If you want a career working with hair, make-up and special effects in the entertainment industry this course is for you.

You will gain a wealth of practical skills in hair and make-up, and will work on live projects such as the Pantomime and other in-college theatre performances, create gruesome creatures for a live action horror maze and casualty scenes for live exhibitions.

In the second year you will learn more advanced technical skills including professional production planning and you will learn how to establish yourself as a self-employed make-up artist, giving you the business knowledge and skills to promote yourself in the industry. This exciting career-led course covers the application of specialised make-up and synthetic hair for theatrical and media purposes. You will put the workshop skills you learn into practice and document your progress in sketch books to document evidence in order to complete the units on this course.

Full-time students aged 16-18 will follow a study programme at City College which includes:

• The main subject qualification
• Work experience which is effective, relevant, and includes careers fairs, site visits, guest speakers and introduces you to the expectations of the real demands of work English and maths where students have not yet achieved GCSE grade 4 or above in these subjects
• Additional activities such as tutorials and work-related learning, to help further develop the personal skills relevant to your progression goals
• These four elements should combine to provide stretch and challenge to prepare you for progression to employment or further study.
• UCAS Tariff – Earn up to 168 UCAS points for university entry

Across the two years of this course you will learn the following:

• Professional practice for backstage hair and make-up artists
• Critical and contextual research
• Engaging with an audience through hair and make-up design
• Application of theatrical and media make-up and hair for performance (stage, TV, film, fashion)
• Hair styling and wig fitting for performers
• Fantasy and structural hair
• Special effects make-up
• Moulding and applying prosthetics
• Period make-up and hair design
• Body art and tattoo covering
• Professional production planning

If you successfully complete the first year of study you will gain a Level 3 Diploma qualification.

In order to progress to the second year you will need to pass the first year of study.

Students will have access to our purpose-built make-up studio as well as backstage areas when working on live shows.