Toronto-based Gordon Smith, founder of FXSmith, has long been a player in high-end special effects creation for feature films and is now involved in the creation of new prosthetic technology with the potential to not only save faces, but production time and money as well.

Smith has been instrumental in pioneering silicon gel-filled prosthetics, which provide added realism to makeup effects, and very recently developed the first silicon gel-filled prosthetic that is self-sticking and, he says, ‘on the verge of being reusable.’

Film and TV production has typically employed foam technologies to create special makeup effects, fine-grade cellular foam which is opaque and needs to be glued on the face and made up afterward to look like human skin.

‘These silicon prosthetics we now have look more like human tissue and have most of the coloration built into them before they come out of the mold,’ says Smith. ‘So they photograph and act more like living tissue.’

Smith has been working toward a skin-friendly solution like this for a number of years; he began in the industry as an actor, moving ‘by fluke’ into the field of prosthetics.

Working on the 1982 feature, Threshold, Smith began working with surgeons at Toronto General Hospital to help develop material to recreate several scenes of open-heart surgery and went on to form his company, Gordon J. Smith Effects Lab (later changed to FXSmith), that year.

Since then, Smith has been developing new materials for prosthetics, and attracting high-profile work from the U.S along the way.

‘I’ve always been essentially looking for easier ways to do things to generate better illusions,’ he says.

Smith pioneered urethanes and then went on to develop silicon materials, with the challenge from effects guru Dick Smith to perfect a translucent silicon gel-filled prosthetic.

The shop has worked with director Oliver Stone on makeup effects for the features Salvador, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK and Natural Born Killers.

Smith’s silicon gel-filled prosthetics made their debut on the feature Legends of the Fall and were later used more extensively on HBO movie Truman with Gary Sinister and on Oliver Stone’s Nixon.

The development of the self-sticking prosthetic opens up new possibilities for actors and production companies, says Smith. Aside from avoiding the hazards of covering actors’ heads in glue, the system provides other immediate and potential benefits.

‘We’re on the edge of an actor developing a character or old-age makeup almost above and beyond a production company,’ says Smith. ‘They can have it custom-made and have it as part of their repertoire; in other words, we’re almost at the point where an actor could have his old age in a box with him when he goes to set and almost be able to put the thing on himself. I think it will take about a year before we get to that part of it.’

This month, Smith successfully tested the self-sticking prosthetic on actress Lynn Whitfield. ‘We put in on and took it off in less than an hour,’ says Smith. ‘These procedures are normally four to five hours. And it’s reusable; that is extremely beneficial to producers.’

Smith runs his shop together with his wife and employs from three to 30 people specific to projects. He says the talent base he draws from consists almost entirely of fine artists, including head sculptor Evan Penny, an internationally known artist.

‘That’s been one of the critical elements of our success – utilizing fine artists,’ says Smith. ‘They are very disciplined and concerned about the work. Then they get to work with new materials and in new ways and they can feed back what they learn here into their own work.’

Smith says CG has had a radical impact on his effects work, most of it positive.

‘While there used to be huge budgets for animatronics and puppets where everything had to be built,’ says Smith, ‘now the computer can do some of the things that were difficult for me to do before. But there are still a gamut of things the computer can’t do.

‘For me the computer means the addition of an incredible tool that makes my work better. I design with the computer in mind now at all times.’

Smith says the combination is more important now than ever with the increased quality of film. ‘It has become so crisp and clean you can’t hide anything. You almost have to have a perfect illusion now or you almost may as well not start.’