Featuring...
Dayne Johnson
The Beauty and Horror of the Hellmouth
 

It’s Hollywood, it’s ‘Lights, Camera, Action!’ It’s all about the pretty people, the glamour and that natural California tan. But in the shadows dwell another type of glamour – one surrounded by demons and ghouls and beasties! To each dimension has it’s own creator and behind each creature a talented person with a brush, some color and just a touch of prosthetic appliance. Once you strip away the fangs, the horns or that glowing radiant look of perfection you have just a guy or girl you stand next to in the super market, someone you wouldn’t even look trice at. But give them a few hours with the talents of Angel Makeup Artist Dayne Johnson, and they’ll look like the genuine classic movie star or the most frightening nightmare you’ve ever imagined! He has worked in television on such hits as Darma & Greg and Sea Quest to the major motion pictures End of Days and Batman & Robin. He is responsible for both the glamour and the horror of most of the actors on Angel. We’ll take a closer look at some and follow the actual process of turning man to beast. But first we look to see how a sweet, shy kid from Fort Worth, Texas found his way to Hollywood and the Horrors of the Hellmouth.

Dayne Johnson, Makeup-Guy
“I got interested in makeup when I was in high school doing drama productions,” Dayne begins, recalling where is all began. “I was like, ‘My parents won’t come pick me up everyday after school so I can’t be in the play.’ I had to do something because I was so insistent in being involved that I just decided, ‘Well, tell the teacher that I’ll be there for the week of production and do the makeup kind of thing.’ It just evolved from there. I wasn’t into the monster stuff, living out in the country in Texas I just wasn’t really around it enough to know any better. I just started doing the beauty stuff, character and stage and maybe a little old age stuff like that.” At College Dayne studied dance, private voice and theatre and design shows for theatre productions there in Fort Worth. “And there again, I was in production but I was still doing more makeup and learning more about it at that point.”

Dayne got a very busy start in makeup. Determined to get all the education he could to round out his talents and what limited access he could get while living in Texas. He went on into makeup at department stores when he got out of school being a line-rep, which was a big thing. “I’m still not into the monster stuff at this point, I’m still selling and doing beauty mostly and just working line to line.” From there, he went on to school and got his Manicure License in 1981. “That wasn’t lucrative enough for me so I went back on into Esthetician School and did skincare and makeup. Then I decided,” he explains humorously, “I’m tired of selling makeup, crèmes and eye shadow that doesn’t do anything for anybody. I just want to do makeup but I don’t want to sell makeup.” In 1984 he came out to California and went to the Joe Blasco School. “I was here for two years and I got the, ‘Well we’d like you to do a movie, can you do makeup and hair?’ Well, I don’t do hair. So then back to Texas I went in late ’86 and I went through Cosmetology School and got the hair training.” In January of 1988 he came back to Los Angeles and has been working ever since. “I haven’t waited tables anymore since then so I guess I’ve been doing okay,” he admits with a laugh.

With the demand of such a diverse career the wiser artists in the industry have their hands and knowledge in a little bit of everything to help them along. Dayne agrees that most of the people in film and television have some experience in it but he considers himself pretty advanced in both sides because he came from the beauty aspect of the business and now he is very heavy in the effects side. “Personally, I think I do both very well.” With his training of beauty makeup behind him, Dayne travels into the macabre world of Joss Whedon. “Well, actually I was very lucky as far as that goes. The first time I met Todd [MacIntosh, head of Makeup for Buffy the Vampire Slayer] we were doing a movie called Mr. Saturday Night. Another makeup artist friend of mine introduced me to him and we were just working on the show together. I didn’t see Todd much after that and one day he was looking through makeup artists in the second season of Buffy. I came in, did a vampire and he loved it and started hiring me on a daily basis. At that time, because I was doing Darma & Greg, I couldn’t commit to him but I was there a lot. I think I worked on every episode during Season Two of Buffy. And then, Season Three he gave me a lot also.

Batman & Robin, The Movie

“When I come on somebody else’s show I just do my job and don’t get into any other part of it so I didn’t talk to Joss, I didn’t know him very well. Todd kept talking about the show they were going to do called Angel and that might be great for me. But, it’s Hollywood and you just take those things with a grain of salt,” he admits laughing, “you never know. It’s like, ‘Oh really? Okay, thanks,’ he says sarcastically followed by a laugh. Dayne then left Buffy and Darma & Greg and went on to do the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called End of Days. And how can work with Arnold be nothing but fun! “Yeah, I’d done two or three things with him. I’d done Batman & Robin and Eraser. While I was working on End of Days I was talking to the producers on Angel and Todd highly recommended me and they went with me right away. So basically to answer your question in the short version, Todd got me the job,” he states with a big laugh. “And so I’m very thankful to him and I thank him every opportunity I get in front of a crowd because it’s not often you get handed a job like that, especially one that’s as good as this one.”

Having worked on both major motion pictures as well as successful television series, Dayne contends the thought that there are differences to the approach of makeup used for each medium. You’ll find that the crew of Angel doesn’t think of themselves as small screen when it comes to production value. “Some people would disagree with me but I feel like even though it’s a television show, I still do film quality work. Our TV show films extremely close and it’s not like background all the time,” he explains. “I mean, I have The Host that they film in extreme close-up. So you still have to do good work and get your prosthetic edges down and your colors blended and all that. It just depends on what they’re doing. How they’re lighting, if it’s beauty makeup, if it’s appliances and if it’s dark or if it’s light. Some film is a little more red-sensitive, I think actually Fuji film is more red-sensitive than your Kodak. I try not to get to involved in that, I just kind of go with what I feel is good color for the actor and if there is a problem then that’s something I can change last minute if I have to. What we film with on Angel is pretty standard so I just color up the skin tone, color to match and then just let it go. Same thing I would do on film. You might use a little less foundation here or there but it just depending on the actor’s needs.”

 

 


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