 I got tired of having bad makeup, because I wasn't that good an actor, and I needed something. I don't know, I've never made a severed head, but I'll try. Tell me about the first time you blew up a head. It didn't go well, because I don't know anything about shotguns. Everybody welcome to the show. This is a show about tenacity, about getting back up when you get knocked down. This is what we do in order to become successful. Anybody that has succeeded in anything has screwed up in a lot of things, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. My guest is Christina Cortum. She runs Ravenous Studios. She is a makeup and effects artist. She's done masks and special effects for some shows that you have definitely seen. I'm super, super excited to talk to her about it. Hi everybody, welcome to the show. On tonight's show, we have Christina Cortum of Ravenous Studios, it's makeup, masks, special effects, all sorts of cool things. Welcome to the show. Thank you, thanks for having me. Yeah, 100%, I'm really, I'm excited to, I don't want to, I was gonna say nerd out on this stuff, but that's kind of, maybe that's a stereotype. No, it's fun. What are you talking about? Monsters are the best. Perfect, tell me a little bit about the studio, like what you're doing now. Well, I make prosthetics for film, basically, for TV and film, and I also make props that's a side business that's kind of popped up and taken over in some way. So you make masks that people wear. Basically, masks, yes. Somebody needs to, let's say they're taking a character and they want them to be 80, they'll be 40, that sort of thing, I make the pieces to do that. To make that happen. Like would you put, if I wanted a mask to look like I was 80, or just to make me a good looking, just give me one of those. Like I want a Brad Pitt mask, would you like put it on, you capture my face and then? Yeah, so the first thing we always start with is usually a life cast, because we want it to fit perfectly, because that's how it's gonna fool the camera. So we do a life cast and we use silicone now, not just, used to be, we used alginate, which was like a natural product. It's made out of seaweed, believe it or not. Silicone's way better. Now we've advanced and we use two part medical silicone, which is really, really great. Basically you mix the two components together and it's a little bit like frosting and then it firms up after, you know, like anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes and you have an exact copy of your face. And the awesome part about that is then I can make multiple copies of your face to do the different parts of the prosthetic that we need to do. So just the nose maybe, or just the ears or just the cheeks, you know, I can kind of break it down into all the pieces that I need. Have you ever made masks for yourself? Oh, all the time. That's how I started. Yeah. That's how I started, was doing my own makeup. Yeah. Like doing your own mask as well? Well, I started in haunted houses actually. Okay. And I started as an actor and I got tired of having bad makeup because I wasn't that good an actor and I needed something. I realized that I wasn't cutting it as an actor and I needed like something really, really scary to help you. Then I don't need to say anything. You can just be that actor. You just stand there and look. Yeah, exactly. That's what I, you know, it's true. I fell back on that because I wasn't that great an actor. But I started making my own makeups and coming in makeup to the haunted house. And after a while they're like, wow, you're getting pretty good. You wanna join the makeup team. So that's my absolutely strange. You would show up in makeup to the haunted house. It's a funny story. Because of my schedule, because I worked in, I was actually at the time a network engineer. And I didn't have time. I'd get off work, slap on the makeup, rush hour traffic in the Bay Area to the haunted house. There was just no time for me to not come in makeup. And then I'd leave and nobody actually knew what I looked like. So they just started calling me evil clown girl because they just had no idea what I actually looked like. They just knew I showed up as an evil clown every day. It actually really helped me later because a lot of makeup artists they go to makeup school or whatever, but they haven't really worn the makeup. You know, it's one thing to wear makeup for 10 minutes and another thing to wear it for an eight hour shift. And it really helped me when I was on shows like Grimm and stuff like that, that I knew what the stunt guys were going through. I knew kind of what it felt like to wear prosthetic that long and what it felt like to take it off and just like sensitive areas of the face and things that are tough. So I was so grateful later that I did all that work earlier to kind of have empathy. Well, so tell me about ravenous then. Like what does the day look like for you with your own business? It's a little nuts. I'll wake up and the first thing I do is answered a ton of emails because any business owner knows the hell of paperwork, right? All the emails, all the requests for things six, eight months out. So just trying to juggle all that, that's I think one of the toughest things I found about owning a business is while you're working on the current job, you're working also on the next five jobs. To find the next five jobs. And then I go out to the shop and I usually have anywhere from a 12 to 18 hour day. Just depending on what's due, when it's due. You've got an actual shop that you go into where you make everything. That's correct. Right next to my house, which is awesome. And that if I make a disaster or spill something all over myself I can just run in and take care of it. Yeah, but it also was cause I have a family. And I had shops in warehouse districts and all that stuff. And it was very tough on the family in that I was just gone for 18 hours a day. Now they can at least pop in and oh, she's still alive, sort of thing. All right, well, are you, we're gonna talk a little bit more about your present. Are you ready for a drink? I suppose so. Okay, okay, okay. So I do, like every time I get a little shaky, nervous, Jack makes amazing drinks. They always taste great. And they're always magical and different. So, Jack, are you ready to put your concoction together? The question is, are you ready? No. Tonight I've got for you a new moon rising. First thing we're gonna do is we're gonna add 1.5 ounces of the hapkavaka. Good healthy pour. Little bit of acid phosphate. Just three dashes, roughly a quarter ounce. Then we have our imbue vermouth that's been turned into an aperitivo. Half ounce of that. And now time for a little bit of champagne. We're going to drink the champagne today. Are you ready for that, Sean? Ah, ah, ah, the bubbles. Bubbles just for you, buddy. And we're gonna use three ounces of champagne to start and three ounces of our guava soda. And now time to ice her down. All right, now that we are ice cold and silky smooth, I'll be adding a little bit of rose water. And there you have a new moon rising. Don't you think? That's impressive. It's like a lifesaver. It is, it's so pretty. It is pretty. I'm gonna pick mine up from the middle. Okay, all right, we gotta, we gotta hold. It's heavy. It is heavy. All right, we have to. Very cold. Yeah, there we go. Proust, I don't know what the, okay. All right, thank you, Jack. Thank you. Thank you. That's guava. It's really good. This is really good. All right, it's good. All right, are you good? I think so. All right, I'm probably gonna, how about if you lift it up again later, then I'll lift mine up again later. Then we can, I'm so careful, like, okay, it's huge. All right, now, tell me. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. You had some popcorn vodka? Tell me about your childhood. I get the feeling that you liked this type of stuff when you were really young as well, like certain types, like movies or heavy metal or like, yo, at the double, Star Wars. Star Wars, yeah. And my dad, see, I wasn't allowed to see any of this stuff, but my dad would like, come over. I saw half of Alien through a reflection in the window because I had to duck behind the couch every time my mom came in. Alien's serious. How old were you when you saw Alien? I was like 12. I was like 12. That is some serious, yeah. And I was like, wow. But you know, I was a kid in the Bay Area. I didn't think there was any chance of me getting involved in movies or any of that. The joke in the family was I was their worst night, an artistic kid was their worst nightmare. They were like, no, no, please, please. Can we swap? Can we swap this kid with somebody else? That's not. And then you grow up to like, create everybody's worst nightmare. Yeah. Like being able to put together prosthetics and mask. Well, it's interesting. My dad's a mechanical engineer. Yeah. And, you know, he didn't get what I was doing. You know, I broke them in gently. I actually started in engineering. How do you know? And then I switched to English and then I switched to creative arts. It was just a slow, slow breaking of their hearts, but. No, that's actually, I think that that's every parent. Yeah. Oh boy. We're done. Oh boy. Yeah. She's gonna be living at home forever. Clean out the basement. Here she comes. Yeah. But it's funny. My dad actually early in my career, very early when I was screwing everything up right and left, came to visit and he was helping me with stuff and he was like, you're doing what I, it's just a different field. But he's realizing that part of the reason I love special effects so much is it's, I was never happy if something was all artistic or all technical. I wanted both. And it's the first field that I found that I really got to have both. I got to have both because there's definitely, you got to know your chemicals and you got to know about mold making and you got to know about, you know, if you're doing animatronics, you got to know a lot of mechanics. Like the algae on your face. The algae on your face. You have to know how that works. Yeah. Yeah. You have to know how all this works. And then there's also the creative side of it. You know, I get to sculpt monsters, which is really super fun. Yeah. That's awesome. When I started out, I had a full-time job and then I was basically working on film for free. What was your full-time job? Plus materials. I did database design. Oh, okay. It was a database designer. Your DBA designer. Yeah, database designer. So I did that during the day and then I did film, independent film on nights and weekends. And it was always the conversation of like, I don't know, I've never made a severed head, but I'll try. If you want to take a risk, buy me some materials and I'll try it out. And that was a lot of, you know, it's crazy, Portland was my school. Yeah. You know, and it was all these independent filmmakers were my teachers in a way because they believed in me and they gave me materials and they let me try stuff out. What was your first severed head? Do you remember? Oh, yes. Yes, it was for David Walker. I love that we're having this conversation right now. Tell me about your first severed head. Well, it was really my first fake head. Okay. That's really what it was. My first fake head. What's the difference between a fake head? Oh, cause the severed head would be like weird and bloody. We were gonna blow up his head on camera. That's worse than the severed head. Tell me about the first time you blew up a head. It didn't go well. I know. It didn't go well at all. Cause I don't know anything about shotguns. This keeps getting better. Like I'm just picturing just like a cantaloupe. And then you're like, no, no, it's gonna be a shotgun. Well, actually I called the person that did the head explosion on scanners and I asked them how they did it. And he said, two shotguns rigged up. That's how they blew up the head. Yes. Two shotguns rigged up. Yeah, sawed off shotguns. Sawed off shotguns, like comes in different angles. Sawed off is very important part of the whole process. They're illegal by the way, sawed off shotguns are illegal. Don't forget about that. Did you find two sawed off shotguns? No, I found one. And it wasn't sawed off. And I just put a hole in the head. That's it. You do have like, you have this engineering attitude to it because as you're talking about it, the whole time I'm like, you're talking about blowing up a head. Is this a thing in Portland where they like to make movies where they have to blow up heads? Is it like this underground scene I don't know about? There's a ton of creatives. There's a ton of creatives doing stuff way outside the box. And it was a great place for me. I landed there and fell in with some indie filmmakers and just, it was a great hobby. It was really fun. Well, you worked on a show that I've actually seen an awful lot. Grimm was the show? Yes, yes, I worked in the special effects makeup trailer with the special effects makeup team. Bernie Berman, from the Berman family, it's a famous makeup family. He was the department head and he was very nice. That's like a dream come true for you, right? It was. When I got that call it was weird because here I am a database programmer and I get asked to join the team and I'm like, you know. No, where has he seen your work? Like, where did he know about you? Well, actually the guy from Scanners said, hey, you should call this, this, this talented, upcoming artist. That's right. She knows about sawed off shock guys. Give her a phone call. Yeah, no, it was a recommendation. So this was like your corporate job would be doing so, which is crazy because you wouldn't want to call that a corporate job but that's you working for a company. Yes, I was working for Universal Studios. Yeah, before you, working for Universal Studios, that's awesome. Yeah, NBC Universal, yeah. It was great. It was a dream job and the best job I've ever had. You know, I had a lot of pinch me moments because, you know, here, you know, he's grown up in this famous makeup family. So of course he has a lot of famous makeup friends, you know, and I turn around, it's like one of my idols and you know, every week it was that way. It was like, okay, don't freak out. Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Only say smart things, only say smart things. But I mean, wow, what an opportunity to meet the people that had seen their work and admired their work so much and just, you know, meet them in the flesh and get to work side by side with them and assist them. It was nuts. You moved on to doing your own thing. Like what pushed you into that? Why not just stay doing stuff for Universal? Well, you know, it was a rare opportunity to show that large having all that creature work coming here. And I realized that that wasn't, you know, that was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. Like I had chances of another show with that heavy effects team needed was probably not gonna happen. And so I just realized I had to start working on expanding my business and basically preparing for the future. So a lot of time, Graham, we'd have a hiatus of about three months. And I tried to always make sure I did a feature every time. I just really worked hard. So I never got any time off really. I just went straight from, you know, we'd wrap on Graham and like the next day I'd be on a plane or, you know, I'd be in the shop building stuff. So I just knew that I had to get my skill set up and I had to get my shop built up to the point that when Graham left that there would be something. Now, did you already have, so when you started doing that, did you have ravenous to exist or were you just doing like business as you? Oh, no, I started ravenous in 2009. Oh, okay. Yeah, I started ravenous in 2009. I had started doing film in 2006. That's when I started doing like the little side gigs and getting into it. And then I realized 2009, I was like, I need to make this like a real business because I started making prosthetics and nobody else in town was making prosthetics. Everybody was purchasing them either online or from friends. And I was like, no, I'm making stuff. I need to actually have a business to do this. And I don't know how to start a business, you know? Nobody in my family. That's what's so interesting to me. Like, not only are you starting a business, but it's not like a coffee shop where you're like, oh, I know, I like that. You know, that was, that's something a lot of people don't appreciate. It wasn't like I could call someone up and say, how do I start a business like this? Like, there's no books, how to start a special effects business. Guarantee it, I've looked. There's no such thing. Or everyone's like, don't do it, don't do it. I love that you looked. You're like, how to start a business making monster masks for fun. The problem was every gig was heart pounding terror. Because I had no mentor. I went down to LA for the International Makeup Artist Trade Show. And I just basically parked myself in front of the demo booth. There's an International Makeup Artist Trade Show? Yes. With like, prosthetic stuff that's there and everything else. Was it like Comic-Con? Like when you're wandering around? Yeah, you guys booths and people wandering around doing demos of crazy makeups. And that's what I did. I just parked myself in front of a demo booth and just took a lot of notes and paid a lot of attention. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna figure out how to do this. And that's how I did it. Did you ever get caught with, not like arrested or something, but where you had a prosthetic, you had something with you that was just in a weird situation where you've got like a head in a bag or something? And like, yeah. Getting stopped by Lithuanian security. Lithuanian security? In the airport? Getting stopped in the airport because I'm covered in blood and my bag is covered in blood and it looks like I'm fleeing a murder scene. Okay, yeah, please. And no one speaks English, by the way. Wait, wait, so you're- No one speaks English. You're in Lithuania. I'm in Lithuania. What were you in Lithuania for? I was on a horror film out there. And we put, and all the effects got pushed onto the last day. And it was insane. It was like, on top of it, there was a strike in the middle of the last day by the crew because they hadn't gotten paid. So we were shut down for like a good, like, I don't know, four hours? Yeah, well you want to avoid those Lithuanian strikes. Those are bad news. Well, when that four hours missing means all my effects were compressed. Now, you know, I had 12 hours to do it. Now I got eight, you know, sort of things. Now you just got spray bottles of blood that are coming out. Pretty much. Yeah, and it was like, I had the, you know, I was putting the director of the work, the producer. I was like, hey, this is all your fault. Come over here, hold this syringe, you know. I was a little nuts. I was a little nuts by the end. I was like, and then I was gonna miss my flight. I scraped my stuff into, like off the table, just literally scrape it into my trunk, close it up, get in a taxi. The actors actually helped me pack up my room because I'm not gonna make my flight the way we're going. And we rushed to the airport. Now one person on the entire crew told me I had blood sprayed all over my face. Not one person. And I get there, and I get in line, like I'm barely gonna make the flight. I get in line, and of course, you know, I look like I'm playing a murder scene. It was bad, and no one speaks English. So I got hauled out of the line. My name's Dexter, let me on the plane. Got questioned about it, and you know, and nobody understood what I, and I finally said, movie, movie, we're making a movie. And they're like, oh, and then everybody, everyone knew about the movie. Now that you've had Ravnastu, you've had it for, how long is it, 2009? 10 years now. It's been up in 10 years. Yeah, like what are you thinking moving forward? Like what have you learned so far, I guess, in running a business, because nobody knows how to run a business like this, like people are gonna come to you, and say, hey, how do I start this kind of a business? Well, I'm so lucky in that I've, in the last five years, I've found some mentors, people that own shops, and other areas. So that was like a huge, huge thing. Who have been kind enough to give me advice, and kind of like some business tips, and stuff. Cause it's hard, I mean, I'll get basically handed $100,000 by a production, and I'm like, whoa, okay, I have to budget exactly, because if you go over, they're not paying extra. No, if you go over, that's you. That's me, I mean, I'm gonna take the, and there's been gigs where I haven't made any money, because somebody poured a mold wrong, or that's the other thing, you start hiring people, then you start introducing other elements into the mix, where people are doing things, maybe somebody forgets to close a bucket lid, and then it dries out, and the next day, you're going to use it, and you're like, oh God. It's really stressful, it's very, very stressful, but it's, I love the challenge, I guess, so. That's amazing, you're looking just to continue to grow, keep doing what you're doing, like, what else? I would like to expand, I would like to expand. What would you do if you weren't doing this? Anything else you can think of? Writing. You'd be writing? I would be writing. I mean, that's still a love of mine. So, I've got, I think where I'm headed now is I'm writing a lot of scripts, and I got a stack, and I was like, yeah, maybe I'll produce these, you know, maybe I'll make my own. Do your own make up for the shows. My own stuff, yeah, so we'll see. That's, I'm looking at my retirement years going, maybe I don't want to sling blood anymore, but I want to hire people to sling blood for me. Well, listen, I, well, wait. We have to eat this other thing that, are you okay eating the other thing that's on there? Wait, there's a. How do you eat it? I don't know, I don't eat the leafy part on the top. You can eat the whole thing. Take a minute, don't listen to him. Just eat the parts that look like you're supposed to eat them. Just take a bite out of it, okay. So, I guess a weird cheers. Thank you for coming on the show. Yes, thank you for having me. I love everything about this. Of course, I was a big, I'm a big theater guy, I love sci-fi, it's huge. I love talking to you about this stuff. Cheers. All right, here we go, I'm gonna, wow, it's, all right. How do we do this? Oh, it's really good. Yeah, it's good, it's crunchy. Everybody, thanks for watching the show and if you like what you see and you wanna watch other people, you know, face plant in the world, which I like and recover, then subscribe and ring the bell. And if you ring the bell, then you're gonna know when we do other things and if you have a screw up you think would be great on the show, go to fups.com. We'd love to have you on the show.