What Are the Requirements of a Make Up Artist?

What are the requirements of a make up artist?

Makeup Artists work in film, TV, theatre, music, and photography industries. They improve the appearance of presenters, performers and models that appear in front of a live audience or camera. Makeup Artists work closely with models, photographers, costume designers, lighting crews and directors to design makeup and hairstyles that are appropriate to the person and their situation. They build their own makeup kits, apply corrective makeup, style hair, fit wigs and hairpieces and stand by to redo makeup and hair as required.
Makeup Artists also need good people skills because theirs is a people-oriented career. In addition, the job requires confidence, creativity, patience, concentration, accuracy, attention to detail, and the ability to work long hours or during irregular hours when necessary.

Make up artists need to be prepared to work long and sometimes unsociable hours as for example a photographer may want to get the best light for an outside photo shoot, and the best light of the day is the first light in the morning so you could be up as early as 3am 0r 4am to make sure you have the model ready in time to shoot at sunrise. Or it may be an evening or in the early hours of the morning so again unsociable hours but this is all part of being a make up artist.

A lot of travel may be involved too so time away from home, this could be a good thing as the film/shoot/production etc could be on a beach in Hawaii! But it could also be in the middle of nowhere on a cold wet morning somewhere not quite so exotic!

You need to remember that even though you have designed plans of the make up that the director liked he may at anytime change his mind about what make up he wants for that character and as it is his production you will need to go with what ever he wants even though it may be a pain for you changing things at the last minute. You need to remember that he is the one paying your wages.

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