BA (Hons) Make-up for Media and Performance

Your third year provides the opportunity for you to formulate and identify your particular professional and academic interests.

Risk and ambition within the field will be crucial to your individual development and intellectual and academic integrity will be further encouraged through written work and ‘thinking through practice’.

The structure of Level 6 is made up of units that will further develop your potential to become intellectually motivated and increasingly autonomous professionals.

There is a strong emphasis on balancing conceptual thinking skills, research methods, practical and technical skills, working independently and as part of a team and acquiring lifelong learning skills.

You’ll develop your specialist areas of interest such as prosthetic transformation. You’ll extend your portfolio of work within a range of professional contexts through live projects and collaborations.

You’ll investigate your own practice and develop a philosophical understanding of key critical and contextual issues.

All students are registered for the award of BA (Hons); however, exit awards are available if you leave the course early, having successfully completed one or two levels. If you successfully complete a level of the course, you will automatically be entitled to progress to the next level.

For the award of a Certificate of Higher Education (CertHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 120 credits at Level 4. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the first year of your course.

For the award of a Diploma of Higher Education (DipHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 240 credits of which a minimum of 120 must be at Level 5. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the second year of your course.

For the award of a BA (Hons) you must have achieved a minimum of 360 credits of which a minimum of 240 must be at Level 5 or above, of which a minimum of 120 credits must be at Level 6. This qualification will be awarded upon successful completion of your course.

A BA without Honours may be awarded if you have achieved 300 credits, at least 180 of which are at Level 5 or above, and at least 60 of which are at Level 6.

The course will encourage you to explore the notion of make-up as an interface within the creative community with a particular focus on the media and performance contexts of stage, screen, film, fashion promotional and editorial, special effects and prosthetics. Projects will encourage you to investigate, test and challenge the critical and theoretical ways in which contemporary, historical, cultural, psychological and anthropological attitudes inform and impact upon our perceptions of identity. Opportunities to consider the importance, significance and invention of faces and the representation of make-up on the body provide an exciting environment for producing creative work. You will be encouraged to relate your theoretical research to your practical development of make-up transformation through design thinking and technical skill development in hair styling, wig making, body painting, prosthetics and character design.

We are interested in a convergent and divergent approach to thinking, through research development, design thinking, ideas generation, and problem-solving for make-up transformation, from conception to the final outcome, be that a live performance, film, video recording, photographic evidence, digital images, installation or artefact. The integration of theory and practice is promoted and reinforced through a team teaching approach. Lectures, seminars and tutorials will be delivered by team members and visiting guests in the creative environment of the make-up studios.

The course objectives will be met by deploying a wide variety of teaching and learning methods including studio workshops, simulated and collaborative projects, lectures, seminars, group critiques, guided reading and tutorials. The course is structured progressively to provide increasing opportunities for autonomous learning. The methods deployed will, whenever possible, lead you into the disciplines required of a creative make-up designer and practitioner and promote the transferable skills of self-management and self-reliance. The progressive promotion of student-centred learning reflects your maturity as a student and provides the opportunity to focus learning towards individual goals.

For every unit of your course, we will inform you of what you are expected to learn; what you have to submit; how your work will be assessed; and the deadline for presenting your work for assessment. This is made available through Unit Information, which is on your course blog.

You will receive a final mark for each unit in the form of a percentage, which will be recorded on your formal record of achievement (transcript). Each component of assessment is graded using a notched marking scale, whereby only certain marks are used within each grade. The only marks available within any ten-point band are *2, *5 and *8 (e.g. 62, 65, 68). These marks correspond to a low, mid, and high level of achievement within each grade band.

All learning outcomes must be passed to successfully complete the unit.

On successful completion of your Honours degree course, you will be awarded a degree classification based on your unit marks. The final classification is determined using all unit marks at Levels 5 and 6 using two different algorithms, which are detailed in the HE Student Regulations. If the two algorithms produce different results, you will be awarded the higher class of degree.

If you have joined Level 6 through either the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) route or having completed a Foundation Degree (FdA), the final classification is determined using only your unit marks at Level 6.

For further information on assessment, progression, awards and classifications, please visit https://viewpoint.aub.ac.uk

Career opportunities will focus on working closely with directors, designers and other creative departments in film, television, live performance and fashion which could include CGI technicians, photographers, model makers, sculptors, animatronics designers, visual effects artists and fashion stylists.

As graduating make-up artists from AUB, your professional options are wide and varied. With this in mind, the course has been designed to prepare you for a professional career in a diverse range of specialist roles thus giving you the necessary skills to take full advantage of an inspiring and exciting career.

Our Careers and Employability Service is dedicated to supporting you in turning your creativity into a great career. You can read more about this here.

Opportunities that our recent graduates have undertaken include:

• Make-up Trainee, Fantastic Beasts the Crimes of Grindelwald (film)
• Make-up Trainee, The Durrells (ITV)
• Deputy Head of Wigs, La Cage au Folles (musical)
• Make-up trainee, Beauty and the Beast (film)
• Make-up assistant, The Secret (ITV)
• Wig Assistant, The Wig Store
• Wig Technician at Pete Own Wigs, Bristol
• Wigs and Make-up assistant for the Royal Shakespeare Company
• Wigmaker/dresser at Banbury Postiche
• Mould-making technicians for the Harry Potter tour
• Ministry of Masks, London
• Shepperton film studios, Thor 2
• Shepperton film studios, John Carter of Mars
• Millennium FX prosthetics studio, London
• Pinewood Film Studios, Les Miserable
• Palace Theatre, London, Singing in the Rain
• Dominion Theatre, London, We will Rock You
• BBC, Children in Need
• BBC, Doctor Who
• Channel 4, Gok’s Clothes Road Show

• International Beauty Industry Awards 2023: Global Student Winner
• Grand Prize Stan Winston Character Make-up Competition: Winner
• BBC Three, Glow Up, Series 3: Winner
• TikTok Creative Revolution: Winner
• Illamasqua ‘Distinction in Make-up Artistry’: Finalist
• Warpaint Make-up Championship, London: Winner
• Body Paint Pro at the North Make-up Championships
• National Make-up Awards: winner
• Brush Wars Fashion Make-up Competition: runner-up
• ‘The Art of Body Painting’, Olympia