Christine Allsopp
Make-up/FX Hair Wigs

For clarity I've found it's most useful to discover the whole deal with Director/Producer then Line Producer and get a heads-up on the departmental budget, the rate for my team and other key considerations to ensure I have the wherewithal to do the job you and I would expect of me and my team.  It's impossible to commit to a job if you have no idea who you can afford to crew into the department, the departmental budget or daily days. 

I have been employed by producers in the past particularly for my ability to deliver a quality look on budget, Michael Kagan, Malcolm Craddock, Cairo Cannon and David & Norma Heyman/David Mason, but you have to know what you have in order to know that you can deliver, and preferably with calm and a happy team - don't you think? 

Email: via the contact form below which is delivered straight to my personal inbox.

AS HOD: Direct: For clear communication with Producers and Directors and, if called by LP's or UPM's, clarity regarding the key practicalities of a project. 

FOR INCOMING TEAMS: As well as being available as HOD/Designer for feature films, I have worked with  incoming Make-up and Hair teams from the US - as I did for Oscar winning Stephan L. Dupuis on "Spider" and Oscar winner Judy Chin (Make-up) and Nathan J Bush II (Hair) on "Across the Universe".  I worked with Albert Wolsky for a week in Liverpool preparing the crowd hair and make-up for The Coven sequence and Liverpool exteriors.  I put together a team to cover the calls on the filming days. 

AS A DAILY: Many Crowd Supervisors just TEXT so I look out for those messages.  I really enjoy doing dailies

ADDITIONAL PRINCIPALS AND GUEST ARTISTS: I am often asked in to work with main team to do guest artists, additional principals on heavy days.  Whether establishd or not, I take note of the brief and do exactly as reqested by the Designer.  As a Designer myself, I appreciate how important it is to have the look and continuity maintained and instructions followed closely. 

WEDDINGS, SPECIAL OCCASION AND EVENT MAKE-UP & HAIR - POA

To be available for film and TV contracts, I cannot commit months in advance to bridal make-up.  However, I am available at short notice, (from 4 weeks to 24 hours in advance) for weddings, special occasions and event make-up and hair should you find yourself suddenly or spontaneously in need of a 'look'.  I do bridal, themed parties (including 18th century with powdered wigs), Halloween and Horror, Prom night or just a special occasion for which you'd like that extra screen sparkle or red carpet glam.  

If your bridal make-up and hair artist is suddenly unable to fulfil the booking, no worries, just give me a call and we can talk it through.  Very often we put looks together on the day for films, so if you find yourself unexpectedly in a 'fix' don't worry - let's get cracking. 

I can travel long-distance by car in the UK (@ 45 p.p.m.)  Travel abroad to European destinations is possible subject to tickets and accommodation being booked and confirmed in advance by the client and a 50% (non-refundable) deposit paid in advance to keep the dates open. 

I will be posting a wedding page, which will have it's own password available for enquirers once we have spoken, or if I am at my laptop, as we speak.

I am Oxfordshire based, near Henley-on-Thames, OX49 5T.  I can work on location in the UK and abroad. 

For casual enquiries, please use the form to inquire about my availability, or just to say hi.  Call me 'old-fashioned', but if you'd like an immediate response, please call.

Thank you.

From Beards and Facial.

Casting should have been earlier, more time allowed with cast actually cast and in the chair (Do let the dog see the rabbit!) and perhaps there should have been some serious thought about my earlier question, "Wouldn't this character be wearing a beard?"  to which the answer had been "No".

"HANDS NOT WANDS!" is all I have to say!

Things never improved and my only consolation was that mine was not the only department feeling it.  

I'm not surprised it only went 2 series and I'll say right here I had nothing to do with series 2. 

"Downton Abbey" rightly won the prize for this genre.  Sorry for being swingeing, but there it is.  

Aftermath

It's a shame that for a few years just after we finished the picture my credit/involvement on the picture seemed to be diminished by someone rumouring that I had not done the 'Whole picture' as if that in some way meant my work was 'less than'.  I ran into this 'diminishment' a handful of times at interview, which was not only a shock but also embarrassing and annoying. At times it felt like I was bumping into the effects of an invisible campaigner with no recourse. It felt so unjust, especially as the facts of my involvement and my equally shared single card credit on the picture proved a distinction that Stanley certainly didn't make.

True, I joined the picture two weeks into filming on 5th September 1985 and Stanley asked for me to be asked to stay.  I left the following January after all the real make-up work and effects were done - that's 5 months!!  It's churlish for someone to diminish such a solid block of work on any production, let alone one with such a notoriously demanding and difficult director.

On my last day Phil Hobbs suggested I go say goodbye to Stanley, and I'm glad I did because he paid me a lovely compliment and said "You did a good job".  I rest my case.

So in the years since I've reflected and wondered what happened but can only rely on the facts of events at the time.  One asks questions in your head like: Why did our agreement to stay on together until the end as equals not happen?  Why didn't she talk to me about the change of plan?

A few weeks into filming Parris Island, after the head shaving scene, Private Pyle's suicide and the Induction scenes 'this is my weapon' - there was very little make-up required and it was decided that only one make-up artist was required. For some reason, and without any discussion, the last in first out policy took precedence over the agreement we made the previous September.  To be fair, for such straight forward work, job sharing to save money, if it was about money, could have been discussed but it wasn't.  It was a fait accompli.

I've since salved the wound with the knowledge that filming was shut down for some months unfortunately due to one of the artists being involved in a serious car crash, when he returned I'm not sure how much longer they had to shoot.  And so that's how my time on FMJ came to an end.  It didn't sit well and I can't imagine who engineered those circumstances or campaigned that rumour, can you?   

But as you can see from the inside knowledge I've shared above I was in every sense Co-Key in the department and my artist was Matthew Modine.  I was involved with all the effects and this included the dressing of the neck-end of the severed head of the sniper which was never included in the film.  I clearly remember making irregular shaped arterial and venal tubes out of latex, strings of nerve endings out of cotton and other goodies and stapling it on to the head and coming up with the idea we needed a tray of blood to be dressed in from which it would be lifted - dripping.  So I won't have it that my credit was of any less value given the very tricky circumstances under which I joined the production and the contribution I made.

Mostly in life I appreciate elegance, forgiveness and discretion, which is why "Aftermath" is a footnote not a banner.  But I'll admit I am only human and the experience of being ambushed by that producer in one of the subsequent interviews by his doubtful, almost derisory tone and the 'diminishment' for my work on FMJ was so offensive it rendered me speechless.  I could only infer he had been fed the information by one interested party, who, (may or may not have been up for the same job), was busy carving their own career.  It has stuck in my craw and coloured my experience for longer than was healthy and tellingly enough we've never been in touch since.

Stuffing hurt away in your body is unhealthy. It may be seen by some as inelegant, unforgiving and indiscrete to share this experience, but in the spirit of clearing it and gaining atonement by presenting a fuller picture, it has to be expressed where it matters - and I can't think of a better place than here.  It may be 30 years later, but I'm happy to have put in place the words that means in this instance at least - no one gets away with my stuff!!  

Moving on ....    

Talent will out.  Since then - I have been asked to go in and replace the HOD on 3 other films, "Hannah's War" (1988), "The Dirty Dozen" (1988) TV series for MGM/UA and "The Devil's Harvest" (2015) - and in all three cases there was a positive outcome for the Production and myself, and in the case of "Hannah's War" Menahem Golan, asked me to do another picture with him, "The Threepenny Opera".  I also believe that if talent isn't recognised immediately, if you remain diligent and consistent, it will be acknowledged eventually.