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Abisoye Balogun, who goes by the name Abisoye Circe, graduated from the Theatre Arts department of the University of Ibadan, where she majored in Makeup, with a minor in children theatre. She started Special Effects Makeup in her second year, working on stage play productions, and is now looking forward to building a career in Nollywood.

CN: When did you first discover your artistic talent?

When I was going to enter university I wanted to be an actor, you know, own the stage and get people to come watch you. The feeling alone was really thrilling, but immediately I entered school, I met people who were more passionate about acting than I was and I got discouraged.

I am a movie person, I sometimes skipped classes because of movies. I remember the first time I saw Terminator, I was perplexed at how he had a metallic face and wanted to figure it out, but at that time, there was no internet browsing and all of that. I guess I just got interested in my 200L when I needed to decide what I wanted to major in. Sincerely, I couldn’t even do anything at that time because everybody I met had no idea, people felt these special effects were “movie tricks”. However, I was going to get to the bottom of it, although just the drive was there with no instrument, manual or guide on how to go about it.

CN: Did you get any formal training in film makeup and special effects?

I learnt stage makeup from school, and I also learnt beauty makeup during my internship at Kandy House of Glam, then in Ibadan.

I had no training on Special Effects, none at all. I started to make my findings on how foreigners do it and I think I just started doing it too…building myself. Sometimes I have to draw in my sketch pad what I want to achieve and think about it for days, you know.

CN: What do you enjoy most about your work?

Challenges! Sometimes some clients just say this is what they have in mind and sincerely at that point I don’t even know how I want to go about it but I just know in my mind that I have to do it. It’s more like challenging yourself and it helps to make you better.

CN: What do you like least about it?

Sculpting

CN: Which professionals inspire you the most?

Marc Clancy (@Powdah on Instagram) and Amanda Prescott (@amandaprescottfx on Instagram)

CN: What advice do you wish someone had given you as a student?

Participate more in productions.

CN: If there were any other career that you would choose, what would it be?

Psychologist.


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This article was first published on 24th February 2017

jehonwa

Joy Ehonwa is an editor and a writer who is passionate about relationships and personal development. She runs Pinpoint Creatives, a proofreading, editing, transcription and ghostwriting service. Email: pinpointcreatives [at] yahoo.com


Comments (1)

One thought on “Career of the Week – Abisoye Balogun, Film Makeup and SFX Artist”


  • [* Shield plugin marked this comment as “trash”. Reason: Google reCAPTCHA was not submitted. *]
    Thanks a lot for the feature, I just saw this now. Really excited, thanks a lot again

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