Todd Debreceni [Debruh-see-nee]
A working makeup effects artist and designer, Todd began his 45+ year career in entertainment with PBS while a graduate student in television production at the University of Tennessee. Before starting his own small effects shop in Denver called BaPoFX, Todd worked as a production manager and writer/producer for cable pioneer Ted Turner and former CBS network president Robert Wussler at TBS in Atlanta, a writer/producer at 20th Century-Fox Television in Los Angeles, Samuel Goldwyn Television, Disney, and MGM, and as a visual effects animator for Warner Bros., Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Television Animation. Among his feature film credits are Die Hard II; Contact; Batman and Robin; Incoming Freshman; My Favorite Martian; Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves; The Enemy God; Cannon Fodder; Decay; Apartment 212; Hoax; Ink, and Captain Phillips. Television credits include JAG, SAS Rogue Heroes, The Power, and Doctor Who.
Todd is the recipient of a 2017 Henry Award for his extensive body of work in prosthetic makeup and makeup effects for theatre, a 2015 DCPA True West Award for Shrek the Musical and Young Frankenstein, a 2006 and 2009 Denver Post Ovation Award for special makeup effects for his designs for The Wiz, and Man of La Mancha respectively, a 2010 Henry Award nomination for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and a 1992 Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for his contribution to establishing Theatre Row in Hollywood. He has created a variety of makeup effects for many stage productions, including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Shrek the Musical; Spamalot; The Whipping Man; Ugly Lies the Bone; Young Frankenstein; Man of La Mancha; Peter Pan; Oliver; Dracula; Bat Boy, the Musical; Hoping to See God; Into the Woods; The Wiz; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Urinetown, the Musical; Black Elk Speaks; Elephant Man; The Snow Queen; Bonnie & Clyde; Sleuth; Sideshow; Sleeping Beauty and The Toxic Avenger.
Todd regularly contributed to Neill Gorton's Prosthetics Magazine and he does a podcast with Stuart Bray called Battles With Bits of Rubber. He also conducts seminars, workshops, and classes in special makeup effects for film, television, and theatre both in the U.S. and overseas, consults internationally, and has literally written 'the book' on special makeup effects for Routledge and Focal Press called Special Makeup Effects for Stage and Screen Making and Applying Prosthetics (2008, 2013, 2019, 2023). It has been hailed worldwide in the entertainment industry as ’The Bible’ for makeup effects artists. The 4th Edition was released just before Christmas 2023.
Todd travels to China to teach prosthetic makeup and makeup effects at OA Makeup Academy & Special Effects Studio in Guangzhou, China, established in 2017.
Todd co-founded the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood with Gary Blumsack and Elizabeth Reilly, and served as its Managing & Producing Director; he left to develop original programming for the Nashville Network.
