Here's some more from Arabella...
"I started off with painting,
sculpture, drawing and photography, and had a few exhibitions in London. While
I was doing portrait photographs I thought it would be a great idea to learn
how to do people’s make-up. I also liked the blood on the Cradle of Filth
videos and magazines and was inspired by special effects in music videos. I did
an I.T.E.C. Level 3 Diploma in Theatre, Fashion and Media Make-Up at City and
Islington College and did a bit of freelancing and eventually I started getting
paid work and jobs through word of mouth. I even did some freelance jobs for
the B.B.C. I then discovered that I had been living opposite a very good
make-up school for years, which was hidden round the corner in Hampshire Street
in Camden. I had a full time and evening to fund my make-up course. I chose
which modules I wanted to do which were special effects, prosthetics, character
make-up, bald caps and period hair. I was taught by Stuart Bray who did Shaun
of the Dead and Harry Potter and Jeanne Richmond, a BAFTA award winner and
Raphael Fieldhouse, a champion body painter.
I like doing special effects
make-up, small prosthetics, the blood pump effect and body painting and
anything creative. I like having a brief which gives me room for creativity. I
enjoy doing work for film, television and music videos.
My favorite projects to work on have
been through the B.B.C. True
Stories, episodes 1 and 2. I worked on the Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth
Fry parts. It was great fun filming in Fort William in Portsmouth as it added
to the whole atmosphere and excitement of the project. I enjoyed doing a mixture of character
and period make-up along with my favorite special effects and prosthetics
make-up. I pre-made gelatin prosthetics for it at Elstree Studios, and worked
as an assistant to Selen Hurer. We
had to do lots of special effects and prosthetic wounds on soldiers and had to
dirty up the prisoners. I will never forget getting up at 6 am to watch it on
T.V. with my credits on it. They gave me a copy to keep which was great.
Another favorite project I worked on
was Phil Berridge’s music video for Paul Foster Dent for his band Basement Torture Killings. I enjoyed working on this project because I was helping my
friend make his music video and which was a great thing to do and I also love
metal music so it was great to be doing a metal music video. I also enjoyed it
simply because the director absolutely loved my work and has given me good
references since.
Another great project was a short film
called Heartbroke Hitman. I had to create a bullet wound prosthetic, this
turned out quite well and I got to work closely with armourers and learnt a lot
about weapons and guns and how they create the types of wounds they do, which
helped with my special effects creation. The crew was also great to work with.
I have done some Colchester based
work on a project called the Waking Witch, which was at Colchester Institute,
with members of the film club. I did some gothic make-up, beauty make-up, a
black eye a scratch and burn special effects. The burn special effects took a
lot of sculpt gel to create and I made it with this and bruise gel and charcoal
by stippling with my stipple sponge and a little bit of purple grease paint.
I am organising and running
Firstsite Horrormakeupfx workshops at 15 Queen Street for the 16th September, 23rd September and 14th October. I am doing a special effects workshop, a prosthetics,
prosthetic appliances and life casting workshop and a zombie and Halloween
special effects make-up and prosthetics workshop. They are workshops for
beginners, or anyone wanting to update their skills or build up their
portfolios or anyone wishing to take up a new interest."
Check out more of Arabella's creations at: www.horrormakeupfx.com
