Growing up in Little Hocking, Arthur Collins always knew he wanted to be involved in movie making.
As an "80s kid," he was entranced by the works of Jim Henson, such as "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal." But what Collins really developed a passion for was horror movies.
"When the VCR came out, my family would watch movies all the time and horror movies were about half of them. Everyone would scream and have a bunch of fun, and that is why I prefer working in the horror genre," said Collins.
Article Photos
Photo courtesy of Arthur Collins
Little Hocking native, Arthur Collins, right, works on special effects makeup. Collins will be teaching a make-up, costume, and effects workshop in Parkersburg on Saturday. Collins studied special effects at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh and has racked up writing, producing, acting, and directing credits through his work on several horror films.
Collins, 37, now lives in Youngstown, fulfilling his passion by making horror movies of his own.
He's helped bring to life through effects and make-up witches, demons, zombies, vampires and more.
Through his work with Schotten Film Works, Collins has racked up credits that include production assistant, actor, producer, assistant director and special effects supervisor. All of the several films Collins has worked on with Schotten are available online.
Fact Box
Arthur Collins
Age: 37.
Hometown: Little Hocking.
Education: Graduated Warren High School in 1994; Graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 2001.
Occupation: Special effects supervisor for Schotten Film Works.
If you go
What: Special effects workshop.
Where: Dils Center in Parkersburg.
When: 3 p.m. Saturday.
Cost: $10 for adults and $5 for children.
Collins will be demonstrating budget friendly make-up on a couple of volunteers as well as ways to make cheap costumes and effects.
"I went to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and studied special effects, animatronics (and) puppet design," he explained.
On Saturday, Collins will be bringing those skills back to the area, to teach a special effects and makeup workshop at the Dils Center in Parkersburg.
"He's going to be doing a couple of people's make-up and talking about making effects," said Susan Sheppard, who owns and runs the Haunted Parkersburg Ghost Tours and also organized the event.
Specifically, Collins will be teaching people how it is possible to create realistic costumes, make-up and effects on a strict budget, using household items such as Elmer's glue and tissue paper.
Just doing make-up can take an hour or less. But sometimes creating characters and props for movies can be a very time intensive process, requiring half a day or more.
"If you're talking about glue or plaster, that stuff requires a drying time before it can be painted. That adds up," said Collins.
For lifecasting, which entails creating a three dimensional copy of a person's face, hands or other physical features, the process can take days, weeks or even months to perfect. Lifecasting can also be very expensive, which is why Collins often uses the same type of techniques he will be teaching at the workshop.
"A lot of times our budget has been so low, we have had to resort to these homegrown practices just to get through. We use a lot of found things when it comes to costumes and props. It's a lot of thrift stores and reconditioning things," he said.
Collins learned even more about working on a strict budget directing his first feature film, "The House on the Wrong Side of the Tracks."
The film, which Collins co-wrote with pal Mike Petrucci, will be shown for the first time Nov. 10 in Canton. After that, Collins hopes to enter it into some film festivals and find a distributor.
"It is a found footage film about a couple of bad seeds, local riff-raff, who get a hold of a video camera and break into a house. Let's just say it is probably the wrong place for them to break into," said Collins.
A special viewing of the film's trailer and an accompanying music video will also be part of the special effects workshop.
"There will be a couple of surprises too, but you'll just have to come for those," said Collins.
The workshop takes place Saturday from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at the Dils Center at 521 Market St. in Parkersburg. The cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children.
