Make up Artist
Self Employed

Stephanie G

Make up artist

00.03

My name’s Stephanie, I’m a make up artist and everyday the job is different. I’m always working with different people on different locations and that’s the fun part of it. I enjoy doing music videos, but they’re really long days, really hard work. Some of the ones I’ve worked on were Biffy Clairo, Tally Reilly, an American band called the Score, an R ‘n B band. I just finished working on the second season for us, of Britain’s next top model. Which, is fantastic because you kinda watch the girls develop and change and all the behind the scenes and can kind of rest rumours at ease when people ask you what, erm, everyone’s really like!

00.36

Erm, my mother is a house wife, but she used to work for Marriot hotels and my father works for Marriot hotels in sales and marketing. My parents were helpful and supportive once I found what I wanted to do. When I was six I wanted to be a vet or an FBI agent. Something active basically, a horse riding instructor. A variety of stuff, an artist was always in there somewhere, interior decorator, artist, sculptor or something, so.

01.33

I moved to England in 2000 with my family and did my last year of school. And then went on to do a degree in Fine Art, erm, which soon after led to erm me trying to work in the art industry, which was even harder than working in the entertainment industry. Erm, I was loosing my determination and Iacking the motivation I needed to create the work that I needed to create. And I knew it was time to find something else because of that, because the minute you feel you can’t push yourself any more I think its time to find something that you really care about. I had no idea I was going to end up in makeup. I must have been around 21 and I was working for the BBC and I went and tried out one of the workshops which was in makeup and that is the first time I thought wow, I want to do this.

02.34

I probably wouldn’t know what to do with myself without my blackberry because I have all my different email accounts on there and there are my freelance ones, and the candy and bloom one and then private, then my text messaging and my facebook and those are all ways I keep in touch with people, work people and friends. And my work can come from any aspect, like it can come from a friend recommending me to someone they know that works in the industry and they will get in touch with me through facebook and if I don’t have a phone that can kind of show me that, I might be too late in finding out about the job. It’s a very competitive industry because there’s a lot of makeup artists out there and a lot of jobs depend on whether you know people or not and if you don’t and you’re recommended to someone you’ve really got to show your worth to be able to keep the job, otherwise they’ll just find someone else that can do it.

03.35

It was a struggle at the beginning because I didn’t know where my money was coming from and it created a hard time to get through because it makes you doubt your choice and whether you should continue in that field. A turning point for me was, I started working for an agency and that was probably one of the most exciting things for me because, I felt that I’d proved myself enough for someone to take me on and recommend then through their company to private clients. I am very pleased I persevered because I can’t imagine doing anything else now. I get bored too quickly with other jobs, this is the longest I’ve ever held a job! Even though its freelance, so I’m definitely glad I persevered with it