Di­anne John is in­deed a Mas­ter Make-up Artist. She has been trans­form­ing faces on the is­land of Trinidad for the past decade in­clud­ing top en­ter­tain­ers, ac­tors and lo­cal and re­gion­al mod­els (for press ads and bill­boards). John, a self-em­ployed busi­ness­woman, has worked her mag­ic for lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials, mu­sic videos and Caribbean mag­a­zines. She has en­hanced the beau­ty of many news an­chors here in Trinidad with the most re­cent be­ing Char­lene Ramd­hanie of CNC3.

The high­lights of her ca­reer in­clude work­ing with sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­a­land re­gion­al­pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies on var­i­ous projects such as: House of Ush­er Films, Los An­ge­les and Caribbean Crews for Cap­tain Mor­gan Par­rot Bay Rum tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials,British pro­duc­tion team for Jamesy P's Nook­ie mu­sic video, Venezue­lan pro­duc­tion team for B Mo­bile tvc, VP records for sev­er­al CD cov­er shots, Ja­maican Di­rec­tor, Ras Kas­sa of Jam­rock fame for MTV/Unicef movie, Tribes and In­ter­na­tion­al mod­el and ac­tress Ya­mi, who ap­peared on sev­er­al tele­vi­sion shows in­clud­ing pop­u­lar soap opera, The Young and the Rest­less.

The out­go­ing and tal­ent­ed Make-up artist has worked on many fa­mous faces. She made men­tion to Bri­an Lara, Dwayne Bra­vo, Kees Dif­f­en­thaler, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, David Rud­der, Max­imus Dan, Machel Mon­tano, Patrice Roberts, Na­dia Bat­son, Ricky Jai, Ravi B, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Ira Math­ur. Read on as she dis­clos­es more about this colour­ful ca­reer in an in­ter­view with gieMAGAZINE.

Why did you want to be­come a Make-up Artist? What sparked your in­ter­est?

I re­mem­ber dur­ing my teenage years, my moth­er com­plained bit­ter­ly about my lin­ger­ing at cos­met­ic coun­ters read­ing la­bels, ex­am­in­ing prod­ucts and play­ing with Make-up for what seemed to her to be an eter­ni­ty.I al­ways had a great in­ter­est in all things skin re­lat­ed and ini­tial­ly want­ed to be a cos­me­tol­o­gist. I veered dra­mat­i­cal­ly off course and got in­to bank­ing when my plans to study in Flori­da fell apart.Two years af­ter I re­signed from RBTT Bank I re­mem­ber lis­ten­ing to a preach­er and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, Dr. Myles Munroe, on tele­vi­sion say­ing that to be tru­ly hap­py and ful­filled in this life you should do what you ab­solute­ly love and usu­al­ly these dreams present them­selves dur­ing child­hood. It then clicked and I be­gan pur­su­ing my pas­sion.

What are the func­tions of a Make-up Artist?

The pri­ma­ry func­tion of a Make-up artist is to un­der­stand how clients per­ceive them­selves and to trans­late that in­to a make-up look that best suits their per­son­al­i­ty.Hav­ing a hap­py client is key.

Are there dif­fer­ent types of Make-up Artists?

All Make-up artists have a ba­sic knowl­edge of do­ing day and evening make-up.How­ev­er, de­pend­ing on their­cre­ative pref­er­ence, make-up Artists can spe­cialise in sev­er­al types of Make-up ap­pli­ca­tions in­clud­ing film, tele­vi­sion, stage, pho­tog­ra­phy, bridal, run­way, avant garde, spe­cial FX and air Brush­ing.Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the more cre­ative side of Make-up is not be­ing taught in depth so far in Trinidad but hope­ful­ly this would change in the near fu­ture.

What is the length of study?

Make up artistry could be learnt over a cou­ple months but it takes many years and lots of prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence­to hone that in­for­ma­tion­in­to a skill.

Where to study?

Sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al make-up Artists of­fer make-up cours­es al­so one lo­cal cos­met­ic com­pa­ny of­fers ba­sic and ad­vanced cours­es in make-up.

Is there a mar­ket here for Make-up Artists or is the field sat­u­rat­ed?

The mar­ket is def­i­nite­ly over sat­u­rat­ed in this coun­try.Fig­u­ra­tive­ly speak­ing, there seems to be one on every cor­ner, how­ev­er the great dif­fer­ence is in the skill fac­tor which is what sep­a­rat­es­the men from the boys.

What are the ad­van­tages/re­wards of your job?

Make-up Artists get to in­ter­act with peo­ple from all walks of life, from Pres­i­dents and Prime Min­is­ters to the av­er­age per­son in so­ci­ety.Meet­ing and in­ter­fac­ing with dif­fer­ent peo­ple and per­son­al­i­ties,hav­ing to work and adapt to dif­fer­ent en­vi­ron­ments, hav­ing your work dis­played in­ter­na­tion­allyand see­ing your clients smile af­ter a job well done, is in­sane­ly re­ward­ing.

What are the dis­ad­van­tages/dif­fi­cul­ties of your job?

Be­com­ing a free­lance Make-up Artist means that the suc­cess of your busi­ness de­pends on your own­per­son. There is no fixed salary at the end of the month and usu­al­ly no fixed job, so the onus is on one­self to cov­er ex­pens­es, pay your bills and­make a prof­it.This even­tu­al­ly proves to be the make or break fac­tor for most artists.

Is it a male/fe­male dom­i­nat­ed field?

Make up is still a typ­i­cal­ly fe­male dom­i­nat­ed field to date but many men have been break­ing in­to this field with great suc­cess.This is re­fresh­ing as this some­times puts a spin on how we view and do things. New tech­niques are brought to the fore and more risque ap­pli­ca­tions seek to in­spire.

Do you have any ad­vice for young peo­ple want­i­ng to get in­to this field?

My ad­vice would be to com­plete your for­mal ed­u­ca­tion and then if you want to pur­sue Make-up artistry, en­sure that this is your heart's pas­sion or else you may be dis­ap­point­ed.

What is your most mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence (as a Make-up artist)?

I had fun work­ing on sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials for Par­rot Bay Rum shot in To­ba­go and more re­cent­ly the MTV/Unicef movie, Tribes.The ex­pe­ri­ence of work­ing with for­eign film hous­es, ec­cen­tricdi­rec­tors of pho­tog­ra­phy and pro­duc­tion crews from all over the world was in­deed in­valu­able.

What time is the most hec­tic for a Make-up Artist in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

Car­ni­val would def­i­nite­ly be the most hec­tic, but there is al­so bridal sea­son (June to Au­gust), grad­u­a­tion time and of course, Christ­mas.

Do you have any re­grets get­ting in­to this field?

Make-up is my pas­sion,I thor­ough­ly en­joy what I do and usu­al­ly have great fun do­ing it.I love in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple so I don't mind work­ing long hours (some­times even 18 - 23 hour days on oc­ca­sion) and hav­ing an in­cred­i­bly hec­tic sched­ule.