What Kind Of Makeup To Wear Horror Film

Inappreciably a movie is made today, whether a depression-upkeep indie or big studio feature, without the incorporation of some level of digital visual effects.

It sometimes seems like anything described in a screenplay tin be realized with computer-generated imagery. All of which begs the 21^st century question: Is motion picture makeup still relevant, even in the horror genre? Should indie moviemakers still employ special makeup effects, considering the ease and speed of CGI?

In short, yes, says Vincent Guastini, who'southward spent more than 20 years working the panoply of makeup furnishings in L.A. and New York. Now, he has branched out into producing and directing horror films, for which he continues to produce his own effects. "Applied creature effects look existent because they are existent. CG is a crapshoot."

CGI Isn't the Enemy

First things first, though: If a moviemaker has the resources to knock computer-generated effects out of the park, Guastini fully endorses their use in a genre picture show, alongside applied makeup and creature design. Remember, "CG or practical" is a false dichotomy.

"If it's engaging and real, that makes for beautiful filmmaking, an fine art piece coming to life," Guastini says. "When digital and practical furnishings are done well in tandem, similar in Jurassic Park, it can be wonderful."

Don't put the cart earlier the horse, though: "Brand sure story is number one." Also, hire the best yous can. "For practical effects, hire somebody that's really talented and knows what they are doing." That's equally important with CG. "Effects better look good if they are CG."

A still from Vincent Guastini and Michael McQuown'south The Dark Tapes anthology film

Makeup as Acting Assist

For Bill Corso, an award-winning artisan for over 25 years, in that location'south magic in having makeup or fauna effects present on the set during principal photography. "There's something so viable and tangible most putting an actor in a chair and makeup beingness applied," he says. "A transformation of self happens. Sometimes the only way for actors to get into a role is to look at themselves in the mirror."

Corso has, in fact, developed a technique past which makeup shot practically can take an additional digital element, allowing for the consistency of the same artist working on the entire breadth of a graphic symbol. Withal, he says at that place is no replacing an histrion sitting in a makeup chair, devising a character right there on the spot.

Example in indicate: Corso won an Oscar for his makeup in 2004's Lemony Snicket's A Serial of Unfortunate Events, for which Jim Carrey's principal character, Count Olaf, was adult after a plethora of makeup and hair tests. "He refined who that was," says Corso of Carrey, noting that each examination informed who Olaf would be. Once, in a careful collaboration between the 2, a new graphic symbol was borne out of thin air the day before a scene was scheduled to be shot.

"Wearing the looks, he came upward with a new character. That would never happen if nosotros had done everything in post-production—that's after the fact," says Corso. "Even visual furnishings artists will tell y'all that the more practical a base you accept, the more fascinating it is to watch. You tin can't wait at an old-fashioned practical makeup effect, created live, and not care. Nothing is meliorate than having something practical."

Anyone tin can Makeup

Tertiary-generation makeup legacy Rob Burman has been around makeup, monsters and prosthetics all his life: His begetter Tom had a 40-year career as a makeup artist and his grandfather Ellis created prophylactic appliances for Jack Pierce as early as the 1940s.

"I'm pretty good at a lot of different things," he says. "I'm a craftsman who fits in wherever I demand to be." And more and more than monster craftspeople of today, he believes, are mastering a do-everything-yourself philosophy, proving that whatsoever moviemaker with a volition tin larn some cardinal techniques of makeup.

If effects schools and books aren't a viable option for you, Burman recommends practiced, quondam-fashioned fooling around. "Start training yourself with over-the-counter RubberWear [a generic prosthetic appliance]," he says. "Get yourself a makeup kit that you tin can piece of work with. You lot'll spend $500-1,000 putting together a basic makeup kit, just once you lot do, you tin can play all the time. Don't be afraid to try everything. Do it every twenty-four hours for a year."

His preferred prosthetic material for contained films—and in that location are many options, including foam latex, silicone and others—is gelatin. "For low-upkeep stuff, larn gelatin as a textile to plough somebody into a zombie. Heat up some of the gelatin materials made with glycerin—I did it in high school in my lawn. That, and a greasepaint palette, and y'all tin do anything."

Nib Corso and Jim Carrey on the set of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Courtesy of Pecker Corso

Know Your Sources

So what can the ultra-low-upkeep moviemaker conjure with makeup effects, without the reward of professional artists and the breadth of the entire prosthetic fabrication process? For i, inexpensive materials can be purchased from a variety of stores which cater to professionals and upcoming talents alike—items including baldcaps, generic prosthetics, and prosumer makeup materials and colors. RubberWear, for example, articles generic appliances in the class of prosthetic cream latex pieces. These can be practical to actors to create everything from scars to broken noses to various alterations in performers' heads and bodies. At Naimie'due south, a hair and makeup pro shop in Due north Hollywood, and Movie theater Secrets Pro Cosmetics in nearby Burbank, y'all can access a host of bones materials to enhance the palette of creature characters.

Elementary Ideas for Applied Effects

Nascent creative person Justin Head, making films at The Art Constitute of California, fabricated scars to be practical to an extra for his senior-level film, Renaissance, out of consumer-grade toilet paper and liquid latex from Costume Castle in Orange County. Additional scars were created with collodion, an older material which shrinks the skin when practical.

Team fellow member John Aviles aged an extra from twenty to 80 by applying basic consumer makeup—brown foam foundation and bits of powder—to accentuate existing lines on her face and add new wrinkles. The finishing touch was powdering her wig to accept the smooth off the wig itself.

Head learned the trade past watching documentaries on how effects were accomplished on classic Universal Pictures' monster movies. Attempting a Wolf Homo-esque hairy facial makeup for a short film, he purchased standard pieces of crepe pilus in a strand, each rolled upwardly into little assurance. He wet the pilus and strung it out for a day over a hook or towel rack.

The next day, applying the hair to an actor'south face up took him four hours of conscientious attending to detail. "I would take a strand and stretch information technology out for the full range. [So I] put spirit mucilage at each base—chin, lip area, moustache." Another classic material, spirit glue has been used for decades in Hollywood as a ways of adhering prosthetics, hair and other elements to actors' skin. The finishing bear upon was a wig. With multiple werewolf days on the schedule, Head was able to finesse the procedure downwardly to 2 hours with repetition.

Caput manages to produce effective looks with materials as crude as cardboard, Mortician'southward wax, industrial grade syringes and bootleg fake claret ("My preference for blood is the classic: corn syrup mixed with chocolate syrup, milk and cherry-red food dye.") Bruises? Easy—he just mixes blue, imperial and red foam foundation under a grapheme'southward eyes and cheeks. His results, though cheap, deliver fully on camera.

Voilà—moviemaking hyphenates tin easily perfect very simple techniques—for results that, certain, might not agree up under lengthy close-ups, but can serve a horror film in a highly functional style.

Bridging the Uncanny Valley

Makeup, rubber-oriented monsters, all those techniques of yore are likely to remain for the foreseeable future of movies of every calibration. Information technology's a process inside moviemaking that, put just, works. And audiences, for their parts, seem unwilling to accept the total artifice of digital conventions—wait at the relative disenchantment that faced Robert Zemeckis' performance-captured Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Ballad. It seems that the collaboration betwixt practical and digital effects will go on—at least until the advent of moviemaking's adjacent, unimaginable leap. MM

This article appears in MovieMaker's Fall 2015 issue.

Source: https://www.moviemaker.com/practical-makeup-horror-movie/

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