Description
Apply makeup to performers to reflect period, setting, and situation of their role.
- • Confer with stage or motion picture officials and performers to determine desired effects.
- • Duplicate work precisely to replicate characters' appearances on a daily basis.
- • Establish budgets, and work within budgetary limits.
- • Apply makeup to enhance or alter the appearance of people appearing in productions such as movies.
- • Alter or maintain makeup during productions as necessary to compensate for lighting changes or to achieve continuity of effect.
- • Select desired makeup shades from stock, or mix oil, grease, and coloring to achieve specific color effects.
- • Cleanse and tone the skin to prepare it for makeup application.
- • Assess performers' skin type to ensure that makeup will not cause break-outs or skin irritations.
- • Analyze a script, noting events that affect each character's appearance, so that plans can be made for each scene.
- • Requisition or acquire needed materials for special effects, including wigs, beards, and special cosmetics.
- • Write makeup sheets and take photos to document specific looks and the products used to achieve the looks.
- • Examine sketches, photographs, and plaster models to obtain desired character image depiction.
- • Attach prostheses to performers and apply makeup to create special features or effects, such as scars, aging, or illness.
- • Evaluate environmental characteristics, such as venue size and lighting plans, to determine makeup requirements.
- • Design rubber or plastic prostheses that can be used to change performers' appearances.
- • Create character drawings or models, based upon independent research, to augment period production files.
- • Advise hairdressers on the hairstyles required for character parts.
- • Study production information, such as character descriptions, period settings, and situations, to determine makeup requirements.
- • Provide performers with makeup removal assistance after performances have been completed.
- • Wash and reset wigs.
- • Demonstrate products to clients, and provide instruction in makeup application.
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Source
Tasks & skills:
O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
