About: Igor

Christine recently gave an interview for Reel Feedback, with host Kevin Dawson, who talks to people from the music, TV and movie industries about her art and working behind the scenes and / or on screen. Kevin chats to Christine about her inspirations, her work and anything else that may come up in between.

The focus of the discussion was to get to understand not just how Christine began her Hair & Makeup career but what made her open a Makeup school for budding Makeup artists, too! Christine begins by talking about the night of the Oscar awards and how surreal it was walking past Clint Eastwood who congratulated her and someone else shouting her name to turn around and see that it was none other than “Brad Pit”!

With three full time trainees and many others coming in to assist, it looks like the new Aladdin film by Guy Ritchie is going to be very busy! We have not even mentioned the CBMA juniors and makeup artists that are rolling up their sleeve and getting ready for some great work! All these people are headed up by Christine Blundell, who is Hair and Makeup designer.

Will Smith has made his first post of him and the crew! As mentioned we have many of our girls working and assisting on Aladdin. We are lucky enough to have three fulltime makeup trainees, juniors and makeup artists working on Guy Ritchie’s latest project. Very soon we too should have a post about our girls’ experiences on set!

We were very lucky to have most of the actors coming into the makeup academy for makeup tests. Marwan Kenzari came in hot off his success starring in “Murder on the orient express.”

Last week she shared with us the step-by-step secrets of the Wonder Woman look she created for Gal Gadot. Now Sarah Brock lets Warpaint lift the lid on her experiences on set

WP:  Congratulations on the beautiful looks that you created for Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman.  You’re much better known for your Red Carpet looks – how did you transition into movies?

SB:  It really was a fairytale story as to how I came to work on the Wonder Woman movie – after being in beauty and fashion for 18 years, the movie industry wasn’t something I had ever considered.  Patty Jenkins, the director, was searching online for inspiration for the make-up look for Gal and she kept coming across an image from a bridal designer campaign that I did back in 2008.  My name wasn’t on the image, so she asked the team in the USA to find out who did the make-up for the campaign – they found my website, Patty looked at my work and loved what I did (plus I was based in the UK where most of the filming took place, so it was perfect).  I had an email one evening from Patty, I went to the Warner Bros Studios to meet her – we got on so well immediately and she offered me the job as the personal make-up artist to Gal on the movie and the rest is history.

Last Saturday CB*MA Academy opened its doors to welcome our prospective students, most of whom are keen to join us in September, for our next 4 Month Hair & Makeup course. We were privileged to have our Prosthetics Tutor, Dan Frye, “Game Of Thrones” and “Harry Potter” prosthetics Makeup artist, creating a Monster look and answering visitors’ questions.

Dan has been in the film makeup industry for many years and has a plethora of talent and stories. There are many parallels between a prosthetics artist and a makeup artist. Yes they make many things from the simple scratch to a gaping wound, but they must also fully understand makeup and colour. As once these pieces are made they must be painted and to appear to be flesh or Zombie or whatever!

We also had a number of our recent and not so recent graduates on hand, talking about their experiences of working on Christine’s latest film project, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, currently filming in Manchester.

What an amazing two weeks we have just had and judging by the what the students have created the intensity of learning and understanding prosthetics makeup, has paid off. The prosthetics makeup module is one of the most anticipated of modules. These weeks are very different atmospherically to the other weeks here. A different mindset is needed. Calm and a zen like approach is needed.

All the makeup and hair modules we do, require students to focus and work on detail. These weeks require even more so. Just when students think they have finished moulding their pieces, Dan will come along and tell them that they need to work at it a little longer. The “Devil is in the detail.”

We could begin to mention that this talented makeup designer has four Emmys nominations and two wins to her name.

Her career spans from “Allo Allo, through to cult shows such as The Fast Show, It Crowd…To films as diverse as Hot Fuzz… Les Miserable and to Game Of Thrones…” you will agree an amazing array of variety.

We like to call her “Aunty Jane” as she must be one of the nicest makeup designers to come to teach at the Makeup Academy.

A drama 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.