webdev Wardrobe and make up are a very important, although frequently underappreciated aspect of any video production. The work of people in this industry can frequently make the difference between an average and outstanding piece of work.
Makeup artists
These vital ladies and gents are amongst the hardest working on a video set. The first fundamental for their role is ensuring that the acting talents natural perspiration doesn’t result in a head sheen that reflects off the lights. This happens to pretty much anybody in front of hot lights for a period and is not simply the bastion of sweaty fat people! Application of foundation and maintenance throughout the shoot is very important, particularly if the subject happens to be naturally sweaty – this really doesn’t look too great on camera at all!
Makeup people are great to have around during the course of a shoot. A big part of their work is finished before the cameras start rolling, so they can act as a second set of eyes for the producer/director and also even act as continuity – as they have to focus on the acting talent a good deal.
“Image positioning” is a recent buzzword prevalent in the corporate makeup industry – the importance of having the right style of make up for the video – i.e. Funky, conservative etc. As organisations spend more on videos and need to have their productions stand up through the noise of video online – considerations like this as important.
Wardrobe
Wardrobe doesn’t tend to be quite as much of an important factor to the sort of video productions that we get involved with. For corporate videos, generally the client will have their own clothes for interview type situations – or employees will be working insitu in their normal work attire. For demonstration videos and promos, wardrobe companies can be involved, but in our experience, even large corporate productions are happy to ask the acting talent to bring along a choice of their own clothes to wear in the production.
One area of contention is when the video features chroma key. This is the process of filming a talking head (for example) on a green background and then placing interesting graphics/pictures etc into the background with the computer. Effectively, what happens is the computer concentrates on the green colour and removes all of the green from the raw footage – changing the background accordingly. This causes issues if the subject happens to be wearing green – all the green bits of clothing will disappear! There are also issues with very stripy clothing.
