MAKE-UP: MARYANNE SPANO
How long does it take to get an actor ready before a taping?
"Usually, the women take anywhere from 20 minutes to a half hour. We like to give ourselves that much time. The men are a lot less. In this medium, everything is fast. The acting is fast. The direction is fast, so we have to move fast also. In movies we would be able to take a lot longer time. But here, you have to get them out, so we do them very fast.
What is your call time?
"It’s 7AM. And we work till the end - till whenever. We’ve had out times at 12 o’clock, 1AM, 2AM, 3AM. We’ve slept here."
How many people work in the make-up department?
"There’s usually on the average at least 3 people here, sometimes 4, depending if we have a special event coming up. It also goes by the schedule, if we have 3 or 4 women up first, we have to have a make-up artist for each woman available. If there’s big party scene like a wedding or a big event, we’ll have up to 4 make-up artists. We’ve already had 5 or 6 make-up artists for big, big events."
Are you going to change the make-up for the summertime?
"Yes, we will. The foundations change and people’s colors change colors because they go out in the sun. And we try to keep it lighter. They know not to get too dark, because it won’t read properly on video. We do change the consistency so they don’t get as oily, and a lot of the time we use products without oil, we use matting products for their skin, and we make sure that they take care of their skin. The problem that we have a lot in the summertime is that when people burn, they exfoliate and get dryness, so we have a whole array of products that they can use. We recommend that they do masks and exfoliants, and some that we can even do right in the chair that take about 10 minutes."
Do you make changes on the make-up during shoot days?
"Sometimes in the same day they’re shooting 2 different episodes. If they’re changing the outfits, we have to change the make-up. But a lot of the time we don’t have the time to make the changes up here, we’ll make changes right on the set- liners, lipstick, and a little bit of shadow. So sometimes right in the same day we have to change somehting."
What do you change for a wedding?
"Definitely the make-up. Definitely more glamorous- sometimes we put lashes on. We add sparkle, so we do all those little things. We try and keep it basic, so that there is somewhere to go for a special event. We have a lot of beautiful women on this show, and they have to be glamorous every day, but we make them extra special for weddings."
Do you have a favorite character?
"I like all of them. They’re all interesting and unique."
Any make-up tips for the summertime?
"For everyday, I think that you should keep it very light- that no make-up look- a little bit of mascara, very soft lipstick. At night you can add a little bit more- you can drop some foundation just to the areas that you need. But if you’re out in the sun, usually everyone has that wonderful glow, so they don’t need foundation. During the summer, it looks heavy when you’re wearing a light, flowery dress and you have a face made up."
How much different is the make-up for this show?
"For theater, it’s much, much heavier. The make-up has to reach the last row in a theater. For film, it’s very, very light."
Can you describe your make-up - possibly the foundation?
"We custom blend the foundation. We use RCMA make-up, which is professional make-up. We have a large array of colors, and we custom blend them. So to change make-up, we don’t have to go out and buys different bottles of make-up, we just blend them."
MAKE-UP: KEVIN BENNETT
Congratulations, everyone looks so fabulous on the show.
"This is my first soap opera. I did a lot of talk show work. This is my first venture into daytime drama, where people look beautiful every single day."
You set the tone for how people look?
"Actually, I don’t do it alone. The actors have a big hand in it too. We don’t allow them to make all the decisions, but when an actor is making a character, they have a vision in their head of what the character would look like and act like, and we respect that, so I’ll sit and talk to an actor. When Kim Rhodes’ character Cindy was transforming herself into the Mayor’s wife- a socialite, there was a major transition period. It was very funny, the way we did it, we took her from plain, nasty, old Cindy and surely Cindy had a ton of money. And the first thing that nouveau riche Cindy did- she ran into Marhshall Fields on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and she went to the Channel counter and she had a makeover. And she was totally over the top, she was so nouveau looking, at the very beginning of that transition, that she looked as though she was trying too hard. That slowly, but surely, softened up and she’s gotten more sophistication, but this is definitely something that was done together with Kim. We made the decisions as to how Cindy would suddenly evolve slowly, but surely."
"According to shoot day, how upsetting a scene is, how joyous a scene is, it also hinges on that. We don’t want to have someone looking full tilt glammed out, and spending half day crying. It’s distracting to the audience; it doesn’t help the actor. So the actors do have a large hand in it."
Is there anyone you want to change?
"Well, we have evolution happening now with Marley. We’ve gone through the burn, and we’ve gone through the first stage of plastic surgery. Prosthetic pieces will be on for a while now and those will fade and change, and then whatever subsequent surgery she has. We’ll be dealing with the dynamics of her and Vicky no longer being identical twins. It’s not going to be the way Vicky/Marley was before - where Vicky was the flamboyantly, made-up one and Marley was plain Jane. They’re going to have their own personalities, because it’s going to be two different actresses, so they don’t have to have that drastically different of a look. It’s going to be fun working with Ellen finding out who Marley is.
How do you keep consistency on the show?
"We’re continuity freaks. Every time a character appears in a new day in Bay City, we do a complete face chart of all the make-up that the artist is using and the placement of it, and it’s backed up by a digital photograph. We have a digital camera which patches into our video monitor, and we do a quick check to make sure something is right, or we print out a hard copy on photographic paper, so we have a face and a chart to follow up with. Because sometimes, a day in Bay City will last 8 or 9 episodes, and 2 or 3 different make-up artists will have to re-produce the same exact face. So if they have a visual chart, it’s got a descriptive part and it’s also very visual because you can see all the colors and you can see how the actress looks."
When did you start doing face charts?
"We started doing face charts about 2 and a half years ago. Because before then, we weren’t doing as many segments of episodes. We weren’t doing more than 1 episode a day. Now, we do up to 4 or 5 different episode segments in a day. So, it became a necessity to start logging. We logged the lip colors and all the other stuff on a daily basis, but when we started doing all these segments, it was important for us to keep a really, really careful log visually of what these people looked like. If you’re not keeping track of it, it can look really stupid from scene to scene."
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