Wearing a black “Face Off” T-shirt with “#TeamRJ” across the back, Robert “RJ” Haddy plunged his hands into a bucket Wednesday night, up to his palms in goo that would soon become a head.
“This is fun stuff!” he grinned. A white bandana shot through with swirls and skulls held Haddy’s riot of dark curls off his face as he worked. One blob of the CelluClay compound became a jaw, another brows. Then, a nose and lips. A face took shape, as did the skills of girls and guys watching him in Mississippi University for Women’s brightly-lit scene shop. This was the opening night of a two-day workshop in puppetry and sculpting.
Haddy is a special effects artist who gained a following as a contestant on Seasons Two and Five of “Face Off,” the Syfy Channel’s reality television show. It pits special effects artists in competition through elaborate weekly challenges. The West Virginia native was Season Two’s runner-up and Fan Favorite. He returned for Season Five, “Vets vs. Rookies,” and had a guest spot in Season Eight. Momentum from the show allowed him to step away from his role as a high school media and special effects teacher to pursue his art full-time.
“God finally opened this door, and I was just gonna spring through it when he did,” Haddy said.
Illusion
Coming of age, Haddy was mesmerized by the Audrey II puppet in “Little Shop of Horrors,” obsessed with Jack Nicholson’s makeup as The Joker, and entranced by the “Star Wars” saga’s visual imagery. Films like “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth” fueled a fascination with puppetry. In the work of Tim Burton, he saw how makeup, puppeteering and costuming intertwine to create mystery and magic. Haddy was hooked on a world in which anything was possible through the power of special effects, imaginative cosmetics and visionary puppetry. That played out in his workshop, as students moved from the scene shop to the costume room and later the makeup mirrors.
“I wanted to get across to them that they are all interrelated disciplines,” Haddy said. “I think my favorite thing is to combine them into the creation of something completely unique.”
Puppetry in particular brought him back to Columbus this past week. His first workshop at The W more than a decade ago imparted skills that helped students make animal masks for a production of “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.” Some of those masks are still proudly displayed today in Cromwell Communication Center on campus.
“Workshops like this, taught by talented professionals, are an invaluable resource to our students, giving them practical training that will be useful not just during their time in college, but in their professional careers as well,” said David Carter, chair of the MUW Department of Theatre. “Students who took Robert’s workshop when he first did it here 12 years ago, are still using what they’ve learned to this day. That includes me!”
Carter expects skills picked up in this week’s training will be useful in the department’s upcoming “The Stinky Cheese Man,” produced in coordination with the Columbus Arts Council’s Young People’s Artist Series. That will be presented for area schools Feb. 23-24, with a matinee for the public at 2 p.m. Feb. 25 at Rent Auditorium.
Puppets and purpose
Initial thoughts of puppetry may conjure up marionettes, limbs dancing on ascending wires or strings. That is certainly one form. But in Haddy’s world, think more along the lines of “Shrek the Musical,” E.T., Yoda, Audrey II and “War Horse.” Manipulated by puppeteers, inanimate objects become storytellers through their actions, gestures and spoken words.
“Most puppets should be as light as possible,” Haddy told students as he cut lengths of PVC pipe to form the spine, shoulders, arms and legs of a Bunraku puppet in the scene shop. Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese theater.
“The more weight you add to it, the more strain you put on your puppeteer,” he continued. “I like puppets. Puppetry combines creation and performance.”
Like Carter, William “Peppy” Biddy was in the audience. Biddy is the Department of Theatre’s director of graduate studies.
“The art of puppetry has been used as part of the storytelling tradition for centuries, and every culture has their own style and version,” he said later. Interest in puppetry has been invigorated by contemporary shows such as “The Lion King,” “Avenue Q” and many films, inspiring younger generations.
For Theatre majors like Ashley Vinson of Holly Springs, Haddy’s tutelage exposed her to other art forms.
“What I took away from the workshop is that anything can be done with practice, work and determination to get better at a craft,” Vinson said.
Haddy remembers what it was like to be a “student” himself, learning the crafts from mentors like Tony Gardner and Chet Zar at Alterian Studios in California.
“They were all in that shop together in the late ’90s period,” he recalled. “I was very young and wide-eyed about everything. I was just like a sponge, soaking everything up.”
One of the nicest results of “Face Off,” he added, was encountering Gardner later at a major makeup convention.
“I got to say to him that so much of what you guys taught me carried me through that entire show.”
Get inspired
Haddy’s current focus is finalizing plans to open a full-service effects shop in Charleston, West Virginia. He expects to shoot a reality show pilot around the experience of getting it open and functional.
Fans may often find him at conventions where he’s big into cosplay — the practice of appearing as a character from a movie, book or video game. Haddy is also a distributor for Paasche airbrushes. (“I’ve always said an airbrush makes a monkey look like it can paint — and I like bananas, so there you go!”) Airbrushes create a soft, natural blend and speed up the makeup or painting process. He’s designed his own signature brush, The Shadow, in collaboration with Paasche.
The effects artist continues to pass on his skills through outlets like The W workshop. One can’t expect to turn someone into a Rick Baker or Jim Henson in a two-hour workshop, he said, mentioning the Academy Award-winning special effects designer and the Mississippi-born Muppets creator. But what he can do is give people tools and instruction — demonstrate materials, skills and techniques and hopefully light a fire.
“If I can just light that fire and make you want to take the next step … I can show you what’s possible, but you have to take the leap yourself.”
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Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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