Mise En Scene: Hair and Makeup

When making a decision on hair and makeup, I decided to look at the appearance of different characters within music videos, to see how we could work to create contrasting effects.

Ultimately, we decided that our "innocent" character would have little to no make up, in order to keep the pure aspect to her. We wanted to show the idea of a young girl, with the costume and hair helping to portray this. It also creates a more dishevelled look, one in which the audience can recognise that the character is isolated from societal trends and the idea of self-appreciation.

Seemingly innocent and pure characters are mainly presented with little to no makeup, in order to give the impression that they have nothing to hide. Halsey herself presents this in a number of her music videos, including "Colors". This lack of makeup helps to portray to the audience that they should be liked, and are not using makeup to create an impression to anyone. This is used in the same way throughout Selena Gomez's "Bad Liar" music video, in which she presents herself as an innocent teenager. The characters' hairstyle is usually very casual and neat, however styles such as plaits and curls can present youth and can be symbolic of purity. For example, Gomez's "Bad Liar" hairstyle involves a small braid holding back her fringe.

We decided to create the idea of a "fake" character to present a contrast - with the character wearing obvious and bright makeup, with jewellery and a tiara. We felt that this helped to show a complete contrast in personality, and made this clearer for the audience also. We chose to curl the character's hair and make it look neater and tidier, in order to present the changes in emotional state and attitude to both life and themselves.

Many female characters are presented as both innocent and menacing through the use of makeup. Lana Del Rey creates a unique and individual persona for herself through makeup and vintage-style hair. However, in Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do", her makeup is vibrant and bold to give the impression of power and authority. It contrasts the use of Lana Del Rey, despite the makeup and hairstyle being almost the exact same. This helps to show how makeup can create different ideas and impressions, and aspects such as costume and body language primarily show the distinctions between them.