(written from a Production point of view)
Rick Stratton testing an early Klingon makeup design for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Richard "Rick" Stratton is a special effects and makeup artist who worked on several Star Trek projects between 1979 and 2002. Stratton has not received on-screen credit for any of his Trek work.
Stratton started his career in the make-up department in the late '70s when he worked with Ben Lane and Leo Lottito at Warner Brothers and when Fred Phillips hired him to work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Among his earlier credits as makeup artist are the science fiction film Battle Beyond the Stars (1980, for which both received a Saturn Award nomination for Best makeup in 1981), the comedy Under the Rainbow (1981, with Fred Phillips, Joy Zapata, and Steve LaPorte), the horror film Q (1982), the comedy Class Reunion (1982, with TOS makeup designer John Chambers), makeup designer for Gregory Peck's character in the television series The Blue and the Gray (1982), the science fiction series V: The Final Battle (1984), the science fiction film The Last Starfighter (1984, with Werner Keppler, Brian Wade, and Gerald Solomon), Ron Howard's science fiction comedy Cocoon (1985, with Greg Cannom, Kevin Haney, Brian Penikas, and Michael Burnett), the horror comedy Fright Night (1985, with Dale Brady), and the fantasy film Moonwalker (1988, with Bob Smithson).
In 1988 Stratton began a collaboration with Eric Allard's "All Effects Company" and shortly thereafter founded his "Creative Make-up Effects" company. Stratton worked as make-up supervisor on the television pilot of the science fiction series Alian Nation in 1989, followed by twenty-two episodes for which he served as special effects make-up artist. On this series, which starred Gary Graham, Eric Pierpoint, and Michele Scarabelli, he worked with fellow Trek artists Steve LaPorte, R. Christopher Biggs, Richard Howard, Richard Snell, Katalin Elek, Ellis Burman, Edouard F. Henriques, and Burt Dalton. In 1990 the make-up crew won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup for a Series for the episode Chains of Love.
Following the successful series five television movies based on the TV show were produced in the '90s: Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994), Alien Nation: Body and Soul (1995), Alien Nation: Millennium (1996), Alien Nation: The Enemy Within (1996), and Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy (1997). Stratton, who worked on all five was also part of the teams who earned Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Miniseries or a Special for Dark Horizon (along with Edouard F. Henriques, Craig Reardon, Zoltan Elek, Janna Phillips, and Richard Snell), Body and Soul (along with Richard Snell, Craig Reardon, Steve LaPorte, Janna Phillips, David Abbott, Ken Myers, and Jill Rockow), and The Enemy Within (along with Richard Snell, Craig Reardon, Janna Phillips, David Abbott, Edouard F. Henriques, Karen Westerfield, and Ken Myers).
Beside his work on Alien Nation, Stratton worked on the cyborg teachers in the science fiction film Class of 1999 (1990, on which he worked with Barney Burman, Rob Burman, Rolf John Keppler, and Dave Quashnick), Tim Burton's fantasy film Edward Scissorhands (1990, with Ve Neill, Kim Santantonio, Yolanda Toussieng, Brad Wilder, and Steve LaPorte), the fantasy film The Addams Family (1991), the horror film Sleepwalkers (1992), Francis Ford Coppola's horror film Dracula (1992, along with Greg Cannom, Gilbert A. Mosko, Josée Normand, and Joel Harlow), the science fiction comedy Coneheads (1993), as make-up artist for Martin Landau on Tim Burton's drama Ed Wood (1994), the television series ER (1994-1995), the fantasy film Batman Forever (1995) and its sequel Batman & Robin (1997), Michael Bay's science fiction film Armageddon (1998, along with Yolanda Toussieng, Edouard F. Henriques, and Lee Ann Brittenham), and the science fiction comedies Wild Wild West (1998) and Galaxy Quest (1999).
Further Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup include his work on the Murphy Brown episode One (1993), on the television movie In Search of Dr. Seuss (1995), on the horror film Trilogy of Terror II (1997), and on the Angel episode The Ring (2000), which he shared with Robert Maverick, Earl Ellis, Toby Lamm, Jill Rockow, Steve LaPorte, David DeLeon, and Dayne Johnson. In 1999, Stratton was part of the makeup team which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup for a Series for the two-part The X-Files episode "Two Fathers/One Son". Fellow Trek artists Mark Shostrom, Jake Garber, Craig Reardon, Steve LaPorte, Perri Sorel, and Kevin Haney shared this award.
Further credits as special effects makeup artist include Ron Howard's fantasy comedy How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), the science fiction film The Time Machine (2002), the war drama Windtalkers (2002), the science fiction sequel The Matrix Reloaded (2003), Steven Spielberg's science fiction remake War of the Worlds (2005), and the television series Cold Case and Charmed (1996-2006).
Since 2004, Stratton is specialized in creating his own "Strat-Tatts", temporary tattoos for makeup effects, which were used on productions such as the war drama Jarheads (2005), the thriller Smokin' Aces (2006), the fantasy film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and its sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), the television series NCIS (2006), Day Break (2007), CSI: New York (2007), Women's Murder Club (2007), and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008), the thriller Street Kings (2008), the action film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), the thriller Max Payne (2008), the comic adaptation Watchmen (2009), and the upcoming comedies Crazy on the Outside (2010) and My Own Love Song (2009), the horror film Legion (2010), and the action film The Expendables (2010).
Star Trek work
External links
- Creative Make-up Effects – official site
- Rick Stratton at the Internet Movie Database
- Rick Stratton at Wikipedia