The Burman Studio, Inc. is a make-up effects studio founded in the early 1980s which provided uncredited special make-up effects for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. The studio is owned and operated by Tom Burman (father of Barney Burman and Rob Burman) and his wife, Bari Burman. They are perhaps best known for their Emmy Award-winning make-up effects work on the two Tracey Ullman television programs, The Tracey Ullman Show and Tracey Take On..., and on the FX series, Nip/Tuck.
They have received three Emmy nominations for their work on the hit medical drama Grey's Anatomy, won an Emmy for an episode of The Young Indiana Chronicles, and received nominations for the 1988 mini-series War and Remembrance and episodes of L.A. Law (starring Corbin Bernsen and Larry Drake) and Chicago Hope. In total, they have won five Emmy Awards and were nominated for sixteen others. They were also nominated for an Academy Award for their work on the 1988 film Scrooged, featuring John Glover, Michael J. Pollard, Carol Kane and Alfre Woodard.
Tom Burman's early make-up career included such films as the original Planet of the Apes, the acclaimed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (starring Leonard Nimoy). While working on the 1982 film Cat People (starring Malcolm McDowell, Ed Begley, Jr. and John Larroquette), Burman hired Bari Dreiband to assist in the film's transformation effects, beginning a professional and personal relationship that has lasted for over twenty-five years.
Burman and Dreiband's next project together was The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984, starring Peter Weller, Christopher Lloyd, Robert Ito, Clancy Brown, and Vincent Schiavelli). They then designed and executed the make-up for the character of Sloth in The Goonies (1985).
The many other films which the Burman Studio has worked on include The Running Man, Throw Momma from the Train (1987, starring Kate Mulgrew), Die Hard 2, Wayne's World (1992), Cliffhanger (1993, featuring Paul Winfield), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (featuring Patrick Stewart), Speed, Waterworld, Eraser (1996, starring Vanessa Williams), Con Air (starring Colm Meaney), Lethal Weapon 4, and The Core (featuring Bruce Greenwood and Alfre Woodard). Their television work also includes J.J. Abrams' Alias and Brannon Braga's Threshold (starring Brent Spiner).