Esther Nakaziba makes film sets look more believable and glamourous

You have probably watched movies where wounds bleed with unsettling authenticity, characters’ faces appearing older than they are in real life, bruises from fist fights, scars that tell stories or body parts chopped off.

Well, this surreal landscape where realism meets fantasy is brought to life through the art of special effects makeup; an art form of makeup application used to create realistic and often extreme physical transformations.

It involves use of various techniques and materials to produce illusions of wounds, injuries, monsters, aging or any other effects that are beyond the capabilities of standard beauty makeup, in order to create convincing visual effects to enhance storytelling or create memorable characters.

With a growing Ugandan film industry, only a handful of local professionals can pull off that kind of makeup. One of them is 29-year-old Esther Nakaziba, an award-winning special effects makeup artist and costume designer. I met her at National theatre where she was attending rehearsals for an upcoming stage play, Adungu Tale Musical, where she is the costume designer.

Born in Katwe, Kampala but raised in Gangu, Busaabala road, Nakaziba has always been a creative person; as early as her primary school days at Gangu Preparatory Primary School, she was doing amateur fashion shows in her school dormitory, folding bed sheets into outfits and using her classmates as models.

No wonder, when she went to Makerere University, she enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Fine Art and Design, majoring in fashion and design. After graduation, since she loved film so much, she crossed from being a glamour fashion designer to a costume designer for movies.

With the sewing machine her father had given her as her graduation-day gift, Nakaziba started making costumes from Gazaland shopping arcade in the city centre. However, her biggest interest was in special effects makeup, which she had been introduced to during her senior six vacation.

DISCOVERING SPECIAL EFFECTS MAKEUP

In her senior six vacation, Nakaziba’s father enrolled her at Bayambira Dramactors School of Performing Arts for creative dance classes. By then, the Bakayimbira Dramactors were shooting a series called Bogere and when their special effects makeup artist Shakira Kibirige came on set, there was a lot of work to be done and the team thought of getting any student to assist her.

“Andrew Benon Kibuuka came to class and asked who was interested in learning makeup. I stood up. I was taken on set to see and learn from what Shakira was doing. She was doing bruises because there was a scene were someone had gotten an accident and Kibuuka’s character had to look older than he was in real life; so, Shakira had to transform all those characters,” Nakaziba says.

Nakaziba had not known this type of makeup before and seeing it for the first time mesmerized her that she asked Shakira if she could teach her.

Shakira told her the best way she would learn, would be through observing what she was doing and how she did it. As fate would have it, the following day Shakira was not able to come on set and that is how Nakaziba stepped in to fill the gap.

“Since they were shooting a series which has continuity, I had to do the exact makeup that Shakira had done the previous day and I think I did a copy-and-paste of it. When I saw what I had done, I was intrigued and sought to learn more about special effects makeup. I am basically 90 percent self-taught and 10 percent mentored,” she says.

Nakaziba says she is specific about calling herself a special effects makeup artist, because each time she tells people that she is just a makeup artist, their minds are drawn to ‘face beats’ – the beauty and glamour makeup – although she also does that. It is just that special effects makeup is what secures her bag.

She notes that with film makeup, it has to move in line with the film’s characters and, therefore, it is the script of the film which dictates the looks the makeup artist does. She also emphasizes doing a lot of research in order to know exactly how people are supposed to look in different scenarios so as to come up with relatable looks in the films.

She can make an actor appear to have a black eye, or swollen cheek; she can give the appearance of a festering wound or wrinkled face.

“You can also learn from real life examples. For instance, when an accident happens or a thief is being beaten and I am nearby, I am forced to watch because I want to relate to that scenario when I am given a job to do makeup on someone in a similar situation on set. But before I would just run away because I don’t like witnessing violence. Even though I am a special effects makeup artist who does a lot of blood and wounds on set, I still don’t like watching it,” she adds.

NOTABLE GIGS

Nakaziba’s first paid special effects makeup gig came in 2016 when she was in her last year at Makerere University, in a theatre play directed and produced by John Segawa called Trials and Tribulations; Gasuze Ntaate where she had to make two characters look older.

She was recommended for the job by Kibuuka who had been contacted by Segawa looking for a makeup artist to fill in for Shakira. She remembers that even though Segawa loved the looks, it was challenging for her to pull them off since she had little experience by then.

In 2017, she worked on the set of 27 Guns (a film directed by Natasha Museveni Karugire) where she was the third makeup assistant, meaning she never actually participated in doing the makeup, but was just carrying the main makeup artists’ equipment while on set. Still, it was a learning opportunity for the determined Nakaziba.

“The script for 27 Guns was mainly driven by bullet wounds and tortured people. So, I learnt a lot when it comes to doing bruises, a beaten- up or tortured person, an accident and that sums up the biggest components of the special effects makeup. Because I have a background of art, it was very easy to copy and paste what I always saw on set.”

While on the 27 Guns film set, Nakaziba met Grace Mulema, a Kenyan special effects makeup artist, who after noticing the passion she had for this type of makeup, committed to training her in everything she needed to learn about special effects makeup. When she was going back to Kenya, Mulema left Nakaziba with her makeup kit to keep practicing everything she had seen on set.

To date, Nakaziba says, in case she gets to a film set and she is not sure of the look she is going for, she can call Mulema for help. As the world closed up during the Covid 19 pandemic, Nakaziba used that time to better her art. She practiced and trained every day, followed various special effects makeup artists on social media platforms and watched YouTube tutorials of experts doing the makeup.

“After doing a number of gigs, I had saved up some money which I sent to Grace Mulema in Kenya and she bought me my first special effects makeup products. It was a small package which cost Shs 400,000, but I was the happiest because the whole time during the Covid-19 lockdowns while I was training myself, I was using improvised products which I can’t approve of to be used on set,” she says.

The first-ever film set Nakaziba worked on as a professional makeup artist was in 2022, on the Prestige series on Pearl Magic Prime. The series director Nathan Magoola contacted her via Facebook after seeing her work online. Here, she was made the head of the makeup department.

“If it wasn’t for Prestige, I wouldn’t have learnt the beauty of makeup. Fine, I don’t like it, but it is what is more affordable in Uganda right now. So, you either know it so that you can get gigs or learn special effects and wait for clients who want special effects alone. But very few can hire you for only special effects, mostly because there is usually no budget for it. So, in order to utilise the small budget, filmmakers want to hire someone who can do both,” she says.

While working on Prestige, she was contacted by Loukman Ali to work with him on a Netflix African Folktales production called Katera Of The Punishment Island. She then went on to work on other series and movies such as Bed of Thorns, Ubuntu, Sunset in Kotido, The Honourables, Taama, among others. She has also done makeup for music videos and commercial adverts.

NAKAZIBA FILM AND MAKEUP EXHIBITIONS

Nakaziba is making her mark in Uganda’s film industry through her annual E-Nakaziba film and makeup exhibition where film makeup artists and costume designers showcase their talents and also lure other young creatives to join the industry.

While doing Prestige where she had signed a two-year contract, Nakaziba says, it made her comfortable but later realized that she was not learning because she was doing almost the same looks every day. She says time came when many people would call her for gigs elsewhere but she could not leave the set, since she had no assistants and could not recommend anyone because they could not match her work.

Faced with such a career hurdle made her to seek advice from a friend about what to do, for her to get assistants who understand the kind of makeup she was doing. The friend brought up the idea of doing a masterclass, but she brushed it off because she felt like masterclasses were supposed to be done by people who have been in the industry for at least a decade. That is when the idea of doing an exhibition came up.

“Initially it was supposed to be a one-day exhibition but when we started planning it, it turned into a three-day affair. Everyone I told about it was so excited and I discovered that if I promoted it well, I would be able to show people what I do so that when I call upon students, they would come because they would have seen what film makeup is all about,” she says.

“It is also a platform for me to showcase what I do because in Uganda there are some who think that it is only in Hollywood where you can get special effects makeup artists.”

For the first edition, the turnout was very good with about 80 students registering for the exhibition. There were also other makeup artists and costume designers who exhibited including Grace Mulema, who was one of the facilitators for the workshops. After the exhibition, she then called for classes in what she calls the E-Nakaziba Cohort.

She has so far done three cohorts and in May this year she is bringing the fourth one. She trains her students from National theatre every Thursday and Friday for two months and one month of internship where she takes them to film sets. For this edition which took place in April this year, the mission was to create awareness among the general public who don’t know about art to know how the characters they watch on screen are made to look the way they do.

CHALLENGES

Nakaziba says the film makeup department in Uganda still faces a lot of challenges, especially since there are no professional schools that teach special effects makeup.

Even the film schools we have don’t have the courses for makeup and costumes and if anyone wants to learn special effects makeup, they have to go to beauty schools which mainly focus on glam makeup. Additionally, there are no makeup products on the Ugandan market which are needed for special effects; the closest they can get them is through ordering from Kenya or shipping via Amazon.

Luckily, she is being helped out by her now business associate Mulema, who purchases and sends her the products from Kenya and she (Nakaziba) in turn also sells to other artists in Uganda. Another challenge Nakaziba notes, is how unprofessional people in the Ugandan film industry can be.

She cites scenarios where other members of the crew such as cinematographers and set designers will get the script like two months prior to shooting but a makeup artist will be called overnight when shooting begins the following day, because some think makeup is easy and a by-the-way.

“You go through the script and realise that the looks demand a lot and you may not have the products readily available. But had I gotten the script earlier, I would have gathered all the materials needed so that by the time we start shooting, I am well equipped,” she says.

She, however, acknowledges that filmmakers have started appreciating the big role makeup plays in their films, and they have started adapting to it unlike previously where it was seen as improvisation they could even do without.

Last year, a makeup category was also added to the Uganda Film Festival awards after ten years of the awards’ existence.

HER CHARGES

Currently Nakaziba charges Shs 300,000 per day on set, minus the makeup products.

“I give a different price quotation for the makeup products because every movie has its own requirements since the scripts or plot are not the same. The products required to make bruises are not the same as those required to show that someone’s body part has been cut off.”

“Special effects makeup is actually easy, but it needs you to be more creative and focused. You see with glam makeup, yes there is quick money but it moves with the trends and people usually leave you and move on to the newest trending makeup artist in town. However, with film, the more time you spend in the industry, the more experience you get, the better you become at your craft and the higher your booking fee gets. So, I am looking at the bigger picture,” Nakaziba says with pride.

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