Oscar & BAFTA Winning Principal, Guaranteed Paid On-set Work Experience, Small Classes, One Unique Course, Family Spirit & True Aftercare

100% of our Graduates get paid on set experience.

What Makes A Makeup Academy One Of The Best? Follow The Steps And Find Out.

Step One
Download Brochure

Step Two
Studio Tour

Step Three
Weekend Taster Course

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 11th 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 2019

Our next available course is our 4 month course, starting on 2nd January 2019. 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.

Our 4 month course is the equivalent of 480 teaching hours, delivered as a full time course, every Monday to Friday, from 10am to 4pm, for 16 weeks. You will be taught 11 different modules, from Understanding of Media, Fashion & Period Makeup to Casualty, Prosthetics, Wigs and many more.

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…..

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Upcoming CB*MA Events

Come to our Open day on Saturday 2nd February 2019 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 us in April 2019, attending our Open Day is highly recommended!

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Attending our popular Day Taster Course on Saturday 9^th February 2019 is the best way of getting a feel of our Academy and practice the skills you will be taught at our Hair & Make up courses.  Designed as an intensive 1 day course, it will offer you an introduction to Casualty training, giving you a flavour of what’s to come, should you decide to do our 4 Month training course starting 23rd April 2019. Your Tutor will be Lisa Halstead, “Holby City” Makeup Designer, who teaches the Understanding media makeup module on our current 4 Month Hair & Makeup course.  Lisa will be able to advise you about the day to day Makeup artist role routine and let you know what you can expect from your future career.

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CB*MA Update November 2018

A big congratulations to Christine Blundell on being nominated for BIFA Awards (British Independent Film Awards) for her work as a Makeup Designer onMike Leigh’s “ Peterloo”. The Awards are announced on Saturday 8^th December, so follow us on Facebook to find out more! Christine has also just started working on her new film , Guy Ritchie’s new project “ Toff guys”, where she was also able to invite a number of our recent graduates for their onset work experience. Shelley, one of our August 2018 graduates, joined Christine on set as her Makeup trainee on this film – please Click Here to see Shelley’s corner on the set of “Toff guys”.

We also had a full house at the Academy last Saturday, 17^th November, with amazing Lisa Halstead, “Holby City” Makeup Designer, teaching our Day Taster course students the magic of Casualty makeup. To view more Casualty makeup Click Here

And our current class is learning about Theatre makeup & hair skills this week, while being taught by a number of Theatre makeup artists & Designers from the National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Globe Theatre and ENO, just to name a few. To learn more about our Theatre module Click Here

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.

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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.

In addition, Christine finished working on Mike Leigh’s new film Peterloo at the end of August last year, 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 then started working on Guy Ritchie’s new project “Aladdin” in September 2017, a live-action retelling of the 1992 Disney film of the same name, which finished filming in January 2018. After a short break, Christine begun filming with Bill Condon on The Good Liar in July 2018, with a stellar cast headed by Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Ian McKellen.  August 2018 was all about working on “Aladdin” pick-ups, where Christine was joined on set by a number of our recent CBMA graduates, who were completing their onset work experience.

Christine has just started working on Guy Ritchie’s new project “Toff guys”, having taken a number of CB*MA students with her for their onset work experience and also one Makeup trainee from the previous course that finished in August this year.