Ellen Gray: Syfy's 'Face Off' contest not racing to beat the clock

FACE OFF. 10 tonight, Syfy.

NBC UNIVERSAL may have lost "Project Runway" to Lifetime, but it's kept the pattern, expanding from high fashion (Bravo's "The Fashion Show") to haute cuisine (Bravo's "Top Chef") and even art (Bravo's "Work of Art").

Tonight, Bravo's geeky cable sibling, Syfy, puts a monstrously creative spin on the talent search in "Face Off," in which a dozen special-effects makeup artists compete for $100,000, a year's worth of makeup and, presumably, bragging rights.

If they're inclined to brag.

One of the first things I noticed about "Face Off's" contestants, who represent a range of experience - one was nominated for an Emmy at 19, another's fresh out of school, still another owns his own special-effects company - is their relative modesty.

Some exude a businesslike confidence, others tremble before the judges, but few exhibit the bulletproof belief in themselves we're used to seeing.

Don't they know they're on television?

Unlike the "Runway" peacocks, who may be dressing celebrities but whose business plans require them to try to become celebrities themselves, makeup artists, like most people working in film and television, know they're there to make other people look good.

Or, perhaps, really, really bad.

And that's not something you can merely spin.

Pulling back the curtain on a part of the industry that should be near to sci-fi fans' hearts, "Face Off" gives its contestants significant blocks of time to complete their tasks, including three full days for an elimination challenge in tonight's episode.

I'm not sure "Project Runway" would give its contestants three days to design a wedding gown and a honeymoon wardrobe for Kate Middleton.

Here, though, we're seeing a full-body transformation and more than a glimpse of what goes into the creation of a head-to-toe look that can't be pulled together from an accessory wall.

"Face Off" is hosted by actress McKenzie Westmore, daughter of makeup artist Michael Westmore ("Star Trek: The Next Generation"), whose family has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their several generations of wizardry, and judged by Ve Neill ("Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"), Glenn Hetrick ("Heroes," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Patrick Tatopoulos ("I Am Legend," "Godzilla").

The younger Westmore earlier this month gave reporters at the Television Critics Association's winter meetings a quick primer on the family business:

"When my great-grandfather was the wigmaker to the king and queen of England, he came over into Hollywood, opened a wig shop over on Sunset Boulevard. Rudolph Valentino was doing a silent film, accidentally shaved off his mustache, ran into the shop, asked for help, and that was the birth of a makeup artist," she said.

Her grandfather worked on "Gone With the Wind," and her great-uncle created the "Creature from the Black Lagoon," she said.

Her father's "laboratory was attached to our house. So when I was of an age where I was allowed to go in there and the chemicals weren't so threatening, I would be in there with him, and I would sculpt right next to him, and I would help him with the molds, and I'd turn the oven on for him and get things ready, and we'd work together," she recalled.

Though winning "Face Off" might give a makeup artist not born with the name Westmore a leg up in the business, it's a business that's "more competitive than ever," said Hetrick, "because [of] the constantly shifting sands of technology," including the need to integrate makeup with computer-generated effects.

Plus, money's tight.

"For the most part, there's now a ceiling, and if you can't do it in 'X' amount of time for 'X' amount of money, they are just going to go ahead" and generate the effects differently, he said.

"We are absolutely training [our] competition," he said.

Hetrick, by the way, is a fan of the work on AMC's "The Walking Dead."

Makeup artist Gregory Nicotero, who'll be a guest judge later in the season "is just killing it on that show," Hetrick said.

"It's awesome. Those zombies are awesome. It's really cool to see this old-school approach of zombie makeup still coming out really cool and fresh and new."

Something to think about while you're waiting for our next snow event: Our rough winter's warming up the Nielsen ratings.

Nielsen reports the storm of Jan. 10-13 was a particularly big one for couch potatoes, noting that national viewership "increased by 8 percent versus the prior year, about a third higher than the average increase in viewing from the last four major storms."

The growth, it said, came mostly from school closings, with viewing by children 2-11 rising 18 percent and teen viewing up 15 percent. *

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