Hello everyone,
Recently I had the unique opportunity to work in The White House Correspondents’ Dinner on May 3, 2014 at the famous St. Regis Hotel. You may have read about the hilarious jokes made by Barack Obama and other highlights of the event, but rarely do we get a glimpse into the back stage world of these large scale events. I’m here to tell you it is a lot of work goes behind the hair and makeup of the attendees of dinners like this! I wanted to share with my readers the special details that go into working on event like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. This blog will especially be interest to anyone who is interested in training to become professional Hair and Makeup Artists training in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore with me!
First off, to work on an event of this size there is no way I could have done all the work all by myself. For the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, I brought my personal “Dream Team” of 8 artists and 4 assistants. Together all 13 of us beautified 65 people with hair and makeup services. What is amazing is that we did this all in 5.5 hours! It was a lot of work for me and my Dream Team!
They demonstrated how much professional team work is required in settings like these. For events like this it is so important that each and every member of the team works together, and that no one take a member of the team for granted. This requires communication and organization from everyone including everyone from the manager of the team to the assistants! Another trick thing about these events is working with celebrities. For a new artists it could be extremely exciting and nerve wracking to work with famous celebrities! And to give you a little of my take on it I wrote an article about all the rules one must follow in order to work with celebrities as a hair and makeup artist.
Some highlights of the event were working with Madeleine Stowe an American actress who played in films such as The Last of the Mohicans, 12 Monkey’s and The General’s Daughter. We also worked with Olivia Munn an American actress who recently played in Iron Man 2. As usual it was a pleasure and a privilege to work up close and personal with some familiar faces from the silver screen. In the end though, the most important rule of working with celebrities is to treat them like real people and always respect their time and privacy.
The other very important aspect of events like these is paying very close attention to details. Closely planning and scheduling how each makeup and hair artist will work to get through the event before the actual day of the event is imperative. Paying close attention of the scheduled hair and makeup time of each and every client, so getting perfect results on the first attempt is not only important but totally required. Even tiny details like perfectly sanitizing and organizing all of the equipment between clients is a MUST. These types of deals require hair and makeup artists to be absolutely “ON” for the entirety of the event. It is a very tiring experience, but the rewards of working on such an event are not for everybody and definitely worth it.
Lastly, the most important thing during events like these is to keep a positive and charming attitude towards clients through out the whole event. The goal of the hair and makeup industry is not just to make clients look good, but you want to make them feel good about how they look as well. It is very important when you are working really hard at events like this to keep a positive, professional and up-beat attitude without seeming too stressed! If you seem sad, stressed or unfriendly, that negative vibe is going to affect not only your clients but your team as well.
In the end, as I said earlier, I couldn’t have done it without “My Dream Team”! I wanted to take a second to thank each and every one of my artists and assistants for working so hard to make everyone just look stunning. I can’t wait for next year to do it all over again!
Events like this may be challenging, but the experience is absolutely one that I know I love! If you would like to work on events like this consider taking my Hair Stylists and Makeup Artists training courses, so that you can take your hair and make up career to the next level!
