By GustavoLeao / 02:45, 27 February 2010 / Star Trek: Nemesis

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The Los Angeles Times posted a new interview with Star Trek movie make-up supervisor Barney Burman and here are excerpts.

Q: What were your conversations with J.J. regarding makeup?

A: He was really open, and wanted to see every idea imaginable, including old stuff that had been on the shows, and new things that no one had ever seen. What he said to me in regard to the aliens was, "I don't know what they look like - I just know that they have to be right." He acknowledged that such a thing was tantamount to finding the woman you're going to marry over and over again, but that's what we had to do. So a couple of designers and people on my crew started pumping out ideas.

Q: The most significant deviation from the "Star Trek" canon of alien design is the makeup for the Romulans. How did that come about?

A: Early on, I brought on a fantastic artist and makeup artist named Joel Harlow who ended up taking over the Romulans and doing them on set, close to where J.J. was. I was back in my shop working on the more extravagant aliens. We ended up doing about 36 different aliens, and I think you only end up seeing about six, which was a shame, but you always know that there's going to be some degree of that.

Q: Which of the designs were the most complex for you?

A: All of them (laughs). I decided to do them in silicone rather than foam latex, and I think it's the first time that silicone had been used for "Star Trek." It has a flesh-like translucency that foam latex just doesn't have. J.J. is very knowledgeable about makeup and makeup effects, and he'd seen the difference, so I didn't even want to risk it. The guy at the bar (Long Face Bar Alien, played by Douglas Tait) -- we named him Brian as a sort of code name -- I made this big, long face for him, and what I didn't really consider was just how much heavier silicone is than foam latex. He was one of our first aliens, so fighting gravity on him taught me a lot about how to approach the makeup thereafter. I had to literally dig out big chunks of silicone and thin them out and then glue them higher than they were initially supposed to be placed so that gravity would settle them back into place.