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