Students made up by film festival award win
Student artists from Sutton Coldfield College who were part of the make-up team for a Birmingham-based zombie movie have had their talents recognised with two movie festival award wins. Comedy horror movie, Still won Best Hair and Makeup award at the Birmingham Film Festival 2016. The film also won five awards at the Independent Horror Movie Awards online.
Lecturer, Emma Buet said: “This is an amazing achievement for the 20 students that were involved in the filming. They spent two days working with and being guided by leading special effects make-up designer, Stuart Conran, so they could create grisly-looking face and body make-up. Working with designs by local artist, Danijela Vunduk, some of the team also focused on the key task of making up the lead character, a gold-covered living statue entertainer as well as a number of other colourful side characters.
“Being part of an award-winning production proves to the students that they are on the right professional track.”
Starring Birmingham-born actor, Joe Capella and written and directed by Carl Timms, Still is the first film by independent film producer, Dark Matter FiIms. It tells the story of a living statue entertainer who finds himself caught in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and has to rely on his ability to keep very still to stay alive.
“Much of the credit for this award win is down to the fantastic work of the students,” added Carl. “They were incredibly enthusiastic throughout the filming and a big support to the professional special effects and prosthetics team led by Stuart.”
Student, Shakiel Forbes said: “Since working on the film, I’m more confident about my skills. Winning this award is a celebration of that. This was my first experience of being on a film set and going through the early morning starts and long process of setting up scenes and shooting from different angles. It’s an environment I’m really keen to work in after I’ve finished studying.”
Amber Bailey, a movie extra who joined BMet in September added: “It’s thanks to this film that I got introduced to the world of media make-up. I was doing my GCSEs while I took part in the film and got talking to the students as they were making up my face. I was totally inspired by everything they were doing and told me about their course so I decided to come here.
“It’s great to be working behind the scenes now. I’ve been to local schools applying make-up effects and can’t wait to have an opportunity to be involved in another film. The horror movie genre is totally my thing.”