Advanced Course FAQ
The tuition is very affordable: 1,995 for the entire course or you can purchase it in thirds for only $665 per section. With the high cost of special makeup effects training these days (anywhere from $5,600 to $30,000) our courses are your best bet because you’ll receive the legendary Dick Smith quality for a reasonable price.
The materials you’ll need for the course must be purchased separately.
The short answer is it’s up to you. The projects for the Advanced Course are loosely structured. Each person designs their own projects. Allowing our students to design their own projects helps students foster indispensable skills. The more advanced and sophisticated your projects the higher your material costs will be. However, we realize some of you are on a limited budget. In such cases we suggest you focus on creating several gelatin projects on the face and neck. You might spend about $1,000 if you do that. You will need 3 finished makeups to apply for a certificate so that’s a good bottom line cost.
The Advanced Professional Makeup Course is exactly what its name implies: an advanced program of study for students and working professionals. It therefore does not have the step-by-step lesson structure of our Basic 3-D Makeup Course but rather will give you the ability to select your own interests and projects. In other words, this course is student-driven. Dick knew that an absolutely indispensable part of becoming a successful professional is to be able to think for yourself and solve problems and that’s what our students tell us is one of the great strengths of this program. It’s also the reason why the Advanced Course has more Oscar winning graduates than all of the other schools in America combined.
The Advanced Course is taught via instructional materials that are mailed to you and via internet exchanges between your teacher Andrew Clement and yourself. You will be sending still images of your works in progress or finished makeups so you can receive advice and guidance by email. You can also ask questions when you are stuck on some technical issue.
The course is very extensive and covers so many different aspects of special makeup effects that you could spend over a year working through the entire course. But that is not necessary to earn a certificate. All you have to do is create 3 finished prosthetic makeups that are professional quality and you will be considered to have completed the course. However, the other parts of the course you do not use will serve you for years to come as an invaluable reference for working professionals. Any time you run into a new problem just go to the course, and you will probably find your answer there. This is what we’ve been told by our graduates, that they continue to use the course throughout their professional lives.
You may apply for a Dick Smith Certificate of Merit any time you feel you’re ready. Unlike other makeup schools, this Certificate is not given for completing a course of study but for the quality of your work. Therefore, it is far more respected than certificates from other programs and will help you in seeking a job in this competitive industry. As Rick Baker states, “If you’re going to include a diploma in your portfolio, make sure it’s the one that counts. The only one that counts in my book is the one that comes from Dick Smith’s Advanced Professional Makeup Course.” To learn more about the respect this Certificate and the Advanced Course receives, read Student Testimonials.
No, but you do need some experience with either sculpture or prosthetic makeup in order to get the most out of this advanced material.
The Basic Course gives you a foundation in the techniques of creating a prosthetic makeup using gelatin. The demo and illustrations are different for each course. The Advanced Course provides expanded information on working with gelatin.
Yes, we have students enrolled from dozens of countries around the world.
No, English only.
Both of our courses are home study and the instructional materials are shipped to you. Many of our students do not wish to go to a makeup school or cannot do so because of financial, family or job concerns. Our home study courses give you the advantage of being able to study in the comfort of your home at a pace that fits in with your lifestyle while offering a superior value for your tuition dollar. We are licensed as a business in the state of Connecticut.
We don’t because we feel that our programs are already quite affordable. You can purchase the Advanced Course in sections. PayPal offers a program which allows qualified students to borrow money for the Advanced and Basic Courses from PayPal.
We do not have a formal placement program, but we are able to make recommendations from time to time that allow us to facilitate career advancement for exceptional students.
Lee Romaire Studios, Inc., founded in 2004, designs and produces extraordinary live action creature, character and mechanical effects for the entertainment industry.
Mike Elizalde is an Academy Award nominated prosthetic makeup designer, animatronics designer, and Screen Actors Guild puppeteer. He is also President and Creative Director of Spectral Motion, Incorporated.
Weta Workshop was established in 1994 in Wellington, New Zealand by Richard and Tania Taylor, Peter Jackson, and Jamie Selkirk. Their goal: to provide special makeup effects, props and other services to local film and television productions. Today Weta Workshop is a 65,000 square foot dream factory employing over 200 artists and craftspeople, creating everything from weird creature makeups to the design for fantasy vehicles, weapons, and entire worlds for blockbusters like The Hobbit, King Kong, and Avatar. The Workshop’s extraordinary work has earned it five Academy Awards.
At a young age Mike Marino became a student and protege of legendary make-up artist Dick Smith. Through Dick’s Advanced Professional Makeup Course, Mike built the foundation and inspiration needed to excel in the field of Special Makeup Effects. Now, with over 20 years of experience in the film industry, Mike has worked with leading artists in the field, including Rob Bottin, Rick Baker and many others. As owner and designer of Prosthetic Renaissance, Mike has been able to realize his goal of leading a first rate team, elevating the art of special makeup effects.
Raised in Connecticut, a few miles from New York, Andrew Clement was taking the train into the city to work in the effects business even before graduating high school. He gathered any experience he could in the east coast effects community, sometimes even working for free, until it was time to attend S.U.N.Y. Purchase. While working towards his Visual Arts/Theatre Design degree, he began working on shows such as Saturday Night Live, and the films, The Princess Bride and Ridley Scott’s Black Rain. In 1985, Dick Smith began his legendary Advanced Professional Make-Up Course, and Andrew became his very first student. Armed with this life changing knowledge, he began commanding larger and more lucrative jobs.
In 1988 Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. formed Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc., which was destined to become one of the top effects labs in the industry. In 1988 Alec had enrolled in Dick Smith’s Advanced Course and found it to be a tremendous help in ADI’s quest for artistic excellence.