Senior biological sciences major, Alia Eckhardt began her film experience when she met local director Henrique Couto.
“I do special effects and glamor make-up,” Eckhardt said. “I also do other movie stuff. I do acting too, and voice overs, I do lots of line producing on pretty much everything Henrique has worked on since a few years ago.”
Her connection to movies provided her an opportunity to pursue a variety of interests, including special effects make-up, which she taught herself by taking advantage of the internet.
“With make-up, it started with Zombie Walks,” Eckhardt said. “I would do-up all of my friends and watch lots of YouTube videos so I knew what I was doing. I only used whatever I had around, like Elmer’s glue and toilet paper, basically I put papier- mâché on people’s faces. I got really good at doing zombie make-up for almost free with the kit that I had, that was really just fake blood, a roll of toilet paper, a brown make-up palette, and that was almost it. I would throw yellow on people if I wanted to make them really infected.”
Eckhardt moved her special effects make-up talent into the film industry when she had to fill in on set for another make-up artist.
“Henrique knew that I was already working on all that stuff and I knew how to do it,” Eckhardt said. “He has one super reliable make-up artist, and he just hired another one, but there were times when the super awesome one wasn’t available, and he needed one on set, so I said that I would do it. Since then, I’ve been his go-to for special effects.”
Since then, in the past two years, Eckhardt has worked in special effects for four feature length movies and two shorts. Most recently, she worked on “Scary Clown,” directed by Couto. To see her work, you can find “Scary Clown” on Youtube, Amazon and more.
The most difficult part of working on set with special effects is time management.
“If you do not restrain a special effects artist, they will take the entire time on set,” Eckhardt said. “I may have finished four make-up jobs on time, out of every scene I have worked on. I have to set timers for myself. It’s important to learn how to work fast.”
For anyone interested in learning special effects make-up for their Halloween costume, Eckhardt suggests finding how-to videos on the internet and a few more tips.
“If anyone wants to be a zombie, I would definitely recommend watching Youtube videos, because that’s how I learned,” Eckhardt said. “I’m completely self-taught. If anyone wants scars, the best thing for that is rigid collodion. If anyone wants to look absolutely mutilated, cottonballs, latex, or elmer’s glue, if anyone is allergic to latex, and just stick them on there, pull them off, pour some fake blood on it and you are good to go.”
