Where California Is Colorado

Take a tour through the Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains and you can see how the re-created western set near Agoura Hills passes each week for frontier Colorado in “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

Come this Saturday and you can also view a transformation of a different kind. In addition to the general tour of the ranch, special-effects makeup artist Russell Seifert will demonstrate how Hollywood pulls off some of its amazing makeup feats.

If you saw Eddie Murphy in the movie “The Nutty Professor,” you’ve seen some of Seifert’s work. He was among a crew of some 40 makeup specialists who changed a lean Murphy into the rotund, jowly professor.

He also worked on the movie “Junior,” helping make Arnold Schwarzenegger look pregnant. He is now immersed in the upcoming remake of “Godzilla.”

“I’m mostly a behind-the-scenes guy,” said Seifert, who lives in Los Angeles and works freelance on film projects. He spends most of his time in the lab creating body and face casts that can be sculpted into bizarre forms that look incredibly realistic--like Schwarzenegger’s growing stomach.

For Saturday’s tour, he’ll transform a model’s head into an ape look-alike, similar to those in the movie, “Planet of the Apes,” which was also filmed partially in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The demonstration will be an abbreviated version of what actually happens, he said. Making a mold and sculpting it for a face can take up to two weeks, and applying the finished product to the actor can run from two to four hours.

Seifert also plans to use volunteers from the audience to reveal a few other tricks of the trade.

The free tour and demonstration, sponsored by the National Park Service, starts at 9:30 a.m. and runs about one hour and 45 minutes.

The Paramount Ranch--without makeup--is a dead ringer for early Colorado Springs, where TV’s frontier physician, Dr. Quinn (Jane Seymour), practices medicine in a rustic rock cabin.

National Park Service rangers offer periodic weekend tours of the set with its western motif, dirt streets and weathered buildings that house businesses like the mercantile, assay office and mining supply store. A quaint chapel, built for the series, stands in a grassy field. A train depot also was added to the set, along with a functioning train.

Although it’s not on the tour, Dr. Quinn’s specially built homestead sits about a quarter of a mile away. Visitors may walk to it on their own.

On the weekend tours, don’t expect to see Jane Seymour tending patients. The show is filmed on weekdays, but the Paramount Ranch is open every day. Visitors may observe filming, but there will be a hiatus from June 27 to Sept. 8.

The set with its mountainous backdrop has a long history in the film industry. Paramount Pictures bought 2,700 acres here in 1927, and for 20 years used the oak groves, creeks and canyons for shooting Westerns like “Wells Fargo” and “Man from Wyoming.” The area also passed for China in “The Adventures of Marco Polo” and Missouri in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

In those days, the Paramount Ranch was five times the size it is now and boasted five permanent sets. The commissary fed as many as 500 people a day.

After the studio sold the land, it was divided up and the sets were torn down. In the 1950s, filming revived there with the shooting of TV westerns such as “The Cisco Kid” and “Bat Masterson.”

In 1980, the National Park Service bought the remains of the movie ranch, 436 acres, and revitalized the set, making it a tourist attraction and eventually the home for “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

BE THERE

Tour the Paramount Ranch free and see a special effects makeup demonstration Saturday, at 9:30 a.m. The ranch is near Agoura Hills, on Cornell Road near Mulholland Highway. National Park Service offers frequent weekend tours of the ranch. For information, (818) 597-9192.