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Megan Davis

My name is Megan Davis, I am a make-up artist from Co. Wicklow. I am very creative and passionate about my craft. I love being able to transform actors into their characters. Over the past four years of this course, I have learned a wide range of skills. I especially love 3D work such as casting, sculpting and moulding that relates to prosthetics, the making, the application and finally the colouring of appliances suitable for Film and TV. I have also learned and integrated some digital skills such as photography and editing. I’m very excited to start my career in the industry.

Synopsis: The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh is a dark comedy. The story follows two brothers, the younger, Katurian, is a writer of short gruesome stories about child murders. His older brother Michal, is mentally slow which is attributed to the abuse and damage afflicted upon him as as a child. Katurian's stories are very similar to the recent child murders in the area which leads to both brothers getting arrested by two detectives, Tupolski and Ariel. The plot focuses on the telling of these short stories during their interrogation, whereby Michal confesses to the murders but puts the blame on Katurian. Katurian murders his brother and accepts the fate of execution in an attempt to save his stories from destruction.

For my version of this script, I incorporated Irish folktale characters into the short stories told by Katurian. I was inspired by the Irish fairies in old folk tales that are told to us by many people in Ireland and I thought the character would really benefit from this element, especially since there are not many contemporary plays/films whereby Irish fairies are represented. I used the concept of 'Changeling' to create the character from the sub-story “The Little Jesus Girl” which was represented through a transformation from a little girl into an old male Changeling fairy. I designed characters from two separate worlds, the real world and the mythical world.

This video was created to explain the sub-story of 'The Little Jesus' by using extracts from the script to film characters and events from my perspective.

My focus as a designer is in character transformation and I focused on theFairy Character: I used the same model for both the Little Jesus Girl and this Fairy character. This image shows the character in full transformation. To create this character it involved making four prosthetic appliances - two ears, a forehead, and a nose piece. I also made a bald cap, the hair and the beard. To complete character, it required a full-body paint, nails and the costume which I also constructed to bring my character to life.

Close-up of the Little Jesus Girl with the crown of thorns I made from barbed wire as stated in the script. This required that all spikes were sanded to blunt and each turned upwards away from the head, which also played on the notion of the crown of thorns. I used blood product to drip over the crown for authenticity.

This image depicts the scene where 'the little Jesus' is forced to walk around with a cross as in the original tale of Jesus. I made the cross using two bits of wood for my film.

This is a slide show video to demonstrate the process of casting, sculpting, molding and making these characters to enable them to come to life.

The Pillowman

This project is based on The Pillowman, a play by Martin McDonagh. Growing up in the Irish countryside of Co. Wicklow, I heard many stories of Irish fairies and evil little creatures and how they can terrorize mortals. I have always had a great interest in these mythical beings, so for my final project I really wanted to focus on this Irish mythology to produce a concept of what these might look like. Upon reading the script I could imagine supplementing the characters from the short story “The Little Jesus” with a fairy as a new concept for this play.

Mental Health represented through makeup and film in two particular eras of the Twentieth century.

My thesis investigates the connection between American society’s view on mental health in two particular eras of the twentieth century: the 1930s/1940s and 1970s/1980s. Contextual research on these periods will inform an examination of the werewolf characters in the films The Wolfman (1941) and An American Werewolf in London (1981). In addition to outlining a relevant history of each era, I will examine in particular the care procedures for a patient suffering from mental health in each period. Upon researching various articles, archives, historic newspapers, and many other resources, I have discovered that there is a deeper connection between society and the werewolves represented in the two films that I will be discussing. By closely reading key moments within these two films, I have made connections between the practical outcomes of the characters through special effects makeup, materials, and application and the historical and political health care difficulties that were happening around the time. Overall, I argue that the werewolf character, as exemplified in these two films, reflects and grapples with societal concerns about mental health.

Character MakeUp Design

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