Short Film - 'Bruises'

I was approached by director, Jamie Alexander, who I had worked with on a previous short film, to join his team for the production of a short film entitled 'Bruises'. The circumstances were a little different on this production as each director had been given a pre-written script that they could interpret in their own way. In Jamie's case, the line that he felt needed the most focus in terms of make-up was when the male character confronts the female character, saying, "You've got bruises on your body". There were absolutely no specifics as to the location of the bruising, the age, the severity, etc and Jamie remained fairly vague about what he wanted. Eventually we decided on some bruising around the ribs, approximately 4-5 days old so that it would be deepest in colour. He then negotiated with costume to find a blouse for the female character that would slide up when she was lying on the bed to reveal the bruising beneath.
24 hours before the shoot I received a phone call from Jamie to tell me that he'd changed his mind about the location of the bruising and instead wanted something more around the collar bone / neck area. This wasn't too much of a problem as I had done a photo shoot the week before which involved a similar kind of bruising and still had a lot of the reference images that I had used.

I arrived on set of the shoot to be greeted by the producer, Jack, who showed me to the makeshift green room that had been created for the actors in-between scenes, this would also be where all of the make-up application would take place. Unfortunately from a make-up perspective the room was not ideal; it was a very small room filled with computers which meant that there was no table space available to lay out brushes, IPA, make-up, etc. The chairs were all office chairs that were very low, however, I made the best of the space and awaited the arrival of the two actors. I knew that the actress, Lucinda Davidson, was a second year acting student at the AUB, and the actor, Russell Barr, was a professional that had been brought down from London. I was slightly apprehensive about working with a professional actor but knew that it would be necessary experience to gain before going into industry.

Russell Barr

Lucinda Davidson

I began with Russell's make-up as he was needed on set first and confirmed with Jamie that he wanted nothing more than a basic camera-ready make-up. This was something that Russell appeared to take offence to and warned me that I should never refer to anything that I was about to do to an actor as 'basic'. He was also very unhappy that there was no mirror available in the green room, which, with hindsight is something that I should have considered bringing with me. Once Russell's make-up was complete I could focus on Lucinda, who needed a basic beauty make-up to make her appear ever so slightly older and, of course, the bruising on her neck. It soon became apparent, however, that time management may prove to be a little bit of an issue as Russell was insistent, rightly so, that make-up and costume should be down on set to do final touches before each scene. Ideally if make-ups were being done at separate times, more than one make-up artist would be required to split the responsibility between application and final checks and touch ups. After a fair amount of running between the set and the green room, I was able to concentrate on Lucinda's make-up fully. The application of foundation and contouring was pretty easy as Lucinda had almost flawless skin. For the eyes I did a very soft smokey eye using browns and fawns and a very fine liner. For the lips and blusher I took inspiration from the burgundy blouse that had been provided by costume and used similar tones.

Deciding on placement for the bruising on the collar bone / neck proved to be a little more difficult than first anticipated as it appeared that costume had not received the same notification that I had that the location of the bruising was changing and was no longer on the ribs. The blouse that had been provided  was open at the neck, but did not reveal very much of the collar bone at all, mostly the sternum. I tried to bring the bruising down as far as possible without it looking like an odd placement and agreed with the costume supervisor, Leanne, that before takes we would both try to ensure that the make-up was visible without interfering with the placement of the costume too much.
When Russell returned from shooting his scene, however, he was very unhappy with the colouring and overall look of the bruise and, despite my explanations of what the director had requested, he demanded that Jamie be brought up to the green room to review the make-up. Thankfully, when Jamie arrived he shared my opinion that the make-up was what he had envisaged and politely disagreed with Russell and instructed that everything be left as it was.

When shooting began using both actors I remained on set for the majority of the day to do final checks and touch ups. There was one scene in particular when Lucinda and Russell had to share a passionate kiss on the bed and this meant that after every take it was necessary to re-do Lucinda's lip colour and remove the excess lip colour from Russell's face. Other than this the shoot ran very smoothly and I am excited to see the finished film. I certainly learnt a lot from the experience of working with an opinionated professional actor; most importantly that it is crucial to remain respectful whilst also defending your decisions if you believe them to be correct and standing your ground.

'Bruises' - Finished film, screen grabs.

I was able to track down the Head of Sound, Olly, with the edited version of the film, 'Bruises' that I had worked on previously. I was able to view a sped up, silent version and request screen grabs wherever I felt that my make-up was showcased. These came out reasonably well although I was quite disappointed with how the bruise had shown up on screen. Despite liaising with the lighting department and director of photography on the day of filming to ensure that the bruise was shown in the best light, I did not feel that it had been done justice in the finished product. This is a lesson that I will take with me onto future shoots; to request to look through the actual camera lens to decide for yourself if the make-up is going to work on screen.
The other issue that I encountered appeared to be with crediting. As I had suffered with a few bad experiences in the past where producers had failed to credit me in the final film, I requested to see the credits rolling in the silent edit. It was a good thing that I thought to ask as I soon realised that I had in fact been credited as; 'Hair and Make-up by EMILY Barker'. Olly was quite shocked and embarrassed and ensured me that if I spoke with the director, Jamie, he would be able to sort out the mistake as soon as possible. This experience has re-enforced my need to double check credits before the film is finalised, and also possibly to consider drawing up a contract for larger scale projects to ensure that these sort of mistakes will not happen.

Here are the final screen grabs:

Short Film - 'Needles and Pins'

I was approached for a second time by Jamie Alexander, following our work together on 'Bruises' to do make-up on his next short film production entitled, 'Needles and Pins'. Having had a generally positive experience working with him on the previous film, I was keen to take up the job.

This time the film would be set in the 1960s and depict a family; father, mother and son in their home at Christmas. The actor playing the father would be Paul Alexander; Jamie's dad! This was a little intimidating at first as, not only would I be working on an experienced actor, but he would also be likely to give very honest feedback on my skills to the director. The actor playing the little boy would be Shay Cahill, which I was very pleased about as I had worked with Shay previously on a film last year and he was a pleasure to work with and very co-operative when it came to having his hair and make-up done. There was a little bit of a panic on the first day of shooting as the actress that had initially been arranged to play the mother dropped out the afternoon before she was due to shoot, so there was a last minute search to find a replacement. Thankfully the producer, James Kirby, was able to find a suitable replacement very quickly, however, this did have its implications for make-up. The actress that had originally been chosen had had mid length hair, and their art designer, Marlow, had requested that she have traditional 60s style hair with a lot of volume at the top and the hair flicked up at the ends. I had ordered some plastic inserts to add to the hair to give the necessary volume prior to the shoot. The actress that was eventually chosen to be her replacement, had short cropped hair, so this hairstyle would no longer be suitable. I tried speaking with Jamie and Marlow about this issue but they were, by this point, too involved with filming to give it much consideration and told me to simply do whatever I felt would suit. I therefore decided to go with a very simple hair style inspired by Twiggy in her early modelling days; a short, sleek style, combed forward in a side parting. In terms of the make-up  Marlow had requested that I incorporate the iconic style of the 60s by doing some sort of cat-eye make-up. However, as the actress was in her late 30s and was playing a house wife and mother, this needed to be a much less dramatic version of the make-up. This was very easy to achieve on the day and I was happy with the final result. Paul (the father) required very little make-up as his face was very rarely on screen so I agreed with Jamie that I would simply powder him down to reduce any shine. Shay's make-up was also very minimal as I did not want to cover any of his freckles, which I felt added to his character. He was, unfortunately, quite tired by the second day of filming, so a little concealer was necessary to hide the shadows under his eyes. His hair style, as requested by Marlow, was a simple neat side parting for when he was properly dressed, and tussled for the scenes where he was wearing his pyjamas and had just climbed out of bed.

Shay on set

Shooting ran fairly smoothly, and although there was a lot of waiting around, as to be expected on a film set, I found myself fairly busy as Jamie was keen to keep continuity spot on as the shooting ran over 2 days. It was a pleasant experience to have a director who understood the importance of continuity and final checks to call me in when needed, rather than constantly having to hover and request final checks.

Cast and Crew

Overall this was another very good experience working on a short film and has re-enforced my opinions on the professionalism of the film production students at the AUB. I feel that I have formed a much stronger working relationship with Jamie and James (producer) after working on a second film with them and they have expressed a wish to work with me again, which I would be more than happy to do.

Short Film - 'Squidge' - Retitled 'No Place Like Home'

I was approached by producer Jack Wierenga, who I had worked with on a couple of films with previously, to do the make-up on a short film for director Ximon Gray. The brief sounded quite interesting as it would give me a little bit more scope for simple prosthetics and interesting make-up, rather than the more simple 'camera-ready make-up' I had been doing on a lot of short films recently.

The concept was of a prisoner being held on death row who receives a package just before his execution that contains a kaleidoscope; his favourite childhood toy. Placing his eye to the kaleidoscope the cell around him is transformed in a whirl of colours to become his childhood bedroom and he appears finally serene and content.
The brief for this project, like with my film for Jamie Alexander, was 'Image and Sound' which meant that visuals were much more of a key aspect than things like dialogue. In fact, Ximon's film contained barely any dialogue at all.

Callum West

The actor that was initially chosen for the role was Callum West, an acting student from the AUB. As Callum was a little younger than Ximon had pictured the character being, he asked if I could do some very subtle ageing, mostly to make him look sleep deprived and weary from his time in prison. Although suggestions were made to simply cast an older actor, Ximon was adamant with his choice as he said he liked the slightly child-like element to Callum's face that would work well with the concept.

An example of the chosen tattoos
tattoome.tumblr.com

Ximon also expressed an interest in the character having a number of tattoos. Initially he was not specific on whether he wanted traditional, make-shift looking prison tattoos, or more traditional tattoos that would have been obtained before the character was imprisoned. I set about researching both but eventually decided to go with more traditional tattoos. This was mainly because I feared that making tattoos look make-shift, as if they had been done by hand in prison, could make them look more like they were badly designed and applied by myself as a make-up artist. Ximon actually preferred this decision as he said that the bright colours of the sailor-style tattoos that I had chosen would contrast well with the dark de-saturated setting of the prison cell. I had debated for some time the best technique for applying the tattoos, and eventually decided that as it was a 2 day shoot and continuity would be a big consideration, that it would be better to print designs onto tattoo transfer paper rather than free-hand draw them. I ordered the paper online, which including p&p came to £16.98, which I was assured I would be re-imbersed for by the producer.

Another two elements that Ximon was keen to incorporate into the make-up was a scar along the face and some dirtying of the hands and feet. He also requested that I try and find/make some long fingers and toenails, however I was quite against this idea. I felt that the only way to do this in the time that I had would be to buy women's fake manicure nails and dirty them up using latex/diry colours/textures. I had no idea how I would go about doing the toenails. All in all I felt that this ran the risk of looking quite tacky and also came with a number of health and safety considerations in the actor removing them, and I was able to persuade Ximon to drop the idea.

Robin Brown
www.starnow.com

Unfortunately, as with many of my short film experiences, we had a last minute difficulty as Callum was unable to make the shooting dates and a replacement actor needed to be found. Ximon was very indecisive during this process, determined to find an actor with the same child-like essence that he had seen in Callum. Sadly, given the last minute nature of the situation, and the lack of budget to transport and accommodate an actor from far afield, this was not necessarily going to be possible. After being unable to decide for certain between 4 potential actors, begrudgingly Ximon chose Robin Brown, a 50 year old actor from Bournemouth. Many of the crew felt that Robin was actually a more suitable choice for the role, however, there were a number of implications for the make-up design with the change of actors.

As Robin was significantly older than Callum, there was no longer a need for any ageing make-up. I did intend to still add a little blue/purple-ish tones beneath the eye to heighten the idea of sleep deprivation, but this would be all that was needed. Robin also had a number of tattoos which meant that the ones that I had chosen and printed would be unecessary. Ximon was still keen to use them, however, I needed him to accept that I was not willing to place any of the fake tattoos anywhere near any of Robin's real ones as it would just draw attention to the fake ones and make them look ridiculous in comparison, especially since all of Robin's tattoos were old and beginning to bleed out and fade. It transpired when Robin arrived to set that he had tattoos on his arms, hands, and neck; all 3 of the areas that Ximon had requested I place the tattoos. The tattoo transfers went unused.

I was still able to do the dirtying of the hands and feet that Ximon had requested. I had initially wanted to use Ben Nye Plains Dust, however, I had my supply taken by a producer when working on a theatre show in London and with the short amount of time before filming was unable to order anymore. I decided to use a combination of vaseline and brown eye shadow instead, which was fairly effective. Ximon was also still keen to include the scar on the face as we had discussed previously. I had ideally wanted to use Kryolan Rigid Collodian to create an indented scar, however, once again, lack of time and budget meant that ordering this was not an option. Instead I did a raised scar along the cheek using Tuplast. This worked better than I had imagined and I received a lot of compliments on set about how realistic this looked and how well it stood out on camera. Continuity with the scar was obviously a very big consideration so I made sure to take a number of photographs for reference on the second day.

I encountered one last surprise on the second day of filming when Ximon decided, very last minute, that he wanted Robin `th have a single tear falling from his eye when he has his nostalgic moment of peace in his childhood bedroom. He had brought in some eye drops which he intended to use, however, I was forced to explain to him that touching or putting anything into an actor's eyes is not my job due to potential health and safety implications. He was quite unhappy with this at first but eventually understood and asked Robin if he would be willing to do the drops himself, which he said he was. The drops did not work very well as they came straight out as soon as Robin lowered his head, which was a nightmare when trying to film the shot. I suggested the use of a Kryolan Tear Stick, which I borrowed from the make-up studios but this failed to create enough of a tear to film a shot of a single tear rolling down his cheek. In the end a combination of the two produced a reasonably good result.

This was certainly one of the more stressful films that I have worked on as it was difficult working with a director who was quite indecisive and liable to change his mind at the last minute. This did at least improve my ability to adapt to situations quickly. I am very happy with the make-up as a whole and am looking forward to seeing the final edit of the film.

Cast and Crew

Screening and Feedback on 'No Place Like Home'

I was invited to the screening of the film production students' I & S films, for which I had worked on both 'No Place Like Home' and 'Needles and Pins'.

'Needles and Pins' was screened first and I was slightly disappointed to find that the grading that had been used in the final edit was very dark and this eradicated the detail of the faces so that any make-up work was unnoticeable. I was also surprised to discover that the only actor whose face was really visible throughout the film, was Shay's. Kirsten's face was barely featured, and when it was it was only very fleetingly and often from a strange angle.

Next was 'No Place Like Home' a title which I was unaware had been chosen prior to the screening. I was very happy with how the make-up had turned out in the initial shots where Robin is acting in the prison cell setting, however, I was horrified to see how the scar appeared on screen when he was in the bedroom setting. Although I had been working closely with Seth, the director of photography, during filming to check the make-up was appearing well on camera, I was not satisfied with how it eventually appeared on screen. Seth had mentioned on the day that the scar was appearing too shiny and was catching the light coming through the window in the bedroom scene and I had therefore applied a heavy layer of powder and checked through the camera lens myself until we were both happy. On screen, however, the scar was catching the light so much that I was struggling to focus on any other aspect of the shot. Although a make-up artist should never rely on other departments to cover up their shortcomings, I do feel that perhaps the brightness of the scar may have been partially down to the grading of the final edit as it had appeared much more matte when I looked through the camera lens on set.

Full version of the film available on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsuQSJpc5Hg&feature=youtu.be

Working with photographer, Kate Bosworth.

I was approached by Kate, who is a second year fine art photographer at the AUB to do the make-up for a shoot she was planning. Kate had been involved in a car accident a short while before the shoot and her photography tutor had thought that it might create some very hard hitting art if she was to attempt to recreate elements of the crash through photographs. Although Kate had some images of her car after the crash she had not taken any photos of her injuries as, although painful, they did not look particularly bad. She wanted to remain true to what had actually happened and not go too over dramatic with the make-up.



The most noticeable area of injury after the crash was along the neck, onto the collar bone, as this is where the seatbelt had cut into her at the moment of impact. This created some bruising in a distinctive straight line shape. Besides this the only areas that she felt might require a little make-up were around the eyes as she appeared very drawn and over-tired from the late night spent in the hospital after the crash.

I built up the bruising very gradually using a variety of different grease paint colours and got Kate to check in the mirror frequently to tell me when to stop when she felt that the bruising looked accurate to what she had had previously. Overall I think that we were both very pleased with how the photos came out.

A lecture with legendary make-up artist, Nick Dudman.

www.imdb.com

This was a lecture that I was especially looking forward to after having seen Nick Dudman's demonstration at IMATS last year where he applied the Professor Flitwick make-up from Harry Potter on actor, Warwick Davis in front of a live audience.

I was pleasantly surprised that Nick chose to speak not just of prosthetic make-ups like those for the goblins and Voldemort, but also of all the collaborations he had done over the years with the animatronics department to create the weird and wonderful creatures in all of the Harry Potter films such as dragons, hippogriffs and an 8 foot tall (to scale) giantess. I had always been aware of these types of creations within the film industry, however, it was interesting to know how much collaborative work had happened within the make-up department.

Nick spoke quite extensively on the effects of CGI on the make-up industry and the ways in which it affected his work on Harry Potter. I was surprised to learn that the decision to digitally remove Ralph Fiennes' nose for the Voldemort character was very last minute as they had previously been attempting to create the entire look using make-up and prosthetic pieces. Another interesting point that he made was about the impact that CGI has upon the actor, often more so than a large scale make-up would. With a make-up piece the actor can be given time to get used to how their face moves with it on and how easily they can act through it; how they portray emotions, etc. With CGI, especially in the case of Ralph Fiennes, a key feature on their face is being removed and they may have no idea how their facial expressions will read on screen without it.

Another fascinating element of the lecture was when Nick described the process that a make-up artist must go through if they are lucky enough to be nominated for an Oscar. It is a subject that I had never really researched into and was shocked at how much of a complicated process it appears to be. It was particularly interesting to discover that there is a nomination process with an audition section where the nominated artist must do a presentation, provide a show real of 'best bits' and answer a series of questions before they can even be an official nominee.

All in all this lecture proved to be one of the most insightful and exciting that I have ever attended.