makeup around the world: India

Rakhi Sawant (fakeover by Nahush)

Although there is a massive movie industry — maybe it would be more accurate to say that there are massive film industries, eg Tollywood and Kollywood as well as Bollywood — in India, I have found very few movie makeup artists’ websites. This may reflect an absence of such sides or simply that they are invisible to me because of my inability to find them if they do not have an English version (or use English keywords); I’m inclined to the former view because I can find a clutch of bridal and beauty makeup websites and blogs — but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

These are the most interesting ones I’ve found:

Nahush Pise: Nahush Pise trained as a makeup artist in Los Angeles and is based in Mumbai. He has worked on Chandni Chowk to China, Black, the prosthetics extravaganza Dhoom 2, and most recently the ‘fakeover’ Show Arre Deewano Mujhe Pehchano.

Vidyadhar Bhatte [29/08/2009: link dead]: Vidyadhar Bhatte is a veteran Indian makeup artist who started as an assistant to Pandhari Juker. He has worked on such movies as Parineeta and has recently been in the news for creating Shilpa Shetty’s — as yet unseen — bald look for the Indo-Chinese project Desire. Images of his work can also be seen at the Sheer Cosmetics website.

If anyone can point at other Indian movie makeup artist websites, please use the comments to tell me about them.

looking forward to . . .

Ah a new year and so much to look forward to on the screen . . .

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: nuff said. 

Synecdoche, New York:  this sounds insane and it has some incredible makeup — Mike Marino was kind enough to send me some high-resolution images of old-age makeups on Jennifer Jason Leigh  and Samantha Morton, and those nice people at Temptu made my mouth water telling me about a fake-tattoo makeup that took two days to apply!

The Dust of Time: I loved The Weeping Meadow so I can’t wait for the next instalment of Eleni’s story, and I’ve seen some superb work that Vittorio Sodano has done on Irène Jacob and Valeria Golino.

Grey Gardens: I’ll watch anything with Jessica Lange — I’ve only seeen a YouTube-quality promo but that looks to be quite some transformation from Bill Corso.

Ne te retourne pas: I only know a little about this Marina de Van movie but that sounds intriging — Sophie Marceau apparently gradually transforms into Monica Bellucci.

Mr Nobody: in the near future, at 120 years-old, the last mortal relives his real and imaginary years of marriage — so where does the neanderthal makeup come in? Twilight Creations did the special makeup effects and prosthetics for Jared Leto and Sarah Polley.

Cirque du Freak: so we’ve all seen the images of a full-bearded Salma Hayek and our kids enjoyed the book but there’s so much more — from what I’ve seen, Amalgamated Dynamics seem to have been having fun with all those circus freaks.

Star Trek: so can JJ Abrams breathe new life into a very tired franchise? Even if he can’t there’s going to be some great makeups — there are just so many talented people working with Barney Burman on those aliens.

Dorian Gray: is it really over sixty years since we had a movie adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray?

The Reader: both the novel and its leading character left me cold, still those pictures of Kate Winslet as the older Hanna look interesting. 

Anonymous: okay its the fourth series and RTE were already dredging the celebrity barrel last year but I’m a sucker for ‘fakeovers’ and I love those Hybrid FX makups. 

One of the Boys: gives ‘women a once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a man’, with a lot of help from Neill Gorton.

Margaret: I thought Andrea Riseborough captured the not-yet-Milk-Snatcher  wonderfully in Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley so it will be fun to see Lindsay Duncan tackle the broken-by-the-Poll-Tax version.

The Danish Girl: okay, so we’re not going to see it this year and I happen to think that Nicole Kidman has an amazingly disengaging presence on screen — maybe it’s me, but I just cannot bring myself to care about any of the characters she plays — but I’m still hoping to learn more about this movie, and particularly about the extent of her transformation, during this year.

And its only three weeks to IMATS London!

Meanwhile the first update of 2009 to themakeupgallery should be online in a couple of days.

PS 07/01/2009: I would have included Watchmen but, sadly, in view of the latest legal news there doesn’t seem much point.

PPS 17/01/2009: The Watchmen dispute has been settled:

Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox have resolved their dispute regarding the rights to the upcoming motion picture Watchmen in a confidential settlement. Warner Bros acknowledges that Fox acted in good faith in bringing its claims, which were asserted prior to the start of principal photography. Fox acknowledges that Warner Bros acted in good faith in defending against those claims. Warner Bros and Fox, like all Watchmen fans, look forward with great anticipation to this film’s March 6 release in theatres.

And it’s only one week to IMATS!

‘fakeover’ & ‘in-my-shoes’ TV shows

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.

Experiment Inkognito

I’ve got a soft spot for celebrity fakeover shows, so I’m looking forward to Experiment Inkognito the latest version of the Anonymous format distributed internationally by Eyeworks. In the first episode Jeanette Biedermann undergoes a radical transformation with a lot of help from Robert Rebele.

There have already been shows in Ireland (Anonymous) and Spain (Anónimos) and there is apparently a Romanian version airing (on Direct Target?); Greek, Brazilian, Mexican, French and Norwegian versions are in the pipeline. If anyone has any information on — or better still, images from — any of these, please get in touch.

I’m far less keen — they generally make me cringe — on those ‘walk in my shoes’ reality TV shows that claim some serious agenda, but the makeups are interesting. So if anyone has information on versions of The Big Experiment format that originated in New Zealand and particularly on the forthcoming French version (to be called La Grande Expérience I believe), I’d like to hear about them too. 

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

fakeovers

All those undercover TV investigations (claiming serious intent and educational value) usually make me cringe. It’s not just the blackface as in Black.White. or Dans la peau d’un noir but the whole idea that a skinny TV presenter like Vanessa Minnillo can tell us what it feels like to be fat after a day in a fat-suit. Think about it; it makes as much sense as asking [a dumbed-down] Anthony Hopkins for serious insights into cannibalism.

But these celebrity fakeover shows are different. Maybe it’s just because they’re more honest — simply playing it for laughs. Maybe it’s watching a D-list celebrity making a complete arse of herself. Maybe it’s the result of watching too many caper movies, and too much Candid Camera when I was a kid. Whatever, I enjoy fakeover shows.

And the makeups are great: Celebrity Swaps on Channel 5 UK  by Neill Gorton & Vanessa White; Anonymous on Ireland’s RTÉ  by HybridFX;  テレビ東京, the recent Japanese show, by Make-up Dimensions; and now Anónimos on Spain’s La Sexta by Plan 9 FX.

This is one aspect of globilisation which I can endorse.

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