Stan Winston School of Character Arts: As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, it's easy to forget all the films that have been affected these past twenty-three months. Many cinematic masterpieces were delayed when worldwide movie theater attendance ended. Denis Villeneuve's Dune was one of the most highly-anticipated films to delay its release, and it finally graced the screens in late 2021. Today, Villeneuve's adaptation is garnering Awards Season attention in all categories, but especially hair and makeup effects.
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The images used in this article are breathtaking and I am truly in awe of the works that have been accomplished in the film Dune. I have yet to watch Dune, but I’ve been reading lots of articles that praise the aesthetics of the film. This article talks specifically about the hair and makeup of the characters in the film and even before reading I knew there would be lots of prosthetics and special effects makeup involved based on the background setting of the story. Reading this article, it reveals the works of the film’s Makeup/Hair Designer & Makeup Department Head, Donald Mowat. To see that there’s so much work that goes behind the preparing stage (communicating with director, artistic director, actors and other teams) and the filming stage (dressing and undressing the actors everyday). I think I am most impressed by the amount of teamwork and communication that had happened in order to pull this off. Also, the hours of long work must have been very physically demanding for the artists, actors and everyone else on set.
The task of creating hair and makeup looks for the cast of Director Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 adaptation of Dune must have been mammoth, based on the reports in this article. And in contrast with many other sci fi epics we’ve seen, most of this film is set in the desert, which is possibly the worst condition for the longevity of hair and makeup artistry. Its fascinating to see how they worked around that challenge as well as see the sheer level of artistry they achieved in places where they were not so limited. One of the most impressive parts of Dune is the cohesion of every department in creating constant looks and feels for every planet, every culture, and every city. The makeup and hair design fits perfectly into the costumes as both are in many ways stark, but past the initial look they are deeply layered and full of intention.
Hair and makeup within film and theater is one thing I haven’t looked much into, but it often goes hand in hand with costume design. Recently, I did some millinery for Music Man on Broadway and for the first time I got to analyze how a characters hairstyle would impact the shape and structure of their hat. Hairstyles are so impactful for the overall look of a character and clearly Dune took this into account. The prosthetics within the film are also incredible, but I can only imagine how uncomfortable it must be to wear that much latex. Allowing a character to move while also adding structure so that proper posture is achieved is also very important, and the costumes for Baron Harkonnen both fit and accent the bodysuit perfectly. I would really like to work more on making bodysuits, because so far all I’ve made was a Moana on Ice Maui suit, but unlike in Dune it was built from fabric-covered foam instead of latex. I find it so impressive that an actors entire body can be transformed within a suit like that and movements such as speaking and walking can still looks so fluid when the cameras are rolling. I’m also intrigued as to why an entire full body suit was necessary or if that was only done for Baron Harkonnen’s mud bath scene, and the rest of the actors where simply just given latex additions to their faces.
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