The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will have Oscar royalty in the house on Wednesday evening – well, on its big 8,000-seat square, the Piazza Grande, to be precise. It will bestow its Vision Award, presented by Ticinomoda, upon Rick Baker, a seven-time Oscar winner, a record in the makeup and hairstyling field, and the creator behind some of cinema’s most fantastical creatures.
While at the Swiss festival, Baker is also presenting two key films from his career, namely An American Werewolf in London (1981) and The Nutty Professor (1996). The former marked his first Oscar win in 1981, followed by Harry and the Hendersons (1987), Ed Wood (1994), The Nutty Professor (1996)Men in Black (1997), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) and The Wolfman (2010).
You also know Baker’s work from Michael Jackson‘s famous Thriller video, in which he also played an on-screen role.“From his early make-up work on genre films in the 1970s to his sophisticated creature and character designs for large-scale studio productions, Rick Baker has forged a new visual grammar for cinematic metamorphosis, earning him a record number of Academy Awards for best makeup and cementing his status as a reference point for generations of artists,” said Locarno organizers when they first unveiled his honor.
