With over 40 years in the entertainment business, Todd Debreceni began his career with PBS while a graduate student at the University of Tennessee. Before starting his own small effects studio in Denver, Colorado, Todd worked for cable television pioneer Ted Turner at TBS in Atlanta.
He’s worked for Cannon Films, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Pictures, and 20th Century Fox Television. Makeup and Visual Effects credits for film and television include Apartment 212; Hoax; Ink; Decay; Contact; Batman and Robin; My Favorite Martian; Captain Phillips; Die Hard II; Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves; Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, Doctor Who and JAG. He has designed and created makeup, makeup effects, special effects, and props for numerous stage productions, including A Christmas Carol (the Musical); Ugly Lies the Bone; Shrek; Spamalot; Man of La Mancha; Into the Woods; Whipping Man; Disney’s Beauty and the Beast; Young Frankenstein; Bonnie & Clyde; The Toxic Avenger; Elephant Man; and Batboy: The Musical.
Todd is the recipient of a 2017 Henry Award for Special Achievement in Makeup Effects, a 2015 True West Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, two Denver Post Ovation Awards, a 2010 Henry Award nomination, and several other design awards for his work. Todd taught at the Art Institute of Colorado for 17 years, has been a Guest Artist at the Denver School of the Arts for over 10 years, and is a former adjunct theatre faculty member at the Metropolitan State University of Denver and the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Todd regularly contributes to the publication Prosthetics Magazine, records a popular podcast called Battles with Bits of Rubber with fellow makeup artist Stuart Bray, conducts classes and workshops internationally for prosthetic makeup, and literally wrote the book on special makeup effects; the best-selling Special Makeup Effects for Stage and Screen (Focal Press, 2009). The 3rd edition was released in August 2018.
