themakeupgallery blog

There’s a number TV show formats being marketed or produced around the world that involve prosthetic makeup transformations either of celebrities or ‘ordinary’ volunteers and hidden camera techniques. They generally fall into one of two categories: the fakeover — usually celebrities in disguise and playing it for laughs; the in-your-shoes ‘investigation’ (volunteers become fat/blind/black for a day).

The shows include:

Anonymous — celebrity transformations played for laughs — originally showed in Ireland a couple of years ago with a second series last year. The format is now distributed by Eyeworks and local productions have broadcast in Spain (Anonimos) and Germany (Experiment Inkognito). Eyeworks publicity says that another ten options (including by Latin American, European and Asian companies) have been taken out, though at least one (Greece) is not being taken up. Channel 5 in the UK ran a couple of series of something similar as Celebrity Swaps, produced by the Flame Group, a few years ago.

The Big Experiment — in-your-shoes with a claimed serious value — showed in New Zealand and is now being marketed worldwide by Distraction. It has apparently been sold for production in France (TF1, as La grande expérience?), Italy and Belgium.

Black.White. — two families swap race, again it claimed to seriously challenge our perceptions. Originally produced by FX in the USA, there was a local production in France last year.

Does anyone have any information on local productions of any of these or similar shows?

Even better, if anyone worked on any of these shows, I’d love to feature some of the transformations in themakeupgallery (with credits and links to the artists website of course).

Thanks

update 20/02/2008: I understand that there are also ‘fakeover’ shows in Japan (TV Tokyo) and Korea (SBS): if anyone has information on or images from these, please let me know.

update 21/02/2008: there are a selection of before and after images from various fakeover shows at my MySpace site.

You won’t find her in the IMDb but she’s probably the most famous makeup artist in the UK today.

Somehow, whether through naivity or as a willing accomplice, she became involved in the UK’s biggest ever robbery; she spent two weeks working on prosthetic disguises for the robbers. She was charged as an accomplice but four months into the trial she switched sides, agreeing to turn Queen’s evidence and testify against her former co-defendants: in return the prosecution dropped all charges against her. Whatever her motive in doing so it must have taken a significant amount of bravery, knowing the viciousness of the gang.

On one level the story sounds like one of those caper movies involving elaborate disguises (eg The Million Dollar Rip-Off) and an ‘inside’ man. But on another, it was a brutal crime, where the wife and child of the Securitas depot manager were kidnapped and held at gunpoint to ensure his cooperation.

Whatever her role, Michelle Hogg is probably going to spend a long-time in hiding — not least because at least one suspected member of the gang got away along with a large part of the money. If anyone finds her, I’d guess she’s hoping it will be an agent looking to buy the rights to her story.

And as to the photo: I’d guess she’s using all her skills not to look like this.

I missed last year’s IMATS because of family health problems so it was good to be able to get there this year.

As always the keynotes were high quality: I mean Rick Baker, say no more. Though I have to admit that I missed him. When it came to the choice between spending a rare day with my grand-daughters or going back to Ally Pally, they won. 

In part at least they won because I came away from Saturday with an impression that IMATS had gone downhill from 2006:
1) I like Ally Pally but it’s a pain of a location. It is so remote from anything that it’s impractical to nip out to a cafe (or for some neurofen). The queue for food was so bad when I tried that I just decided to skip lunch and have a sandwich on the way home. At least it didn’t rain — the open Ally Pally station could have been truly miserable in January rain. And if I were female I’m not sure that it would be a platform I’d feel comfortable on after leaving the Afterglow on my own.
2) I had the impression of fewer exhibitors — carefully disguised by spreading the stands out. For instance Blasco and Blanche MacDonald weren’t there
3) there seemed to be less to keep you interested on the floor. For example Makeup Designatory had a stand but no demos as in previous years, and both Blasco and Blanche MacDonald had demos when they attended; even MAC had fewer bodypainting models than I remember. On Saturday I saw only one makeup involving prosthetics being done on the exhibtion floor; in both 2005 and 2006 I recall drifting back and forth between three or four prosthetic applications, as well as seeing someone applying pointed ears to visitors.

I worry that IMATS appears to have a very narrow base. I thought this was intended to be a European IMATS but although it has many attendees from all over Europe (I saw people from Sweden, France and Bulgaria amongst others), both students and established artists, the European (as opposed to UK) nature of the show is not reflected in the balance of educators, speakers, exhibitors, or in the museum. When I first went to IMATS I thought that its European nature would develop naturally or be encouraged over time — as far as I can see it’s stalled. I recall that the show used to be badged IMATS Europe rather than IMATS London — maybe that inclusive European ambition has died.  

Whatever, I find this worrying for the long-term health of IMATS. What is wrong with IMATS that schools like Hasso von Hugo don’t find it beneficial to attend? How come a European show is not featuring people like NomanslandFX, Atelier Rebele, Georg Korpas, DDT, Soda FX . . .Equally worryingly it’s support base in the UK seems narrow. Neill Gorton is a great supporter, and his demos are invariably brilliant and entertaining. But IMATS’s reliance on Neill is as much a weakness as his support is a strength. One does come away with the impression that if Neill Gorton broke his wrist IMATS would be f**ked. And how come HybridFX, Altered States, Aaron Sherman and the rest have never done a major demo that I can recall.But don’t get me wrong, I had a great time and I’ll be there again next year.

I’ll post my thoughts on IMATS in a day or so. In the meantime here are some pictures (click on the thumbnails to see them full size).

MAC Pro have a bodypainting display every year at IMATS, but was it just my imagination or did they have fewer models than in previous years?

Update 29/01/2008: There is now a series of images on this makeup at themakeupgallery.

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Neill Gorton is a regular supporter of IMATS and delivered another of his tremendous prosthetic makeup demonstrations this year. A young, pretty blue-eyed blonde became a weather-beaten elderly Chinese woman before our eyes: is this a normal employee-benefit at MillenniumFX? FangsFX provided those lovely teeth.

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Cliff Wallace told me he put the museum together in two days: some two days.

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Guy Louis-XVI of FuseFX teased us with a preview of this commissioned piece on the the Effects Lab.

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And, of course, the makeup schools were there.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has just announced the three nominations for the 8oth Academy Awards.

The nominees for Best Makeup are:
La Môme / La Vie en Rose
Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
Norbit
Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Ve Neill and Martin Samuel.

The Academy Awards ceremony will be held on 24 February — unless it goes the way of the Golden Globes.

Myself, I’d have voted for 300 in preference to Norbit for a nomination, but I am cheering for La Môme (and Marion Cotillard) for the award.

By the way it’s good to know the Razzies have made some excellent choices with lots of nominations for Eddie Murphy and Lindsay Lohan. Having just watched I Know Who Killed Me on DVD, I can only endorse their assessment of it as the ‘most fabulously brainless movie since Showgirls‘ and echo their request: ‘Can I please have my hour and 50 minutes back?’