The pride on the face of Golden Valley High senior Sadie Butler was quite visible as she stood next to her viper dogfish mask. This was the second time Butler had taken Golden Valley High’s Monster Mask Workshop directed by Emmy-award winning makeup artist Brian Sipe. 

 

Butler wanted to challenge herself during the three-day workshop and she created a mask featuring a retractable jaw, camouflage textures, breathing structures, and distinctive eyes. 

 

“I think it turned out pretty nicely,” Butler said. “Last year I got scared because I had to restart my project and I just had to get it done. This year I had a lot more time and experience behind me. So I feel this one's a lot better than my last one.”

 

Creatures like Butler’s viper dogfish, butterfly-like masks, octopus-like creatures, aquatic monsters and many other beasts and critters filled the Golden Valley theatre stage as students dug deep into their imagination to create these monster masks that will be used during their Monster Mash Dash on Halloween at Lake Yosemite, their Haunted House and other projects throughout the year.

 

The Monster Mask Workshop gives students an opportunity to work with an actual Hollywood makeup artist in Sipe who has worked on shows like the Mandalorian and filmography includes movies like the Avengers-End Game, Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 

 

Sipe served as the industry supervisor for a practical effects monster mask making workshop for 30 students, who received a certificate after completion of the three-day workshop that was held Sept. 16-18. The Art, Media & Entertainment pathway students had to submit an application. This year five students from Merced High joined 25 Golden Valley students for the workshop.

 

“The mission of career technical education is to give these students the tools to be able to have these dream jobs,” said Amber Kirby, Golden Valley High School’s CTE Arts Media and Entertainment Program Director. “For the kids to be able to see firsthand how to do this, it plants the seed, it grows the hope, it blooms their career in the future.”

 

This is the third year Sipe has traced from Los Angeles to the Central Valley to lead the Monster Mask Workshop at Golden Valley. “I think one reason I keep coming back is because to me this sense of creativity is fun,” Sipe said. 

 

Sipe gave students participating in the workshop some random latex parts and asked them to come up with a creature. Sipe challenges the students to come up with a backstory for their creature. “If you don't know what the creature is, you don't know how it lives, how it eats, you don't know how it protects itself,” Sipe said. “All of these things are things that evolution has done for us, or the way that you know things are made… So if you're making an aquatic creature what do you put on it? What does it do in the water? Things that have to make sense.”

 

Golden Valley senior Gracelyn Perez-Rios came up with a butterfly-inspired character representing Afghan girls’ survival and the requirement to cover their faces. Her creature uses butterfly wings to cover their face. 

 

“I really enjoyed coming up with the stories for my character and coming up with the designs and how everything just comes all together just to be that one character,” Perez-Rios said. “I enjoy doing creative stuff but I also like to bring awareness so I got to do both with this project.”

 

Golden Valley sophomore Michael Baldovino created an octopus-like creature that is hundreds of years old and is still undiscovered. Baldovino says it’s a privilege to have someone like Sipe make the trip to the Central Valley from Hollywood to work with students. 

 

“A lot of schools don't have programs like this the way that our school does,” Baldovino. “It’s a privilege for Mr. Sipe to come to our school. I enjoy doing hands-on stuff like this.”

 

Butler says it can be a bit intimidating to have an Emmy-award winning artist possibly looking over your shoulder while you’re working on your creature, but that’s a good thing. 

 

“It feels like a job interview the entire time,” Butler said. “But honestly, he has wonderful advice. I feel like he's really changed my art, especially with my colors and stuff. He's really helped me with that, and I feel like he kind of pushes my art to be more realistic.”

 

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.