SPECIAL EFFECTS: A HANDS-ON EXHIBITION; SCIENCE CENTER BRINGS MOVIE MAGIC TO THE EXPLORADOME

Children become a basic special effect in the hands of a makeup artist.

Children often look bruised and battered by the time they leave the St. Louis Science Center these days.

But it isn't painful. It's Hollywood makeup, and the kids love it.

Makeup is just one of the hands-on activities featured in the "Special Effects" exhibition in the Science Center's Exploradome. There is an admission fee to visit Special Effects.

The exhibition opened at the end of May and runs through Aug. 31. The St. Louis Science Center is located at 5050 Oakland Ave., opposite Forest Park.

The traveling exhibition takes visitors on a back-lot trip through movie magic. Among other things, visitors can sit on the robotic brontosaurus, Monica DeVertebrate, from the "Dinosaurs" television show. Through technology, visitors appear to be riding the dinosaur down Venice Beach.

Visitors also can hang from a high-rise Hollywood style and explore stop-motion photography.

The exhibit includes hands-on sound effects through the use of such items as coconut shells and a sack of flour.

"We always think that people learn best by doing," said John Wharton, visitor services directors for the St. Louis Science Center.

The California Museum of Science and Industry created the show.

"The makeup station is really popular," said Wharton.

"We have had a number of youngsters walking around the Science Center with large bruises and gashes."

The makeup job looks so real that some visitors mistakenly assumed the children were injured and said so to the staff.

"For whatever reason, kids seem to gravitate to fake blood," said Wharton.

Besides makeup, the 6,000-square-foot interactive exhibit features computer-generated images, sound, camera techniques, and animatronics from television and the movies.

Visitors explore a series of six studios examining different aspects of special effects.

In the Optical Toys Workshop, visitors learn about stop-and-go motion through a zoetrope, one of the early special effects tools. Created in 1834, it is older than the motion picture camera.

A zoetrope is a cylinder with panels around the sides that face in toward a mirror. Each panel had a slightly different image on it. By the spinning the cylinder, the image appears to be moving.

The Science Center exhibit recreates a zoetrope in large scale. "People can spin it on their own and stand back and watch the magic," said Wharton.

Artwork from the "Alien 3" movie and storyboards from "Hunt for Red October" are displayed.

The Shop focuses on the production of props. It includes matte paintings from the "Wizard of Oz," creature masks from "Return of the Jedi," miniatures from "The Empire Strikes Back" and the original molds, wigs and glasses from "Mrs. Doubtfire."

Visitors also will climb a tall building through special effects and zoom through Gotham City.

At the Visual Effects Stage, visitors learn how illusions are created through the camera lens.

They explore stop-and-go motion photography used in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," rear-screen projection from "The Abyss" and motion control used in "The Empire Strikes Back."

The On Location studio uses the blue-screen technology to serve up a dinosaur ride down Venice Beach.

The studio also includes the Cockroach Kitchen where visitors appear to be the size of insects while a cockroach appears to be human size.

The Computer Generated Images studio features the latest computer innovations used in the film and television industry. Visitors create and animate shapes in a computer as well as design sound effects.

The Interviews studio allows visitors to talk with special effects artists from the St. Louis area. Presentations are made each Tuesday and Friday at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. through Aug. 29.

Wharton said the entire exhibit demonstrates special effects in an understandable way.

Special effects, he said, involves science. "We are interested in trying to bring science down to earth to everyone," he said.

"We feel the language of the future is science," Wharton said.

This summer, that language is being taught through special effects.