Students get tips from Oscar-winning make-up artist

Creative arts students has been been getting tips from a three-time Oscar-winning make-up artist.

Ve Neill's credits include some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters, including Mrs Doubtfire and Batman.

She has spent a week at the University of Northampton leading prosthetics workshops and demonstrating state-of-the-art techniques.

The university says it hopes the visit could lead to one of its students becoming an Oscar winner.

Ms Neill earned Oscars for her work on the movies Beetlejuice, Mrs Doubtfire and Ed Wood.

The artist's journey to Hollywood began with a visit to a science fiction convention when she was 18.

She met Fred Phillips, the make-up artist on the original Star Trek TV series, who secured Ms Neill a job on the first film adventure for Captain Kirk and his crew.

At the same convention, she met men dressed as characters from Planet of the Apes who had done their own make-up. She asked if she could be taught how to do it.

She told BBC Radio Northampton: "They looked at each other dumbfounded and said 'yeh, but you're a girl.'

"I said 'I know, isn't it fabulous?'"

For the Mrs Doubtfire movie, she applied make-up to Robin Williams a total of 54 times, and it had to be the same each time.

She said her make-up must have been good enough to fool people because when she was standing next to Williams in the street and someone asked where the actor was, she said: "He was standing right next to me in the Mrs Doubtfire make-up and the kid didn't realise and I thought 'yes!'"

Anthony Stepniak, from the university's Media, Film and Special Effects department, said: "Our industry is incredibly reliant on people of Ve's calibre and expertise, taking the time to speak with students who are taking the first steps in becoming artistic professionals.

"Who knows, after learning a thing or two from Ve, maybe we will have the next Oscar award-winning make-up artist graduating in the coming years."

Ms Neill said it was not an easy industry to get into, but it was worth persevering.

"If this is something you want to do, you're going to have to go and get it. They're not going to hand it to you," she said.

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