Brutal Hearts video premiere

Here is the video (actually, director Bruce McDonald made TWO versions) for Bedouin Soundclash feat. Coeur de Pirate's Brutal Hearts. You can read an article about the video here. Also, my previous post about the making of the video is here. May I suggest that you watch the videos on fullscreen as they are beautiful!



This is the second version of the video, which I LOVE... mostly because the skeleton dancers are featured and I loved them.



finally, here is a behind the scenes video:

Makeup inspired by Beyonce's "Countdown" video!

Halloween at MTV 2011

Toronto Fashion Week

I was very happy to be asked to do a day at fashion week this fall. It's been a while since I've done it (I used to do every season before I started doing TV full time) and it was great fun to see some old friends backstage, make some new ones, and of course see all of the spring fashion for 2012.

MTV Fora came backstage with me and shot me doing some makeup and eating a tuna salad. Because my life is just that glamorous.



my makeup is in this video which follows Steph backstage at Fashion Week... I did her makeup for the Cydelic show:

Backstage with Steph from istoica on Vimeo.

Stills from Brutal Hearts

More stills from the set of the Brutal Hearts music video set. All photos by Jeremy Chan.

Artbound Party!

This year I did a few clients up in their music icon of choice for this year's Artbound party.

This one made it into Toronto's Grid Magazine... pictured is Craig Kielburger (founder of Free The Children) and a Gene Simmons makeup I did:



...and here is "Gene Simmons" and his lovely wife "Shania Twain" before they left their hotel room:

Polaris Prize 2011

I did makeup for The Polaris Prize this year. These are a few fun behind-the-scenes shots I took of Damian (from MuchMusic's The Wedge and singer of former Polaris Prize winning band Fucked Up) and Grant Lawrence from CBC Radio 3... we had a lot of fun in the makeup room that night. And, congrats to The Arcade Fire- this year's winner.








Katie from Austra wanted me to give her a modern Cleopatra vibe:




this is my friend Cat who was helping out with makeup:


Damian as Grant, Grant as Damian:

Articles

Check out a few articles I wrote... click here for an article for Elle Canada about how to get concealer right, and click here for a Huffington Post article on TIFF makeup trends!

Jessica

Today I did makeup for my friend (and model) Jessica. I love her face, she has strong features and a lot of character. She wanted to have an aggressive, bewitched, slightly supernatural vibe. Looking forward to seeing some selects.





Of course Jessica fell in love with my dog Jose:

Fall Fashion Story

Did makeup for a fall fashion story for a daytime tv show. The models were lovely and so funny... I took these pics at 7am with my iphone 4:














this is my friend Amy! (she was doing a makeup demo on the show.)

Up In Smoke

So my dad always used to tell me stories about how he grew up with Tommy Chong (yeah duh, of Cheech and Chong) in Bowness, Alberta. Bowness is, or was, a really really small place. One of the stories revolved around a park in Bowness that had canals running through it, like in Venice or Amsterdam. Another story involved a VW van and some mushrooms. I kinda always thought my dad was full of it, or that he inflated his relationship with Tommy a bit to make for a better story. Then, the day came when I got to work with Cheech and Chong. I met Tommy in the hallway and we started having a conversation about Russell Brand, and flopsweat, and blah blah... anyway we were chatting away like we were old friends. He came in and hung out in the makeup room, and I asked him if he was from Alberta, and he said, “Yeah, from Calgary. Well, not really, just outside of Calgary, this really small place called Bowness.” Get the outta here, thought I. “I think you may have known my dad.”



Tommy freakin' Chong totally remembered my dad and told me the same stories, just with his spin on them. Party stories. It totally made me all misty-eyed. He also remembered my mom’s NAME and the exact corner that her grandfather’s store was. When I told him that my granddad owned the gas station across the street, how my dad worked there and that’s how he met my mom, he smacked my leg and said, “I KNOW THAT STORY!” …but all he could remember was something about my dad kidnapping my mom for a date in a convertible. He also said, "You know, you're like me. Half Asian and don't look it." Anyway, he was a really nice dude. Both of them were. Tommy was telling Cheech about my dad and Bowness, and Cheech asked Chong, “If she’s the Bowness, were you the boner?” Surreal moment #372: Cheech and Chong standing in my makeup room singing “Luck Be a Lady” to me.

Pump It Up

Just found some video of one of Elvis Costello's shows that I did makeup for. This particular episode was with Bono and The Edge (who are some of the nicest people I've ever worked with). I remember the security around the building on this occasion was astonishing... there were security and policemen everywhere. I was escorted to the makeup room by two security guards!! Yet, for whatever reason, I was left alone in the makeup room with no security, alone with The Edge and a shirtless (!) sunglassless (!!) Bono doing his vocal warmups.

Both Bono and The Edge have rosacea- Bono's neck and chest go extremely red and The Edge's cheeks become crimson- and, as the show was in HD I had my work cut out for me. Basically I had to cover the affected areas with a green primer, then bring their skin back to their normal skintone using foundations. (Read: yes, I painted Bono's bare chest.) I'm so pleased to say that both gentlemen were very pleased with the results. We had a great time talking about how all three of us in the room had unusual names and Bono sang a little ditty that he made up about my name and how I must have been teased in school. The Edge told me stories about how he would come to Toronto as a boy and he has many lovely memories here. He also told me the story of how he met his wife... truly, both of these men were some of the nicest people I've met. Mr. Costello and his band The Imposters were always charming, funny gentlemen as well. I have very fond memories of working on 'Spectacle! Elvis Costello With...'

(If you watch the credits at the end of the first video you'll see my name. Small things thrill me.)





Bono also had me hang on to his Carmex lip balm so I could run in on breaks and hand it to him. He said that when he got nervous his lips became dry. I asked him what he could possibly nervous about ? He looked at me and said, "Darlin', have you heard? Elvis Costello is interviewing me tonight!!!"

At the end of the night, I was packing up and The Edge came back in to the makeup room to thank me. I was really struck by how absolutely "normal" and kind of all of the people around them these men were despite how incredibly famous they are. I truly hope I get to work with them again one day.

Bea still my (brutal) heart (get it?)

i love this still from the upcoming Brutal Hearts video. Bea looks stunning.

Brutal Hearts video shoot

I had a great time hanging out with my friends Bedouin Soundclash and Coeur de Pirate shooting the video for Brutal Hearts. This one is directed by the legendary Bruce MacDonald and I was quite thrilled to be working with him. My job seldom feels like work and this day was no exception! I did Beatrice and Jay's makeup first... here they are being silly:



and here is the lovely Miss Bea:




The following afternoon we shoot in a park in Kensington Market. This park is FULL of local characters, which was hilarious and provided us with much entertainment:



The video includes 5 dancers, and the skull makeup was inspired by the movies The Warriors and Dead Presidents with a bit of a tribal/voodoo/New Orleans/Día de los Muertos vibe thrown in.

I love this shot of Eon & Sekou:


Bea & Jay taking direction from Bruce MacDonald:


the boys:


Here I am posing with the dancers:










and here is the band's manager Dave (a/k/a Zizou) being Very Busy talking about Important Things:


Looking forward to seeing the video... the song is one of my favorites. So happy to be able to be part of it!!

In The Makeup Room With Lucky: Sheena gets a Nicole Holness inspired look

Power Outage!!

Today there was a major power outage in many areas of Toronto. The MTV building was in one of those areas, and after some deliberation as to whether we were just going to give up and go home, we decided to shoot some of the shows outside and tape the live shows.

But first, I tried to do Aliya-Jasmine's makeup in the pitch dark. I always tell her that I know her face so well I could probably do her makeup with my eyes closed... well, it appears I cannot:



So, we asked one of our interns, Kalista, to hold a light while I got AJ ready to do MTV News:





Thankfully, the power came back in time for me to shoot a tutorial with Sheena where we recreated Nicole's Pop Yo Bottles look:



and, Lise Watier put up another pic of makeup I did on Sharlene!! CLICK HERE to see it!!

Lise Watier

Lise Watier was kind enough to put a pic of a makeup I did on Nicole Holness up on their tumblr!! CLICK HERE to see it!!!

Nicole blows off some steam...

In The Makeup Room with Lucky: makeup inspired by Lady Gaga

Sharlene gets Gagalooed with makeup inspired by "The Edge of Glory" video:

Monkeying around with Paul the Intern

today I had to whip together a look for Paul the Intern. the producers at MTV Live needed him to look like a monkey man and I only had an hour to throw the whole thing together... which thankfully was long enough to make poor Paul look sufficiently creepy!!





there was no time to do latex to hide the seam of the nose, but it won't read on TV. *whew*