- Cory Fisher – FX Makeup Artist (unconfirmed)
- Wendy Fisher – FX Makeup Artist (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Jamie Grove – FX Makeup Artist (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Jason Hamer – FX Makeup Artist (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Glenn Hetrick – CEO, Make-Up Effects Department Head[2]
- Michele Hetrick – (Executive) FX Makeup Project Manager/Coordinator[2]
- Jerad Marantz – Creature Concept Designer (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Pepe Mora (as Jose Mora-Perez) – Special Effects Makeup Sculptor[2]
- Michael O'Brien – Art Director/Head Sculptor[2]
- Joey Orosco – Special Effects Makeup Sculptor (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- Neville Page – CEO, Lead Creature Designer[2]
- Sheila Bond (as Sheila Mia Seifi) – Dental Prosthetics Head[2]
- Mikey Rotella – Creature Designer[2]
- Cale Thomas – Makeup Artist[2]
- Brian Van Dorn – Special Effects Makeup Artist[2]
- Mike Wowczuk – FX Makeup Artist (uncredited, but confirmed)[1]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 As confirmed in the below-listed "Art of Glenn Hetrick's Alchemy Studios" reference book.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 As credited on either IMDB and/or the artist's home pages, but not in the end titles of a Kurtzman-era Star Trek production – excepting Hetrick and Page.
Further reading[]
- Star Trek: The Art of Glenn Hetrick's Alchemy Studios, September 2024
Documentary[]
- DIS Season 1 Blu-ray-special feature, "Creature Comforts"
External links[]
- Alchemy Studios – official site
- Optic Nerve Makeup Studio at MakeupView.co – work gallery (featuring Robin Curtis in Babylon 5 makeup)