The 3 year, hair make up and prosthetics for performance BA at LCF prepares students for careers in the wigs, hair and make-up industries. To be successful in this industry students need a clear understanding of industry expectations. One of the key challenges is embedding employability in all areas.
I have recently had the opportunity to re-evaluate teaching on the course and implement an industry lead approach. I have introduced alumni events, visiting practitioners, outside visits and KE projects. These elements engage students and give them industry insight, however to benefit the future of the programme this needs to be embedded within the curriculum.
I have been a wigs hair and makeup artist for over 30 years, I care about the future of the industry and the role of graduates within it. Which is why I am passionate about embedding employability in the curriculum. My focus is recreating industry conditions and linking delivery to current industry practice, starting with unit briefings. Students often struggle to understand Learning Outcomes’s and their relevance. My approach to unpacking the LO’s is to link them directly to industry practices. Giving real life examples from my own experience and others. (See image below LO’s). This has been an effective strategy, allowing students to directly apply LO’s to their practice and see how the same skills are used in industry.
I have reinforced this by including alumni presentations during briefings showing how the same unit has helped them in industry. I will push this further by adding more visual and digital resources to evidence industry examples.
I have increased the number of visiting practitioners expanding their roles to include formative feedback as well as masterclasses and workshops. This highlights current industry practices and how to apply them, it has also improved communication and networking skills
The physical environment we teach in is a resource for effective learning, recreating an industry environment within the classroom prepares students for real life scenarios. Working on set can be intimidating if you don’t know what to expect so I have designed a ‘Crowd Room’ activity. Students will be given the roles and responsibilities of trainees and hair & makeup artists working in a crowd room. (see below)
- Mood boards
- Kit lists
- Preparing stock/kit
- Room set-up
- Organising fitting sheets and information
- Reading the call sheet
- Continuity images
- Working to schedule
- Set rotas
- Line ups
- Checks on set
- De rig
- Breakfast orders
The room will be set up as a crowd room (see image below) and the session will run as a film crowd room day. We also have the resources to create a working film set environment to film the work and see it in a performance context. The activity would be followed by a feedback session with everyone involved including cast and crew to gain everyone’s unique perspectives. After critically analysing the feedback we would repeat the activity but this time swapping the roles around so all responsibilities are experienced.
Crowd room image taken by me 2020
This activity requires detailed coordination of resources which would limit the number of sessions possible. However I believe it will be an effective learning method and I will explore relevant theories and pedagogies to evolve my practice, such as David Kolb’s Experiential learning Theory, (Kolb D A 1984), Communities of Practice (Lave J & Wenger E 1991) and The 70:20:10 Model (Jennings, C.2009)
Bibliography:
Jennings, C. (2009) The 70:20:10 model for learning and development. Available at: https://702010institute.com/702010-model/ (Accessed: 21 March 2025).
Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.