What clients want from their makeup artist

The Class of July 2021 has graduated from the Daniel Bauer Makeup Academy Delhi. This is a super interesting class and each of the students who initially joined us for our fast-track makeup course in Delhi, immediately got to fully understanding why the long term makeup course we offer in Delhi is the best type of makeup course. What clients want is very different from what we think they want.

You see, being a makeup artist involves far more than just makeup…. way more.

Of course all clients fully expect the artist they hire to be skilled in makeup and hair and there are crores of artists all over India who do great makeup and hair. But what clients want is far more than just good makeup. They want professionals who can do the job.

1. Clients want speed

The typical photo shoot length is 8 hours. When a shoot goes beyond the 8 hours, clients will more often than not pay overtime to the team and that can become a huge problem if it hasn’t been budgeted or planned. One of the most important teams on any photoshoot is the team who starts the morning of any job, and that is hair and makeup. If the hair and makeup team are fast and efficient in getting the model/celeb/performer ready, then you will always have a happy client and any sign of overtime will not be seen as the reason of the hair and makeup team being slow in the morning. Full hair and makeup should take no longer than an hour. At the Daniel Bauer Academy, we teach makeup and makeup with speed.

1. Clients want return on investment

On set, a makeup and hair artist’s job is much more complicated than it looks. Besides making actors or models look their part, makeup artists are also needed to have deep understanding of continuity of looks, and working in different extreme scenarios. Makeup is not just restricted to creating a winged eyeliner, or slaying with the highlighter, it is far more complex. Just like actors, HMUAs are also expected to understand character and story to bring out those elements and emotions through their appearance. Not only that, makeup artists for beauty campaigns are hired to convey exactly what their brand sells and believes in. For example, skincare brands shoot and publish big banners on malls and highways with extremely zoomed in tight skin focused images, and the makeup artists need to understand the anatomy of the face, the technicality of lighting, etc so much better. Hence, when clients want to hire, they want to work with someone who knows a lot more than just makeup.

3. Clients want team work

When Daniel Bauer Academy students are working on fashion shows like Lakme Fashion Week or India Couture week, or other fashion TV shows like India’s Next Top Model, Supermodel of the year, and designer campaigns like Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani, etc. we always create a high functioning, intelligent team of makeup and hair artists. Why? Because just good makeup and hair skills is not enough, we want people with good emotional intelligence, basically someone who is a good team player, someone who makes everyone’s job easy and makes the whole glam session super smooth. This is exactly why we train our students at the Daniel Bauer Academy to always have the right attitude towards your course, towards this profession and every single job that they do. Skills are something we can work on and develop for every student, but the right attitude comes from the right intention. Because this course is paced so well and not hurried into, students understand these things over time and start to develop their personalities better. Again, this is wanted clients want, they want artists they can rely on, artists that make them stress free.

4. Clients want versatility

Niche is not always better when it comes to makeup. What’s better than niche? Versatility. Someone who is flexible as an artist is very rare to find. Makeup artists in India are always tagged under ‘bridal artist’ or ‘fashion artist’. Why not both? Why can’t you just be an excellent makeup artist with fine techniques, amazing eye makeup, flawless base and beautiful finish? As a makeup and hair artist, its not impossible to be a very well-known artist for bridal jobs as well as magazine covers and haute couture campaigns. So then why not be that artist? Daniel Bauer Academy always train students in a way that they are able to pull off everything from a bride, to a full on glam red carpet, to films, and even advertising campaigns, because honestly, you can very well do it all and have it all, like all our student alumni from the Daniel Bauer Academy in the last few years.

5. Clients want to work with someone who has fine taste

In India, a country of about 130 crore people, its very common to find someone with good skills, good hands. Someone who can draw any shape, create any stroke, and paint any color. But how many of them actually have good taste? How many understand fashion or have a sense of aesthetic? Not even a few! Students of the Daniel Bauer Academy are repeatedly hired for the biggest projects in India, whether its film, ad or glamourous events, and its not because they’re so good at contouring or highlighting. Artists are chosen for their idea of fashion and beauty, for their sense of aesthetic, and for their vision. It’s hardly ever about just the makeup technique, it’s always much deeper than we see. At the Daniel Bauer Academy we want to produce artists who have excellent taste, and that comes with the thorough practices we follow when we train students on how to create mood boards, research the right way keeping in mind the industry you’re from, ideate, design looks, and so much more…

6. Clients want experience

If a client is paying for a production of a photo or digital shoot, they need to hire artist who are familiar with working on set, that means adjusting and getting the job done. If the lights in the makeup room go off, as so often they do, or the AC is not working, artists need to always work through these challenges. Artists who have worked on set before will understand shoot etiquette, will understand the structure of a photo, know what a liner producer does or what the role of a 1^st AD. Photoshoot are very structured and artists with the experience to know the structures will always work far more effectively and will be able to get the job done, not matter the challenge. At the Daniel Bauer Academy we to aim to give all out students real life shoot experience, this preparing them for when they are out on jobs on their own.

While we do believe that learning slowly, with lots of gaps to master techniques, speed and understanding of makeup is the best way to go, we also agree that that the word ‘slowly’ is very subjective and differs in meaning from person to person. This is exactly why we have our two kinds of courses – Artist Ready course and Industry Ready course. Artist ready was mainly created to mimic the technicalities and logic of industry ready course, but a tad bit faster. Students who join artist ready course are willing to give in their 110% heart and soul into learning makeup and hair faster but effectively, while students who join the industry ready course are people who are willing to trust the process and do the course at a slower and much comfortable pace.