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KS4 Drama – Design Skills: Hair and make-up

Design skills:Stage make-up

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Learning objectives

Understand how stage hair and make-up differs from everyday designs and why.

Understand how the effects of stage make-up are achieved.

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The importance of stage make-up

Hair and make-up are important aspects of completing a character’s look. Make-up is used to highlight features which could be lost under bright lights. It can also be used to exaggerate an actor’s features or to change their appearance.

It is important that all actors, including males, wear stage make-up. Even when designing naturalistic make-up, it is important to exaggerate it far more than normal make-up. This may look strange close-up, but seen from a distance and under lights, it should look right.

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Working on stage make-up

Hair and make-up need to be appropriate to the characters. They also need to fit into the overall design aesthetic of the play or film. The hair and make-up designer will need to work very closely with the following people:

the costume designer – they will probably work together quite closely to make sure the colours work, the style matches, and also to think about things such as whether there are any costume changes, and if this affects the make-up

the director – to ensure they fully understand the vision for the play / film

the lighting designer – to make sure that the make-up will still be visible under the lights.

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Basic stage make-up