Night Vision: The Makeup Masters of Grimm

Story By Kathleen O'Steen • Photos: Scott Green   As published in Emmy® magazine (June 2012)

Consider the creatures of Grimm-dom: the rat-like Reinigens, lizard-ish Skalengecks, bird-like Wesens, bat-like Murcielagos — red-eyed characters who can shatter glass with a scream — and the Blutbads, snarling wolfish characters who, according to Grimm mythology, prefer to fatten their victims before they eat them.

“Given the wide range, there’s really nothing like this show anywhere on television,” says JoJo Myers Proud, the series’ makeup department supervisor. Indeed, the series — which has been picked up for a second season — is an unusual mix of procedural and fantasy. David Giuntoli stars as Nick Burkhardt, a homicide detective with a secret — he is a Grimm, the last of a line of elite criminal profilers who can see mythological creatures and are tasked to do battle with the more dangerous ones.

Nick’s buddy, Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), is a reformed Blutbad who controls his wolfish tendencies “through diet, drugs and Pilates.” Much to his chagrin, he has become the detective’s personal Grimmopedia.

While some of the actors’ creature work is done in front of a studio green screen — to be completed, naturally, in post — each episode includes location work, often shot at night in the forests around Portland, Oregon (where the show is based) — and often in the rain and mud.

---