All About Film & Television

The purpose of our film class is to cover techniques for HD camera makeups and to go over out of kit effects, when you need a quick scrape, cut or bruise, or when there is a limited budget for prosthetics. Let me take you on a tour of my last few weeks!

First we covered some basics;  bruises, cuts, and scratches. Here is some of my first attempts..

 
Next we worked with burns!

That weekend I worked almost every waking hour…seriously. Making mad cash yo.
On Monday we drafted tattoo designs and applied them, the fun thing about this was that I can actually see my self getting this tattoo…but you know, by a professional haha.

I tried to make the second image look like a fresh tattoo with skin irritation and the shine that fresh tattoos tend to have. The third one is supposed to look like a tattoo that has healed already.

Afterwards it got chilly in class, and we all got serious frostbite.

Then things got a little…hairy…

I just want to remind viewers the above picture is of a female model…who does not normally have facial hair : P

The very next morning this giant bug almost gave me a heart attack when I walked into my bathroom to find this guy waiting for me…uninvited. It has been ranked second on my “Most terrifying experiences in Toronto” list. That day in class we applied glatzan baldcaps.

Friday rolled around and we had zombie day! Mine needs a little work before I get hired onto The Walking Dead, but dont worry I’ll get it down.

After class my friend and I went to Greek town and did a Paint Night. Basically you go, they give you a canvas, paint, paintbrushes, and an apron. You order drinks and have a good time with your friends while the instructor leads you step by step to a complete painting! I highly recommend this to any level of painter, you have a great time with friends, your guaranteed a finished painting, and you get to take it home! I suggest looking for groupons or other discounts because full price is a little expensive – and don’t wear clothing you care about getting dirty because the paint probably wont wash out of your clothes.

The fun sorta ended when I had to work the rest of the weekend…uhg adult responsibilities…why?

Remember last time I told you about a fun project? For class we had to design and present the progression of a made up disease! A lot of people did insect bites etc, I created a parasite that lives in raw fish, once infected the host slowly starts turning into a half fish half human creature…nothing like a mermaid, I swear lol.

The next couple of days were pretty uneventful, we had one day of presenting projects, then a couple days practicing and preparing for our trade exam. The trade exam is basically all of our previous practical exams mashed into one intense day of testing. Our poor models had to undergo 6 different makeups in one day, ouch!

So friday rolled around again and it was trade exam day, for the most part it went well, I stayed within my time limits etc, except for the theatre portion I feel I could have been a little more prepared.

Over the weekend I studied for our written exam, and worked on my face charts for the photo shoot. I also found some fun Halloween decorations (buy one get one free) at Michael’s.

Monday we had all day to practice our photo shoot looks, I am really liking the progress I have made making injuries.

Tuesday we had the longest written exam I’ve had at CMU….then more practice for the photo shoot. Wednesday was more of the same thing, practice, practice, practice.

Bringing us to today, the photo shoot. Wow, what an intense day of make up. I was a bit nervous because I wanted every thing to look great, I think every thing turned out well so I guess I had nothing to worry about!  

After all that I am exhausted, I’ve had three coffees in 5 hours and I could still fall asleep at a moments notice lol. Tomorrow is the last day of film class, I’m going to miss all the fun but our next class, Prosthetics should be spectacular and I can’t wait to start!

Our instructor for film and prosthetics is none other than Ian Morse, he has worked with Steven Spielberg 4 times and worked on some of my favorite movies including (my all time fav) 28 Days Later AND 28 Weeks Later, Fury, and War Horse. I am so star struck! Here is a little some thing he has been working on for an upcoming trade show. Shhh don’t tell them it was me >.>

Exams And Photo Shoots

I guess its been some time since my last update.

In class we covered more decade looks, one day we had a high school class come to the campus for a tour, part of the tour included getting their makeup done by us…it was kind of fun working on people outside our classroom. Later that week we had a random call to our classroom, our instructor told us there was an ice cream truck outside and we should all go get some…best day I’ve had at any school, and that ice cream man probably made a fortune off of us!

The next day was a monuments day! The outermost layer of my injured finger fell off, revealing that the severed piece of my finger has in fact reattached itself despite 2 doctors telling me it wouldn’t, there is a fresh and healthy layer of skin over the entire area!! I’m so relieved its finally healed and I can stop worrying about it, move on and start using it normally! 

The first week of June we started preparing for our final exams, we are required to do a written test, two photos shoots and a practical exam. For the most part we spent our time practicing the looks we wanted to do for the photoshoots, so it was a pretty relaxed week. On friday I went to another of Bobbi’s productions, I had a really good time. There were 4 different shows, each in a different area of the theatre, I’ve never been to a show like that before.   

Then Tuesday happened…Call time was 8:30 and my model was late, she also had dirty hair and had been up all night and was falling asleep in my chair. We had two hours to do hair and makeup, that 2 hours felt like 5 mins, then we take the model to the photo room where they get 60 frames infront of the camera. That flew by in the blink of an eye. After, we had time to clean our stations, find our second model and start all over again. We were on our feet all day, and by the end of it all I was exhausted, completely drained. But it didn’t end there! We had a research paper due Thursday that I had to finish : (

Friday rolled around and it was time for the practical exam, there were two parts, first we had an hour to apply one of the decade makeups, and the second part we had 45 min to apply a day look. Each look was randomly assigned to us and we had to provide our own models. A coworker of mine offered to come in for me which was awesome since I don’t really know any one else in the city that would do that. I wasn’t nervous for this exam at all, I think the massive amounts of stress from the photo shoots drained me to the point where nothing really bothered me…I was just ready for the exams to be over. In the end I think all three exams went really well. We got the results of our written test back but we wont get the photos back for about 4 weeks, we might find out how we did on the practical in a week or so.

I was assigned 40’s for my decade look…

And this was my day look.
Next week we begin our class on wig knotting, I think its also called ventilating, where you hand craft hair pieces. In class we will be making a moustache or beard, but this is also how you make wigs etc. Apparently its very repetitive, time consuming and tedious…Sounds like my kind of hobby (seriously).

In my hair class I included a picture of my kit, in Fashion we had like three dozen things at our stations but here’s a look at it.

On my station I have my face prep stuff; make up remover, face cleanser, toner, moisturizer, sanitiztion; brush cleaner, hand sanitizer, 99% alcohol, disposables; mascara wands, sponges, q-tips, tissues, paper towel, my brushs and make up. We recieved foundations, concealers, setting powders, an eyeshadow palette, a blush palette, lip palette, contours and highlights, individual and strip lashes, mascara, clear brow gel, clear lip gloss, brow/lip/eye pencils and some little things including pencil sharpener, cuticle scissors, tweezers, eyelash glue, spatula and mixing palette, powder puffs, and a CMU embroidered cape. In my drawer is mostly my hair kit and my textbook/notebook. Underneith is where I keep my airbrush and compressor.

Its up to the individual howQ

you want to organize your station so every one has it a little different, some are more organized than otheres…qThere is a table in the centre of the class with extra makeup including cream foundations, powder pigments, a variety of pressed eyeshadows, lipsticks, lipglosses, and pencils. So if you need a color that is not at your station you can always use the class supply. We are also permitted to bring in any thing we feel appropriate, some girls have make up palettes from MAC etc, I found it useful to have makeup removing face wipes, breath mints, hand lotion, lip balm, and little cleaning dishes for my brushes.

This is something I found floating around facebook, I’ll try to find the link, I thought it was an incredible example of what makeup can do, it’s not about covering up the real you, I’m usually not wearing any makeup at all. I just want to show it can do so much and create great effects, if this is what you can do with beauty makeup I cannot wait to learn special effects!!