Forming a make-up team

Charlie had suggested that for the quantity and scale of make-ups that he wanted created, a team of 5 make-up artists would be suitable. He mentioned that because of the accommodation situation whilst filming on location this would be the maximum number of people I could use. I struggled at first with the decision of who to ask to be a part of my team.

I had read an article in Make-up Artist Magazine by the editor, Michael Key, that spoke of the responsibilities of a make-up designer when recruiting a team. The advice in this article that was most poignant to me was this;

'RECRUIT THE BEST PEOPLE POSSIBLE TO BE ON YOUR TEAM.
Don't hire people who are less talented than you are just to make you look like the most gifted person in the room. This one-chief-the-rest-are-Indians approach will undermine confidence in your team. Strive to find people who are as good as or better than you are. It is a challenge to lead people who are more talented, but as long as they're loyal, you'll accomplish great things and win the respect of others.'

With this advice in mind I decided to approach Paige Wilkey to see if she would be interested in being part of the production. In the first term I had witnessed first hand Paige's increasing confidence and skills in the area of prosthetics and knew that she would be a vital asset to the team. Being a good friend of mine and having worked together on collaborative work experiences previously also meant that I had the upmost confidence in our ability to work well as a team. Paige was equally as excited as I had been at the prospect of working on a 'Lord of the Rings' inspired film and instantly agreed to become the second member of the team.

The decision regarding the other 3 make-up artists proved to be slightly more difficult. I wanted somebody who showed great enthusiasm for prosthetic make-up and would therefore remain motivated and reliable over the 6 month period leading up to the scheduled filming dates.

In order to maintain a level of continuity throughout all of the characters; both human and orc, they all needed to be designed by the same person/people. Having 5 different people designing and making the prosthetics would not achieve this level of continuity, in my opinion. I felt that with Paige on board we could tackle the amount of design and production work between the 2 of us pre-production, however, during the filming stages the larger team would be necessary for application, final checks on set, maintenance of equipment and supplies, etc.

I felt that, although level 5 students would be appreciative of the opportunity to work on a larger scale film such as this, they may feel slightly undermined to be working at what could be termed 'assistant' level. Michael Key also comments on this in the article mentioned earlier, saying;

'NEVER REFER TO THE ARTISTS YOU HIRE AS ASSISTANTS.

...in the Hollywood community, you refer to fellow artists as coworkers or colleagues, but never assistants. One of the reasons for this is that it's common for two friends to interview for the same job. Whoever gets hired to be the department head may hire the other to be the second. On the next gig it could be the other way around.'

With this is mind, I decided against asking anybody from my level of the course and instead decided to approach some of the level 4 students. One of my disappointments from my time studying at level 4 was that I was never given the opportunity to work with and learn from more experienced students. I felt that students at level 4 would be able to be taught the same application process and adapt well to the environment of working as part of a team with a designer and supervisor. It was crucial, however, to seek out students who would benefit most from the experience; those who had expressed the most interest in this area of industry.