Oscar Week 2017: Makeup and Hairstyling Symposium

By Gary Salem

Oscar Week celebrated three exceptional nominees at the annual Makeup & Hairstyling Symposium: “A Man Called Ove,” “Star Trek Beyond” and “Suicide Squad.” Branch governor and longtime host Leonard Engelman started the event with a favorite story about 20th Century Fox lobbying the Academy to award John Chambers with an honorary Oscar for “Planet of the Apes” in 1968. He was joined by fellow governors Kathryn Blondell and Lois Burwell in welcoming the nominees and giving an inside look at the bake-off and nomination process.

Burwell said the branch meets twice a year to discuss the films that members think should be viewed in a theater and considered for seven finalists. Branch members also communicate throughout the year to bring attention to outstanding work. The seven finalists are usually narrowed down to three nominees but there have been years with two and four nominees.

The audience included several past Oscar winners for makeup including seven-time winner, Rick Baker. He won the first competitive Oscar in 1982 with “An American Werewolf in London.” The Academy added the makeup category after receiving complaints that “The Elephant Man” wasn’t recognized for the incredible transformation of John Hurt.

Eva von Bahr and her husband, Love Larson, were nominated last year for “The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.” They returned this year for “The Man Called Ove” with the film’s star, Rolf Lassgard. They made a prosthetic that would cover the actor’s low hairline without restricting the expression lines around his eyes. But the prosthetic could be used only once so von Bahr, an expert wig maker, punched thousands of strands of hair into thirty silicon appliances that matched the different time periods of Ove’s life. They also used contact lenses to change Lassgard’s eye color to match the actor playing the young Ove. “A Man Called Ove” is also nominated in the Foreign Language Film category.

Joel Harlow and Richard Alonso, the nominees “Star Trek Beyond” were generous in sharing credit with the sculptors and artists on their team. Harlow originally planned to design forty six alien species until his wife reminded him it was the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. He ended up creating 56. Alonso developed a “bulletproof” makeup technique for Sophia Boutella’s character, Jaylah, that could withstand any moisture and used prosthetics for the face tattoos to give them a raised effect.

Suicide Squad was represented by Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson. The gregarious Bertolazzi emphasized his freewheeling approach in creating new hair and makeup designs without being influenced by previous versions of the characters. He would start with simple concepts like “green hair” for the Joker played by Jared Leto, and develop the designs organically with input from the actors. The event came full-circle in an emotional way when Nelson, the artist responsible for “Killer Croc,” talked about growing up extremely poor and being told a career in makeup design wasn’t realistic. He then found the inspiration he needed when he saw Rick Baker win that first Oscar in the makeup category!

For a full list of nominees, please visit http://oscar.go.com/nominees.

The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.