Creating Snow Effects in Film and TV

Once I knew that I wanted to incorporate the appearance of snow, I looked at images from various films that I knew featured it quite a lot; including Vertical Limit, The Revenant and Everest, to distinguish the different colours, textures and products used as well as how it layed on the face and body.

I noticed that when the snow effects were used on the face, it was usually layed on the highest points of the face such as the nose and forehead and clung to hairs on the face including eye brows, eye lashes and any facial hair. Although I want the snow effect to be more decorative than realistic in its placement, I would still like to scatter and lay on the snow paste and artificial snow onto the hair and forehead.

While researching, I also came across a video of Jan Sewell (hair and makeup designer on the film Everest) demonstrating creating snow effects on the face. She used silicone to build up certain areas on the face then used a skin illustrator palette and a fan brush to create the appearance of chillblains and reddened skin. Most importantly, she then applied a product called snow paste to the models skin and hair and this created a really realistic snow effect. I then purchased some from PAM.  

Vertical Limit (2000)

Director- Martin Campbell

Makeup Supervisor- Nikki Gooley

Everest (2015)

Director- Baltasar Kormakur

Makeup Designer- Jan Sewell

The Revenant (2015)

Director- Alejandro G. Inarritu

Makeup head- Graham Johnston




References

Konbini.com. (2016). [online] Available at: http://www.konbini.com/en/files/2015/09/LeoTheRevenant.jpg [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Screen-space.squarespace.com. (2016). [online] Available at: http://screen-space.squarespace.com/storage/everest-m4v-670.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1441854844869 [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Sies.tv. (2016). [online] Available at: http://www.sies.tv/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/img.irtve_.jpg [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com. (2016). [online] Available at: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcStrK4SD-Cdk2DoNAxRWhlU8jD27j6k0dyB0S2Rl2N-bPWwlR52ng [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Superiorpics.com. (2016). [online] Available at: http://superiorpics.com/movie_pictures/mp/2000_Vertical_Limit/bill_paxton_vertical_limit_001.jpg [Accessed 6 May 2016].