Class gives frightening look to its students
-
Anastasia Howarth, 18, of Monaca, listens to her instructor in anatomy class Thursday after taking a special makeup class at Tom Savini's Special Make-up Effects Program, part of the Douglas Education Center in Monessen. -
Wearing a red devil mask, instructor Shawn Ronzio of Tom Savini's Special Make-up Effects Program shares a laugh with Alana Schiro, 19, of New York at a sculpture class. The Savini program is part of the Douglas Education Center in Monessen. -
Lake Fong/Post-Gazette Christine Wandishin, 46, of Monessen applies makeup to Nikki Meeth, 28, of Pittsburgh during class.
Share with others:
Celebrating Halloween is more than putting up some blinky orange lights and carving a pumpkin or two.
Horrors -- that's just not how it's done at Tom Savini's Special Make-Up Effects Program. After all, this is a place where nightmares are born.
"We had a kid who got stopped by the police for speeding on the highway last year, and he was wearing this 'bloody' shirt, with this big 'bloody' knife in the back of the car," said John Matechen, director of career services at the Douglas Education Center in Monessen, which includes the Savini program.
"He didn't have his student ID on him, so he had a lot of explaining to do."
The blood, of course, was fake. But over this Halloween season -- and pretty much any other day -- it's not all that unusual to see young people walking around Monessen with blood staining their everyday clothes, since learning how to mix up a batch of the stuff is required reading.
Tom Savini's Special Make-Up Effects Program offers the only two-year associate's degree in this specialized business. It's specialized, all right: The most recent term found 144 students learning everything from how to create fake scars and burns to casting a pair of fangs.
The students' average age is 24, and they come from a surprisingly large area -- including France, Columbia, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Many hope to work in the television and film industry; others will try to apply their skills to fields such as making prosthetics or working with exhibit and display design.
The 10-year-old Savini program is part of a major rebranding by the Douglas center, which began as a business and secretarial school 106 years ago. The program's home, one of eight buildings in various stages of wildly inventive renovation, features a foyer of large glass display cases holding a variety of shocking artifacts, from fake severed limbs to life-size masks of monsters and aliens.
In the basement are freakish creations -- masks of monsters and aliens, painted glass eyes and a pair of hairy "werewolf" gloves were scattered around the workroom counters on one recent afternoon.
First Published October 31, 2010 12:00 am
