Decoding the beauty of Gore on Screen with SFX artist Luciana Gutierrez

The earliest days of makeup being used by actors and actresses on screen was a highly experimental time. Actors were doing their own makeup, piling on thick grease paints, black liners and dark red lipsticks. Like most early forms of makeup, the products were meant to enhance appearances. Whilst not always used with safe ingredients, in the case of on screen visuals, the premature days of film saw that these products needed to be piled on to be seen. 

With enhancement as the goal, more products were pushed onto shelves and into shopping magazines for women to buy, and everything from fake lashes to faking curls became sought after. The early 1900s saw wig maker turned makeup artist George Westmore establishing a makeup studio in 1917. This introduction of ‘faking’ visual appearances on screen sparked an entirely new wave of storytelling, specifically in the horror genre. The Phantom of The Opera was the first film to use makeup in the theatrical manner we’ve seen in succeeding horror films. 

Where things got spooky—and less human—was with the evolution of monster movies in the 1930s. Prosthetics had already been in high demand throughout the film industry, and the premature days of experimenting with colour and product, the Monster Movie was a chance to advance humans into creatures. 

When speaking to SFX artist Luciana Gutierrez, she spoke at length about her starting influence in the genre. Whilst she doesn’t like gore films, the aspect of it that comes across through make up is what she loves. “I love horror movies though. Anything punk or metal is also a favourite, and the hyper characteristics of a monster is what I really like, moulding and working with material is really fun.”

SFX, in a sense, is all about play. Experimenting, crafting, using materials to create something—or someone—entirely different. 

“For me it’s like playing,” Luciana says. “I did my certification last year, and I really enjoyed the process because it was all about texture. You’re working with all these fake parts and fake blood and you can make anything with it, so to me it doesn’t feel like I’m working.” 

The process of applying prosthetics is obviously longer than the process of applying make up. Even with smaller projects like applying latex for small wrinkles to appear older still takes a bit more time. For X Men, Jennifer Lawrence was covered in a full body cast that took seven hours alone to sculpt.

SFX undoubtedly has come a long way since its inception, and the work doesn’t just happen on screen. The US is, of course, the largest market for SFX artists, and since 2016, there are more women than there ever have been in the SFX industry, with 45.5% being the current stat. SFX has always been a male dominated industry and it’s slowly building a more inclusive rapport with women led media, but the intersections of both men and women in the industry still needs work.

“I’m an Argentinian woman of colour in Berlin, so it’s been really hard to find a path, especially because, to add another layer, I’m not in my youth anymore,” Luciana says with a laugh. “The representation is difficult because it’s [film and fashion] still a male dominated industry, especially in Germany. It’s also known that the bigger, better paid jobs require the proper credentials. You would need a proper education, which probably means you would be German born.”

The immigrant experience is often riddled with a longer, more complicated road in reaching an established career. Alongside struggling to build a strong background in work, finding said work comes few and far between. When asked about the technicalities of finding resources for her projects, Luciana noted that in beauty it’s an inward triangle. There is so much that beauty covers but as you niche further down the less people you'll find in that niche. “It’s hard to find people, but it’s even harder to stay and make it as an SFX artist because the productions we get require expensive materials, resources that the smaller projects I work on don’t have."

But Luciana notes that all manner of creative jobs are like this, and fortunately for the beauty world, we’re seeing the development of experimental styles of beauty take hold of the industry by force. Be it SFX or surreal makeup looks taking over other industries. In general, we’re seeing more women, and more specifically women of colour opting to find and perhaps even create their own niches of weird and wonderful beauty, finding self expression in it, and ultimately matching each other’s freak. 

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