ABSTRACT

In film and television, makeup is often used as a tool to provide context to a character's circumstance or the era the action is set. In this chapter, Christine Sciortino outlines the importance of understanding a character's environment and how it has everything to do with your makeup design. She gives a blueprint for preparing makeup artists to find visual references for an environment and put them to practice in a production. In discussing how to make an actor look realistically dirty or sweaty, Sciortino emphasizes how makeup speaks, and can make or break the believability of a character.