Social media's other (cooler!) makeup artists: women who specialize in gory sfx

[doctorow]

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/19/great-and-gross.html

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[marence]

I work at a charity haunted house that prides itself on doing “Hollywood-style SPFX makeup” (that’s been a tagline since the group started in the 80s). When I started there in the 90s, it was almost all boys and men doing the really good makeup effects, and I had to learn by sitting near them & watching what they did in the mirrors. The perception was that guys did horror makeup, and girls did the pretty stuff. Winning SPFX makeup contests at local conventions showed them otherwise, eventually.
Many of the talented teens we’re getting now have skill levels far beyond what the older members came in with, because of YouTube and other social media. The problem they run into is that although the makeup they learned from the Internet looks cool, it doesn’t always stand up to 4 hours of acting.
We’ve also gone from having a few females in a group of almost all males to about a 50-50 split. Having a female member of our group on Face-Off brought in more girls; the next year one of our guys was on it, and we got more boys. This year, we’ve got another woman on Face-Off, so I expect to see more female volunteers this Halloween season.

[SavageChef]

They want to do SFX, but they don’t know who Rick Baker is? I am confused.

[gfish]

I’m glad you took the time to remind us that traditionally feminine interests and activities are uncool.

[Nightflyer]

I think it’s pointing out how more women are participating in an arena that is stereotyped as only of interest to males. (“Silly, girls don’t like horror/science fiction/fantasy/comic books!”)

Signed, a girl woman who likes loves horror, science fiction, fantasy, and comic books.

[NickyG]

Can we get a trigger-warning for these types of images, maybe put them behind the link? I am deeply troubled by… zombies.

[Israel_B]

@doctorow

“I notice a lot of young women want to do gore, they have these images online, but they don’t know the history of effects,” Breault says, who notes that many women coming into the field tend to see special effects as a simple extension of beauty makeup. “They need to look deeper than Instagram, they need to be consumed. Not one girl in my class knew who Rick Baker was and that was sad to me, because if you don’t know makeup’s past you can’t move forward.”

Pretty generally true of many younguns regardless of their sex and regardless of the area of trade knowledge.

[weekendlites]

In Seattle area the women far outnumber the men when it comes to horror and SFX makeup

At least in my experience and as a gaffer in a small market like Seattle I have done a lot of horror

[marence]

An American Werewolf in London is why I started doing horror makeup.

They tell me kids today learn about special effects makeup from YouTube and Instagram, not cable TV.