Barney Burman | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Make-up artist |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Parent(s) | Thomas R. Burman (father) Sandra Burman (mother) |
| Family | Ellis Burman Jr. (Uncle) Ellis Burman the III (cousin) Rob Burman (brother) Ellis Burman Sr.(grandfather) |
| Awards | 2009 Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling |
Barney Burman is an American makeup artist and character actor. He was part of the team that won an Academy Award in 2009 for Best Make-up, on the film Star Trek .
After being introduced to Hollywood make-up through his parents, Burman spent the first part of his life attempted to pursue a career in acting. He used make-up jobs to fund this pursuit during this time. His first professional job was in 1984 as part of the make-up team behind Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , he returned to the franchise on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . At the age of 30, he decided to pursue make-up full-time, and gained union accreditation after working on the 1995 film Powder . [1]
In 2009, he worked on the rebooted Star Trek alongside Joel Harlow and Mindy Hall. [2] He described the film as a significant challenge, saying "It was the biggest film I had done to date and it was about six months of sleeping four hours a night and just keep going and going and going and it took so much of my focus – just a crazy amount of energy that it took to get that done." [3] It was the third time he had worked with director J. J. Abrams following Mission: Impossible III and the television movie Anatomy of Hope . [1]
He has subsequently led the make-up team that works on NBC's television series Grimm . He has praised the variety that the show has given his team, saying "It’s creating over and over again each episode. Often we've had situations where we've had to make a full dead body in five days or we did an episode with some Bigfoot characters and we had four days to get our first one done." [3] Burman owns B2FX, Inc, a make-up studio which operates out of Los Angeles and New Mexico. [1] [3]
The make-up team working on 2009's Star Trek won an Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards. [2] This was the first Oscar to have been awarded to any film in the franchise. [4]
Barney's father, Thomas R. Burman and his wife Bari Dreiband-Burman, were nominated for best make-up for the film Scrooged . His grandfather, Ellis Burman Sr., was considered to be a pioneer in film make-up, [5] having worked on the original Twilight Zone television series and the 1941 film The Wolf Man . [3]