To Celebrate Christine & Mike Leigh’s 30 year Working Partnership we will be adding more “Behind The Scenes Photos” like Mr Turner photo above. Do check regularly for updates.

Christine Blundell Make-up Academy is celebrating its 10th Birthday this year!

The Christine Blundell Make-up Academy is the only Make-up school in the UK run by an Oscar & BAFTA winning Make-up Designer actively working in the industry. All our Tutors currently work as professional Film, TV & Theatre Make-up Artists & Designers. Now in its 10th year, our Academy nurtures a true Family spirit & Aftercare and we only run one Make-up course at any one time, with the maximum class size of 14 students. In addition, all our graduates are given the opportunity to join Christine on set, gaining valuable experience after completing their course.

Next Makeup Course 2nd January 2018

Our next available course is our 4 month course, starting on 2nd January 2018. You will be taught by Christine Blundell’s team of industry leading tutors, who have a wealth of experience of Film, TV and Theatre Hair & Make up.  We promise you not just a superb technical grounding but also an insight into the industry, based on the experiences of those who have felt the pressures of real deadlines and developed the tricks for managing the day-to-day realities of applying make-up and styling hair backstage, or on a bustling, often chaotic film set. Christine has extensive knowledge of the industry and will assist in many ways to help the students; from offering on set experience, excellent tutors and networking opportunities, to helping you grasp budget breakdown skills and so much more…..

CB*MA Monthly Update October

Our 18 week Hair & Makeup course students finished their course mid August and are now almost all working on various projects, from Guy Ritchie’s new film “Aladdin” to Jane Walker’s (Game of Throne’s Makeup Designer), latest film Slaughterhouse Rulez. Same goes for the students who trained here for 12 weeks on a previous Hair & Makeup course, they have been working on a range of projects from Mike Leigh’s“Peterloo” to West End’s “American in Paris”musical.

Our new 4 month course students have settled in well and are now in their 8th week of Hair & Makeup training. And the next CB*MA 4 month course, starting on 2nd of January, is now 75% full already! So if you are really keen to join us in January, book a Studio tour or come to our Open Day / Taster Day and see if we are the right Academy for you, as places are limited.

Upcoming CB*MA Events

Come to our Open day Saturday 18th November 2017 and see our graduates in action.  An opportunity to ask lots of questions, feel the school atmosphere and chat with one of our Tutors.  If you are thinking about joining in January or April 2018, attending our Open Day is highly recommended!

Attending our popular Day Taster Course on Saturday 11th November is the best way of getting a feel of our Academy and practise the skills you will be taught at our Hair & Make up courses. 

When you join our family you benefit not only from Christine Blundell’s years of experience in theatre and films, but also from the vast network of media and entertainment contacts she has nurtured, many of whom will be teaching you.  In addition, all our courses are run in small groups, allowing us to focus well on each individual student.  All our graduates are given the opportunity to join Christine on set, thus allowing them to gain valuable experience after completing their course.

CB*MA Graduates have worked on

To succeed in your career as a film and TV makeup artist you will need real drive and commitment, and at the Chistine Blundell Academy for Film & Television in London (CB*MA) we promise to reward that commitment by offering our industry-leading training courses and the support needed to realise your goals.

The Film & TV industry is an exacting and demanding one, but there are few industries that are ultimately as rewarding and fun as a life spent behind the scenes on a film and TV set helping to bring stories to life on the silver screen (or indeed the plasma screen!).

As long as there have been movie stars, there have have been make up artists making them look good. From the ability to make an actor appear ‘natural’ while on camera, to the ability to transform an actor completely with special effects makeup, the Film & TV makeup artist has long been a treasured part of the entertainment industry as a whole. Part art, part science, the discipline of Film & TV makeup is a wondrous craft where gifted individuals use the infinitely malleable palette of the human face and body to bring dreams into reality.

Christine first got involved in hair and make up when styling bands in the late  ‘70s and working in a salon in Kensington Market. She went on to open her own hairdressing salon, which she ran successfully for 4 years and then embarked on an intensive three-month make-up course. After completing the course, Christine worked on Phantom of the Opera doing prosthetics and went on to work for LWT, gaining invaluable experience on sketch shows and T.V. films.

Her first feature with Mike Leigh was Life is Sweet, which marked the beginning of a long and successful working relationship that has spanned more than 20 years and produced 10 features including Secrets and Lies, Topsy Turvy, Vera Drake, Happy-Go- Lucky, Another Year and Mr. Turner, for which she received a BAFTA nomination. Christine won both an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Topsy Turvy and in 2004 received BAFTA nominations for both Vera Drake and Finding Neverland. Christine’s other varied film credits include The Full Monty, Closer, The Constant Gardener, Casino Royale, Eastern Promises, Sherlock Holmes, Trance, About Time and The Fifth Estate.

More recently, Christine has worked on Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, Brian Helgeland’s Legend, Michael Grandage’s Genius, Paddington 2 Guy Ritchie’s Knights of the Round Table: King Arthur and Wonder Woman.

Christine has just finished working on Mike Leigh’s new film Peterloo, a period drama with a cast of over 100 actors, based on events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where British forces fired on a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester.  She is now working on Guy Ritchie’s new project “Aladdin” , A live-action retelling of the 1992 Disney film of the same name.