Ken Niederbaumer

Real world article
(written from a production point of view)

Ken Niederbaumer (born 18 February 1971; age 54) is a Hollywood makeup artist who worked on Star Trek. Hailing from Hartford, Connecticut, Niederbaumer became interested in special effects makeup while attending high school in Cincinatti, Ohio. Upon graduating, he moved to Hollywood, California, to pursue a professional makeup career.

Like his fellow Star Trek makeup artist Richard Redlefsen (with whom he worked on several other projects), Niederbaumer attended Elegance International School of Makeup in Hollywood. He began working on feature films almost immediately upon completion of the school's twelve-month program.

From the early 1990s up until 2007, Niederbaumer's makeup work consisted almost entirely of independent features. One of his earliest was Double Exposure (1993, starring Star Trek Nemesis actor Ron Perlman). For Screamers (1995, starring Peter Weller), he took part in the construction of the title creatures. He followed this with makeup work on such films as Where Truth Lies (starring John Savage, Kim Cattrall, Malcolm McDowell, and Eric Pierpoint), Girls Will Be Girls, Monster Man (2003), Vegas Vampires (co-written and directed by Fred Williamson and featuring Bernie Casey and Tommy "Tiny" Lister, Jr.), Chupacabra: Dark Seas (2005, starring John Rhys-Davies), Demon Hunter, Devil's Den (2006), and Sublime (2007, with John Rubinstein and Lily Mariye).

As he continued doing makeup for independent productions, Niederbaumer began working as a special effects technician on major studio films such as Men in Black (1997), Starship Troopers, Rob Bowman's The X-Files (1998), Alien Resurrection (starring Winona Ryder, Brad Dourif, and Ron Perlman), My Favorite Martian (1999, starring Christopher Lloyd, Wallace Shawn, and Ray Walston), X2 (2003, starring Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Rebecca Romijn and Bruce Davison), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hellboy (2006, starring Ron Perlman and Doug Jones), and Underworld: Evolution (2006). For 2006's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Niederbaumer was not only an effects technician but a makeup artist, as well – his first makeup work for a major studio film. He was also a makeup artist for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).

Niederbaumer's later makeup credits include several episodes of CSI: NY and Pathology (2008, featuring John de Lancie), Town Creek, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and The Evil Within (2017, starring Dina Meyer, featuring Michael Berryman).

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