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Jessica Bradshaw

Jessica is a character and makeup designer graduating from IADT’s Design for Stage and Screen program. Her particular interests lie in visualising the narrative focusing on Character design development throughout the text and how makeup can be utilised to illustrate characters’ transformations, Alongside her coursework, she has had the opportunity to work on a number of exciting projects, some of which include designing characters for the opera ‘King Arthur’ with RIAM. In addition, she has worked on a plethora of short films and music videos during her time at IADT which are on view in her portfolio.

My major project focuses on the reinterpretation of the 1756 edition of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont,visualising and re designing this narrative for a contemporary film. This story intrigued me, elements of the female gothic genre and the idea of a young female heroine being entrapped in a domestic space. I played on this idea of intrusion in my design of the Beast, making him a grotesque, invasive character.

Beauty’s character design is based around typical beauty standards of the 19th century. Her makeup is very natural with porcelain skin and perfectly flushed cheeks.

My choice to design the Beast as a human came from research into Julia Kristeva’s theories on the abject as well as the idea that when you can see parts of your (human) self within something that you find repulsive, that makes it all the more scary.

Here we have Beauty with the Beast after he has transformed back into a handsome prince.

Beauty’s sister was designed to showcase a difference in her values comparative to Beauty’s. The sister values only class and worries only about how she is perceived by the rest of society. Because of this I chose to design her as wearing much heavier makeup and with tightly curled ringlets.

Here I have created a look showing how Beauty’s sister would look after she is transformed into a statue in the end of the film.

My minor project was to design and adapt ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ for contemporary film. The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 novel written by H.G Wells. The story follows young Englishman, Edward Prendick, on an unfortunate journey after he is rescued from a shipwreck. Prendick is taken in by Montgomery, assistant to mad scientist Doctor Moreau who is embarking on a quest to create a race of superhumans on his secluded island. I was interested in creating a character that fits this ‘mad scientist’ role and decided to follow the highs and lows of the story through Doctor Moreau’s experiences. Following Doctor Moreau throughout the story from the first time he sets eyes on Prendick right through to his violent death at the end of the piece.

Here I have some concept illustrations showing some of Moreau’s creations, ‘The Beast People’. These creatures were created by Moreau by means of vivisecting the animals of the island. Here I’m also showing my storyboard sketch which plans out the final shots shown above.

Additional image of Doctor Moreau with facial injuries.

Behind the scenes shot during makeup application.

Major Project: Beauty and The Beast

Minor Project: The Island of Doctor Moreau

Ageing Women in Mid-Twentieth Century American Film Noir

This thesis seeks to examine why it is that the ageing women from a number of different examples within the American film noir genre are presented to the audience in a way that is designed to make them unlikeable. It states that this villainisation of ageing women is nothing new, with examples present throughout art history and also in modern media. Research finds that in times of cultural change, mass media is a clear representative of societies views and opinions of people within its culture at the time of its creation. In the case of this examination, it is found that the cultural changes pertaining to gendered divisions within the workforce, the home and the family unit which became apparent post World War II, have had an effect on the representation of the ageing leading ladies in a number of films within the film noir genre ranging from 1945-1962. This is shown by examining Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950), Mildred Pierce in Mildred Pierce (1945), and Charlotte Haze in Lolita (1962) with reference to a number of different academic sources.

Character MakeUp Design

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