THE GLOBE HALLOWEEN EVENT

 

                                                   THE GLOBE HALLOWEEN EVENT 

The actors for stage and screen are putting on a Halloween tour at The Globe theatre in Stockton and have asked if the makeup students will be able to create the makeup looks for this event. The will be an amazing experience for all involved. We dont know much about this yet so other than it is a Halloween tour around the theatre, there is no script as of yet and characters are still unknown at this point. All the MUA's including myself where really eager to get started. We started brainstorming the sort of characters you think of when you think Halloween such as Zombies, Clowns, Ghosts etc.. We where all excited to put our special effects skills to work.

The next time we spoke to the director we got a little bit more about her vision for the tour, she didn't want your typical Halloween characters she still wanted it to be educational and relating to theatre, so she had arranged for all the actors and MUA's to be able to go on a tour of the Globe and learn a bit about the history of the place since the building has been apart of Stockton since 1913! The building was not always a theatre but in a building over 100 years old there was bound to be a lot of stories we can bring to life.

MONDAY 3RD OCTOBER 

This week we went to The Globe theatre we spilt into two smaller groups since there was 50 of us all together. One group went to speak to three gentlemen who knew everything about The Globe and its history, while the other group got to have a guided tour around the building to hopefully inspire everyone into some characters or places to hide or use for the tour. My group went first with the three gentlemen who filled our heads with information on when the globe first opened, the type of acts that had been on, accidents that had happened, what other things the building had been used for then all about its reopening. These gentlemen where so helpful they even showed us a copy of a book (the actual book is kept in a museum) that had been kept recording all the acts that had ever performed at the theatre from 1913 up until it closed its doors for the first time. The second part of the tour was our own tour around the theatre showing us rooms we can use places we could hide, getting all our minds ticking over as to what characters could be where. Once finishing the tour us we had a lot to thing about but overall we needed to wait for the director to give us the go ahead of the characters she would be using for the tour so we could get to planning! 

The next day we brainstormed as a group about some character we think would be good for the show and started to mood board and face chart some of these looks, i decided to go for a ballet dancer as these have performed at the theatre when it was first opened so in my head I had a picture of an old fashioned ballet dancer getting ready in one of the dressing rooms of course with a twist, others had characters such as, animal attack, Macbeth's witches, clowns etc. Once we had some ideas could bring these to the director and find out her thought on them all. 

After this I then had two weeks off college due to medical reasons, so once back i was eager to get straight back to work and find out everything i had missed. I found we had a finally list of characters that would be in the show, there was now a script for the show and we knew some of the cast that would be playing these characters. 

This was also our last week at college to get everything sorted for the show as then it was half term and we would be straight to The Globe on Sunday 30th October ready for the first live tour. 

This was my initial mood board and I knew exactly how I pictured this look to be in my head so I got straight onto making a face chart for the character.

There had been no makeup practice done so far, characters still needed creating with face charts also.

 

I found out that my character the ballet dancer was kept in the show so I decided to get straight to work and practice the look to see if I would get the pay off I was hoping for. I was happy with how this character turned out I think by using the grey scale it helped to make the blood stand out that bit more. While I was creating this look we had someone come around a film while I was applying the makeup so that they could use the footage to help promote the event. 

Once finished with the look I made sure I went to show the director and also the actor who would be playing this character on the live tours, the director wanted the dancer to have bloody feet/shoes so we got to work on bloodying an old pair of the actors ballet shoes up, yes the actor agreed to this 🙈

I love how they turned out, I think they will really add to the characters appearance.  

     Once I knew everyone was happy with the outcome of this character, I started to see what else needed to be done. The schedule had been completed while I was creating the ballet dancers makeup and I have been put down to create one of the tour guilds makeup looks which would include facial hair. 

Then as a group the second years would have to create the Witches as the first years hadn't going round to using other special effects products yet. I decided to have a look as what was planned for the witches as with me being off I hadn't been apart of this process. The original plan was to give these characters bald caps but as these hadn't been made yet it was decided that this would be something that had to be changed.

I found the mood boards for the witches and a first chart that had been done, but it didn't seem to say Witch to me so I decided to have a play about myself and try and create something different more suited for Halloween.  

 

These are the mood boards I took inspiration from to create my Witch face chart, making sure i still tried to use other peoples ideas for the final design.

       Once I had my face chart created I asked one of my other MUA's to help out in creating the look. I used liquid latex to make the skin appear older and used foundation straight over the top without caster oil so that it would leave the skin with a stone like texture to it, As I was off when we got shown how to work with 3rd degree I asked Libby (the other MUA working with me) to show me how to create the boils and apply them. Libby worked on the boils and I worked on creating the rest of the look. 

I then helped Libby out in creating her characters hairstyle while she was finishing her look off as the actor was waiting to be filmed so they could promote the event. Libby's character was a beauty queen so it was only right she had a beautiful hairstyle to match!

 This is one of the Tour Guide brothers Charles, I was told this was a character I would be creating on the night, turns out somewhere along the line there was some confusion and I will be doing a different makeup and its actually one of the first years creating this look. Myself and Libby both decided to still go ahead and create the character as the first year wasn't sure on how to achieve this desired look so watched over us both while we created it. I got to work on the facial hair, I normally wouldn't create a moustache this way but wanted to see if it would work for quickness on the night. I think it would have been better if i had applied the moustache the way I normally would then styled it once applied to the face. 

This was all the practice done until show time!

There were two show nights at The Globe Theatre which I was scheduled to attend the second day. I arrived at the theatre at 12 o'clock ready to get set up and get started with the makeup. Once set up the other MUA's court me up with everything that I needed to know such as things that had been changed the previous night or things that needed to be changed this night. I found that it wasn't so much go by schedule as it was just go with the flow as we had different actors available at different times, this is sometime I've come to be use to when previously working on productions we have to be flexible and work around the actors were possible.

The witches were the first of the actors to be available, the group of MUA's that where in the day before had stated that latex wouldn't be needed to create the look now as they couldn't see a difference from the night before when they hadn't used the latex. I disagreed with this as I believe it helps make them look different (Stoney look to the skin) and as a lot of the actors also had pale skin it helped to split the characters. As a group we decided to only use a little of latex on the face and not all over as previously designed and practiced. Myself and Libby got straight to work creating the look for one of the actors. 

I don't quiet know what it was with this Witch character but I wasn't getting the same witchy vibes I got when we practiced this makeup look, I felt I was feeling more clown like character than I was Witch. Everyone else was happy with the outcome and once she was taking to costume and on stage the look did work overall that was all that matters. 

While I was completing the Witch makeup my Ballerina actor was waiting for her makeup to be applied and as we had other MUA's waiting for actors to come I asked one of the others if she would like to take over that look so the actor wouldn't be having to wait around longer than necessary as they still had costumes and more reversals to be doing as well.

As Kaitlyn (the MUA now creating this look) had not practiced this look she was a bit nervous and asked me for help towards the end of the look creating the bruising and head wounds.  Overall I think she got the desired look as the cuts where bigger and more blood which the directed had noted this day that if we could push the looks further then to go for it the bigger the better. Once all the makeup looks were created we got to be a practice audience for the finally dress rehearsal which was great as we had no idea about any of the tour other than the characters we had to create. It was also great to get to see how the makeup looks worked either up close or on stage or hidden places depending on how there characters would appear. 

Happy Halloween Everyone!