An artist's dream

WITH AN extravagant fantasy based on fabulous dreamscapes in ``The Cell'', make-up designer Michele Burke had every chance to innovate as never before, winning for the film its sole Oscar nomination.

Her exhaustive range starts with ``normal'' people to corpses for autopsies and bleached bodies. Examining pictures of people actually suspended by their skin, Burke invented a skin stretching technique with the special effects supervisor. This involved hours of make-up and the use of prosthetic skin.

If the challenge was to evoke the diabolic fascination of the killer with crown like hairdo, exotic body paint and humming bird tattoos, the thrill was to mirror Lopez in multi-shades, from the magnificent-sensational to the terrified-desperate.

The sources are wide-ranging - from classical to pop-punk.

Burke makes the characters glide from the real to the surreal and back again, matching the startling contrasts of costume design and directorial vision. Is it a surprise then that she should say, ``This project was a make-up artist's dream''?

- G.R.

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