Makeup and Prosthetics

The Makeup for our film

For our thriller we decided to research into makeup. I know a friend who studies makeup and special effects. She specialises in prosthetics and is amazing at doing fake cuts, and bruises which is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to use makeup on my face as we thought it would heighten the drama in our film, and make it easier to understand the situation of the opening sequence. Having stressed out makeup creates a more realistic atmosphere for the viewer. Making someone feel uncomfortable is a big part of a thriller genre, so to achieve that level of uncomfort we wanted to show signs of abuse. You can use makeup in so many ways, it can be used to create a large variety different looks. Makeup can be make a scene more traumatic, and scary for the audience.

We used:

• Mascara - In our opening sequence, Love has been kidnapped, so, wanted to show her fear and vulnerability through tears, or in this case dried out tears. Conventionally in thriller movies, or any form of a sad movie, when a girl is crying, it is shown to viewers through wet black mascara under her eyes, implying that she cried. We decided to put mascara on my eyes, and rub them a tiny bit so it gave the effect of me being upset. We tried this multiple times until it looked realistic and perfect, because a couple times it turned out a bit to dramatic. 
• Eye shadow, Fake Blood, and Sponge - to make it look like Love struggled a bit while being kidnapped we added some fake blood and a bruise to her forehead. We asked my friend and she showed me how to create a fake bruise/cut, in a very simple way. What I did was I got a purple and brown eye shadow pallet, and used the sponge to dab a bit onto my head, this created a bruise and looked like I had been hit. However we didn't stop there, as we thought if we left it as is, then it wouldn't look dramatic enough. We went a step further and decided to add (fake) blood, to make the wound look fresh and extra gory. 

I think makeup is an essetial part of a movie, especially in horror films, because it allows for visual effects to be added to a person, without having to actually hurt/do what the special effect is meant look like to them.