Rob Bottin

Robin R. Bottin^[1] (born April 1, 1959) is an American visual effects and makeup effects artist.

Biography

Early life

He was born in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, California. His father was a foreman for a van and storage company.^[2]

Visual effects career

From an early age he enjoyed a steady stream of old horror films, as well as magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland.

At age 14, he submitted a series of illustrations to makeup artist Rick Baker, who promptly hired him. He worked with Baker on various films but his first big solo break was The Howling, where he was called to create an on screen transformation from man to werewolf. This managed to reach the theatres before his mentor's similar scene in An American Werewolf in London.

Bottin also worked on the Star Wars Cantina scene creatures.^[3] He was, in fact, the tallest player in the Cantina band.

After begging cinematographer Dean Cundey to introduce him to director John Carpenter, Bottin was hired by Carpenter to create the special makeup effects for his 1980 film The Fog.^[4] In one scene in The Thing when a character's head stretches off Rob Bottin decided to melt plastic. Little did he know that the melted plastic released explosive paint thinner so when the director decided to put flame under the camera lens the entire prosthetic exploded.^[4]

"'Oh my god... it's on fire. It's on fire!' and then John [Carpenter] says, 'Don't just stand there! Put it out, you idiot!'" ^[4]

Additionally, Bottin provided the physical makeup effects and had a small part in the film as Captain Blake.

From there, Bottin's reputation grew when he again worked with Carpenter on The Thing. Bottin worked on The Thing seven days a week (including late nights) for a year and five weeks straight, producing every creature effect (with the exception of the transformed dog, which was done by Stan Winston). Although his work was at first criticized for being too gruesome or distracting from the film's psychological themes, it has since been credited for actually enhancing the feel of the film. He later worked on the prosthetics and makeup effects in Ridley Scott's Legend, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup.

Filmography

• King Kong (1976)
• Piranha (1978)
• Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)
• The Fog (1980)
• Tanya's Island (1980)
• The Howling (1981)
• The Thing (1982)
• Twilight Zone: The Movie (segment 3) (1983)
• Explorers (1985)
• Legend (1985)
• The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
• Innerspace (1987)
• RoboCop (1987)
• Total Recall (1990)
• RoboCop 2 (1990)
• Bugsy (1991)
• Basic Instinct (1992)
• RoboCop 3 (1993)
• Se7en (1995)
• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Mimic (1997)
• Deep Rising (1998)
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Mr. Deeds (2002)
• Serving Sara (2002)

References

External links

• Rob Bottin at the Internet Movie Database