make me up, make me down

I love my crew. I keep saying it, and everybody wants to know why. So I’ll tell you, one blog at a time. 

Today, it’s all about makeup. Which ought to be called make-down, because that was the challenge for department head Sian Leigh – to transform the very healthy-looking, rosy-cheeked, porcelain-skinned dropdead beauty that is Lauren McQueen into a young woman devastated by anorexia. Yikes! Taming Donald Trump’s hair (and mouth) would be easier.
                                    What challenge would you rather face?
                     Make her ugly                                               Make him pretty

Here’s why I love Sian. The first time we spoke, with just a few days to prepare for that initial conversation, she’d clearly stayed up nights thinking about the challenges, and she had a plan. It was multi-faceted, but part of it involved ordering some kind of makeup called a death palette. Oy.

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​Sian was fully committed. She cared so much about the film and so much about how the actors appeared. I think she felt actual physical pain if Lauren didn’t look perfectly ravaged in the monitor.  

Sian with Lauren McQueen and Shelagh McLeod

The anorexia in the story progressed, but we shot scenes out of order, so Sian had to know at all times exactly how destroyed Lauren should appear. She had to be ready to wipe off or punch up makeup at any moment.  And because we shot in a lot of rain, she had to keep her face from melting.

And there was more. This is, after all, a ghost story. There was special effects makeup. There was hair – especially harnessing the unruly curls of Brendan and Sean.  There was catching Brendan and pinning him down to do his hair​.

Luckily, Sian had Alice Harman assisting her, and Alice was talented and unflappable. We had a full-speed-ahead schedule – for football fans, the equivalent of a hurry-up offence. There was no time for panic and less time for mistakes. Alice was a calming force for all of us, coolly getting the job done while tornadoes raged around her. Movie sets need more Alices.

Sian and Alice did a phenomenal job in demanding circumstances. Equally important, they were just nice people, fun to have around, easy to love. And we do.