Teenager

When Worthing Youth Media received funding from First Light, we made three very different short films. The zombie film Outbreak, which I have discussed in previous posts, the animated comedy Happy Cloud, which I will explore in my next post, and the moving drama Teenager. Teenager is the story of Sidney, a 15 year old boy trying to make decisions about his future whilst struggling with a difficult home life. The film was much darker in tone than the other two projects, dealing with issues of alcoholism, drug use and domestic violence.

As with Outbreak, I worked with the Art Department sourcing props and costumes, dressing the set and working as a Makeup Artist during the shoot. In contrast to Outbreak, this film required a level of realism. The key was to make the family’s flat look lived in – food in the cupboards, clothes in the wardrobes, family photos and also convey the general disarray of their lives. The cinematography of the film followed the action very tightly inside the flat. It’s a very claustrophobic place. As such, the set details had to be subtle, to provide a lifelike backdrop without detracting attention from the story.

You can learn a lot about characters from the environment they inhabit and so it is important to dress spaces to reflect the personalities of the characters, as you can see from these screenshots of Sidney and Cassie’s bedrooms.

I was also the makeup artist for the film, and my main job on set was to create injuries for Sidney’s mother, Ann, played by Alison Vermeeren.

The film begins in the wake of a big fight between Ann and Sidney’s stepfather Daniel (played by Andrew Elias) in which she has been badly beaten. The script specifies that Ann has a black eye after the fight, and severe bruises.

To create the effects for the film I used a bruise wheel and fresh scab, which are the most versatile items in my makeup kit. The initial look was intended to be the most shocking. I used red tones to create a swollen look around the eye, forehead and mouth. Applying fresh scab with a paintbrush and stipple sponge I created the illusion of grazing on the nose, brow and cheekbones. When someone is punched hard in the face, the skin tends to break around the areas where bone protrudes, such as the bridge of the nose, the cheekbones and the brow. I also used the scab to give Ann a nosebleed and a broken lip.

In the above shots from the makeup room the colours look very bright, but they looked much darker onscreen as the film was shot with a low exposure and was given a muted colour grading in post production.

It is evident in the script that this is not the first time that Sidney’s parents have fought like this, so I also worked to create a range of older looking bruises on Alison’s arms. The bruise wheel is very effective for blending colours to create different stages of bruise, and can also be used very faintly to create old bruises that appear to be healing. I painted bruises onto Alison’s neck, collarbone and arms, including bruising patterns from being grabbed or held firmly.

The challenge with the makeup for Teenager was that the main action of the film takes place across a period of about two weeks, meaning that the injuries sustained in the first scene needed to be shown to be healing in each new scene.

The first makeup change was very slight, as it was for a scene the next morning. I reduced the redness of the bruising around the eye and the mouth to reduce the visible sting of the injury. I toned down the highlights within the bruise around the eye, then deepened the purple to show the bruise developing as well as blending it out more around the edges and mixing in dull mustard colours. I used red eyeliner to make the eye look sore and the eyelids puffy. I also decreased the bloodiness of the grazes around the mouth, eyebrow and nose, as Ann would have had time to clean herself up by this point.

The next scene involving Ann takes place a few days later. For this I reduced the severity of the bruise a great deal by reducing the size of it and the intensity of the colours. I used a lighter layer of the purple, darkening it in the corner of the eye and blending out from that point, before adding yellow and a touch of green. I developed the grazes into scabs that frame the injury along the main points of impact  and reduced the swelling around the lips.

A scene from later that day features another fight between Daniel and Ann, which leaves Ann bleeding. The crew filmed the majority of Teenager‘s scenes in long takes, so Alison had to keep the blood in her mouth until the end of the scene for when her lip begins to bleed. I had to stand behind the camera with the edible blood so that she could take a swig from the bottle between takes. Daniel was played by Andrew Elias, who is lovely in real life but terrifying when in character.

The final appearance of Sidney’s mother is in a montage at the close of the film. The scene takes place some time later, perhaps a matter of weeks. The bruises seen earlier in the film have healed but she has clearly obtained more. I created a bruise on the forehead as if she had hit her head falling over, a bruise to look like a blow to the chin, subtle bruising around the eyes and another bloody lip.

The makeup room is usually a fun place to be on set. Transforming people’s looks can be a real novelty, especially working on something extreme like a zombie film. This was quite a different experience, though. Once I finished Alison’s makeup on the first morning it had quite a sobering effect on everyone. This wasn’t extreme gore or slapstick, it was a serious film about things that really happen to people. It was quite unpleasant to depict suffering in that way but obviously important to explore the issue. I’m really proud of everyone’s work on Teenager, it’s an emotionally powerful film with excellent performances.

If you’d like to try your hand at one of my Special Effects Makeup workshops then please visit my website for more information.