the movie team

over the past three days, i have been volunteering with my friend and fellow makeup artist dina for a project wherein disadvantaged children learn how to make a movie (more explanation here). honestly, when dina emailed looking for a cohort i jumped at the chance, as for the last seven years i have been trying to sort my head around how i could possibly do some MUCH needed volunteer work in this place. around every corner in new york is an opportunity for volunteerism, from neighborhood beautification projects to working with the many disadvantaged children to homeless outreach.

for the freelancer, though, it is absolutely impossible to fill in the crucial box on all volunteer application forms which reads "days/hours of availability". however, january is s-l-o-o-w....i was not booked for work, and thus i took a chance that the days would remain free as we headed up to hawthorne cedar knolls, a westchester county residential school for students in crisis.

the students had already pow-wowed and come up with the concept for the script...i'll spare you the entire synopsis, but it involved a homeless woman (really an angel in disguise), a king and a princess, a rapper, a dancer, a basketball player, a rock star....the characters of teen dreams. most of the kids had very specific ideas for their "looks" as well, which they were more than happy to convey to us: they wanted sparkles. goatees. to look like jennifer hudson in "dream girls". lashes. gloss. i was impressed when they received their costumes (which were from goodwill, as the budget was very low). they were so gracious, so excited; quite the contrast from incredibly spoiled kids i sometimes encounter on the job, who scowl and roll their eyes when asked to wear the designer samples laid out for them by a professional stylist.

there were, of course, some moments of some frustrated kids. there were some meltdowns, some incidents reminiscent to me of my job at reed junior high and central islip HS on long island... that old familiar tune of "i like you but i have no idea how to affectively express my emotions so i am going to say things that are aggressive and kind of harsh, but i don't really mean it".

more often than not, though, there were things said to us like, "thank you for coming! you are both beautiful!" and "i feel beautiful!" and "i LOVE my makeup!". there were, better yet, a couple of young ladies with hard as nails extertiors who broke into smiles (a rare sight for the true tough girls) when they finally looked in the mirror. i would venture to say that there can be no greater reward for a makeup artist than that smile (impossible to be faked), and we were so intoxicated by the girls' satisfaction that if all goes well, dina and i will be back to beautify them all again for their prom this spring.