Boot Camp for the Devils in Us
Oh, the horror of facing bright lights and a big mirror first thing in the morning. A little makeup can usually take care of those grotesque imperfections. But what if you want them accentuated? Scary as morning face can be, I wanted to up the ante for Halloween. Sure, shading and color tips are available at makeup counters, but where to go when you need a monster make-over?
I went to Scare School.
For the first time, the Queen Mary’s annual Shipwreck scare fest, a combination haunted maze and dance party, required its wannabe walking dead to go through a sort of Terror Tutorial to perfect their monster moves and ghastly guises.
It makes perfect sense, because whether the look you’re after is Cosmo girl or glamour ghoul, getting the makeup right can make all the difference. And who better to consult than the monster makers for the Southland’s biggest annual Halloween haunts? (The Queen Mary Shipwreck, Knott’s Scary Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest all are open on varying schedules through Halloween.)
On my first day of Scare School, it became apparent that it takes a certain, ah, disposition to work the 20 or so nights scaring the Reese’s Pieces out of people.
For Shipwreck, the chosen few hundred (mostly guys in their early 20s) are selected for what the instructors call their “boo factor.” At 5-foot-2 and with a voice like baby Lil of “The Rugrats,” my boo factor is rather low.
Our instructors, Rosie and Rebecca, assured our class that we don’t have to scream our heads off--or pretend to take our heads off, for that matter--to terrorize the guests. Whimpering like a child, they said, or laughing maniacally can be just as unnerving.
For lil’ me, the makeup job is do or die.
Gia Pluma, a film student turned Shipwreck makeup supervisor for the last three Octobers, starts with a Shrek-green cream base, applied evenly over my face with a wedge sponge.
“Don’t get it too close to your eyes,” Pluma warned.
“Why not? Does it sting?” I asked, the assiduous pupil.
It shouldn’t sting, Pluma said. “It’s just not good to put things in your eyes.”
Oh. Right.
We added a lovely bruise-purple accent around the eyes and the same color to shade the angles--in the creases of my nose, mouth and cheeks. “Angular lines are scarier than circles,” she said.
Next, Pluma blended the purple with the green beneath my cheekbones, achieving a nice dead-for-days look.
“I try to go with a person’s face. I see what would look good on them, except for Halloween you want to do the opposite--to look bad.”
Although the women might be a little handier with makeup brushes than the guys, they tend to have a strong aversion to looking bad. “I usually end up doing cuts and bruises on girls,” Pluma lamented. The guys, however, “all want to look gory.” (So it would be a safe guess that it wasn’t my idea to highlight my crow’s feet and sunken cheeks.)
In class I learned that cream-based makeup comes off more easily than greasepaint, while water-based makeup comes off too easily. Makeup artists at all three of the Halloween haunts use greasepaint as well as cream, because greasepaint works better with prosthetics, which the artists use to create a cast of hideous characters.
Melanie Smith, makeup coordinator at Knott’s, said latex could be a nightmare for the average Halloween partygoer. “If you’re gung-ho to do it, there’s one rule: Never put it in hair,” Smith said. That includes eyebrows, mustaches and beards. It took seven months for her friend’s eyebrows to grow back.
Specialty stores sell Spirit Gum, a useful adhesive if, say, you decide to glue Gummy Worms to your face. The downside is that it also requires a professional-type remover (and, of course, there’s the potential for a Gummy Worm to eat an eyebrow).
Using a makeup brush, we applied black grease paint to my lips, eyebrows and to shade, transforming me into a skeleton that spooked even me when I looked in the mirror. Finally, a translucent powder was applied to set the colors. Without powder, Pluma said, one could easily sweat or rub the makeup off. “Try not to scratch,” she admonished.
Baby powder is a good substitute, as long as it’s made of cornstarch, not talc, said Smith, who’s also worked as a TV and film makeup artist for 21 years. She also suggested adding castor oil to a cream makeup if grease paint isn’t available, or “canola oil will do in a pinch.”
Skeletons, witches and mummies are among the easiest faces to paint while offering a lot of flexibility. Adding hair, blood, vampire teeth or making the eye sockets different shapes is simple and varies the look. For blood, Pluma puts black under red makeup, which gives it a more realistic hue.
One Halloween faux pas is to leave a makeup line under the chin. “It takes away from the effect,” Pluma said. Blend, always blend.
It takes anywhere from eight to 45 minutes for a professional to complete a monster makeover, depending on the products. For anyone attempting it for the first time, Smith suggested keeping it simple and allowing a couple of hours.
It took me 10 minutes to remove the makeup with soap and water; the artists also suggest baby shampoo or Victoria’s Secret body wash.
All in all, Scare School was a real scream.
