Makeup Artist Profile: Leslie Graham

Canadian makeup artist, Leslie Graham recently relocated to Sydney and took over the role of program coordinator at The Make-Up Technicians School of Makeup. Her portfolio encompasses work on movies: Twilight, Tron, X-Men and Suckerpunch 2; and celebrities: Tyra Banks, Jamie Lee Curtis and Rachel Hunter. Graham brings more than 20 years experience to the prestigious Sydney school; here she takes a look at some of the highlights of her career, to date, and discusses her plans for the future of TMT.

My route to becoming a makeup artist was quite different to most. I was modelling in Nova Scotia, Canada when I was asked to stand-in for an actor in an upcoming feature. As a stand-in I would physically replace the actor during camera and lighting set-ups. This eventually led to a relatively short career in acting which ended because I decided I didn’t want to go to countless auditions before I landed a role. So my next move was to join the Westmore Academy in Los Angeles. The Westmore’s were a prestigious Hollywood makeup family who dated back to the 1920s. Marvin Westmore owned and ran the academy and his brother Michael headed up the makeup department and worked on Star Trek Next Generation. This gave me a great foundation to makeup, especially for film, but also the beginnings of theatrical high-fashion and special effects; so it was a comprehensive course.

The Make-up Technicians School of Make Up (TMT) is closely aligned to my skill-set and I feel it offers the highest standard of comprehensive makeup education available in Sydney. It covers all aspects of the industry, educating and empowering students to gain skills and confidence in all areas with a view to specialising or finding their niche in the highly competitive industry. We offer courses that cover makeup for theatre, TV, film, bridal, special effects, body art, prosthetics, airbrushing, period makeup, wig work and hairstyling and aim to arm our students with as much knowledge as possible and a skill-set which will appeal to a varied selection of employers. The college is a VETAB-registered training organisation and has a number of international students who come to study with us from as far afield as Asia and the EU.

I tell my students, it’s always daunting when you change careers or embark on your first one. But good training, mentoring, assisting some of the best in the industry and sensible self-promotion will always take you far. One of my early jobs was as first assistant on a small, independent Canadian project which catapulted me on to bigger projects. A lot of this was down to luck and timing but also hard work and knowing how best to market myself which is always a challenge when you first graduate. From there one job led to another and I headed-up the network department for TV movies where I met Rachel Hunter and Jaime Pressley who I created red-carpet looks for.

For those just starting out I advise them to research before settling on their education provider. They need to be sure they are getting taught by established makeup artists with a good resume who is still actively working in the industry; this ensures their knowledge is current. Perseverance is a key component, as is social networking. There are many ways to get your work and name out there these days. A quick look on YouTube reveals dozens of self-taught makeup artists showcasing their work.

The highs of a makeup career are seeing your vision on screen, on stage or in print. It’s often demanding with long hours but it’s always varied and exciting. For some scenes in Twilight we worked in the woods in Vancouver, it was great fun. Tron was my first 3D movie. It was visually stunning and a highlight of my career. There are certain considerations when working in HD, CGI or 3D. The makeup artist needs to blend flawlessly and carefully correct any undertones to the skin as the HD camera picks up and magnifies every single flaw. We also need to consider the shades we use as some have certain undertones in them. Newer formulations such as HD primers and liquid bases are fantastic; some come with colour correctors that counteract redness or sallow skins.

Working on the same set as someone of Jeff Bridges calibre is inspiring, when he walks on set people pay attention, he has quite a presence! Because makeup artists work in close quarters all day with stars we try to have a good rapport with the people we work with and most importantly we must always be professional and understand what the actor and the producer wants and translate that direction. Some of the dance numbers in Suckerpunch were outstanding, the graphic shapes and patterns we created were inspiring and also the black and white imagery in Tron was much more difficult to achieve than it looks. The precision involved was extreme and everything we created had to be crisp and clean.

As for inspiration, I take it from myriad sources. The great thing about the internet is you can research any image you want, be it ‘40s makeup’ or ‘civil war hair’ etc, it’s all at the touch of a button these days so there are no excuses for not understanding your references. I can get inspiration from glossy mags, style.com, scripts and character outlines, even while walking through the park when I see the texture of a tree bark it can make me think of incorporating that texture into my special effects work. As artists we take inspiration from the world around us. I urge the next generation of makeup artists to gain as much knowledge and understanding of makeup techniques, practice as often as possible to perfect their techniques and then break the rules in the name of creative licence. Once you understand the basics and get a good foundation, rules are there to be broken.

Contact: The Make-up Technicians School of Makeup (TMT), Sydney, (02) 9280 2516.

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