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.
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