Rick Baker is a world-renowned titan of the film industry whose curriculum vitae glitters with Oscar® gold. As a taciturn “monster kid” who whiled away youthful hours gleefully poring over love-worn copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland, reverently drawing images of his favorite horror stars, and customizing Aurora model kits, Baker found that his idiosyncratic affinities made him something of a misfit. Upon initial experimentation on himself, the transformative qualities of makeup emboldened Baker to dabble in the performative and the outrageous. Though seemingly contradictory, donning these eerie exoskeletons of his own design are precisely what enabled Baker to come out of his metaphorical shell. Utilizing Baker’s self-portraits in the medium of monsters as our guide, Miskatonic Los Angeles co-directors Amy Voorhees Searles and Graham Skipper will track his personal and professional metamorphoses: from a boy to a man, and from a novice to a master.

About the Instructors

Amy Voorhees Searles is an award-winning Senior Producer in the Content division of Trailer Park, Inc. A proud, second-generation horror fan, Amy’s lifelong passion for horror and exploitation cinema saw her working for genre luminaries Joe Bob Briggs and Roger Corman at the start of her professional career. Though she found herself drawn into the field of mainstream home entertainment, she never turned her back on her first love, and she remains an active member of the Los Angeles horror community. Her essay on the depiction of female monsters in Mexican horror cinema of the 1950s and 1960s will be featured in the upcoming book Creepy Bitches, a collection of compositions by female horror creators and fans.

Graham Skipper is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles as Herbert West in Re-Animator: The Musical, Seth Hampton in Almost Human, Zack Connors in The Mind's Eye, Gordon Hardesty in Beyond the Gates and for writing and directing the horror film Sequence Break.

About Rick Baker

A record-holding winner of seven Academy Awards® for Best Makeup out of eleven nominations, Rick Baker won the first competitive Oscar® awarded in that category for his innovative work on An American Werewolf in London, one of several collaborations with director John Landis. His apprenticeship under one of the industry’s greatest makeup artists, Dick Smith (including working as his assistant on The Exorcist), prepared him for a career providing cutting-edge makeup effects in many genres ranging from comedy to science fiction to horror.

Rick Baker has been an influential force in the creation of creatures and prosthetic makeup for over 40 years. Garnering a reputation for excellence and resourcefulness, Rick’s assignments became a diverse and iconic collection of creatures, including Harry and the Hendersons, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Gorillas in the Mist, Coming to America, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Ed Wood, Men in Black, The Nutty Professor, Mighty Joe Young, and How The Grinch Stole Christmas to name but a few.

In 2012 Baker received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2014 Rick retired from the film industry. He is enjoying his retirement by doing something creative every day.

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Please note these are live events - they cannot be watched later, so please be sure you are available at the time and time zone the classes are being offered in before registering. All sales are final, and we will not give refunds to people who miss classes because of the time zones, and changes in time from standard to daylight savings. Classes curated by Miskatonic Los Angeles are in Pacific Time. If you are ever unsure, a quick way to check is the Miskatonic website.

About the Miskatonic Institute

Founded by Film writer/programmer Kier-La Janisse in 2010, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies offers classes in horror history, theory and production, with branches in London, New York and Los Angeles, as well as hosting special events worldwide.