Working with Wigs on HD

For my latest short film on the Battle of New Orleans, I turned my lead actor, Jimmy Lee, Jr., into Andrew Jackson circa 1815. To do that, I needed to take his hair color from dark brown to white. I got great advice from wigmaster Cynthia McCourt (permasmudge@yahoo.com). She creates custom wigs and can save you a lot of hassle. I didn’t have that option due to time and budget restraints; luckily, Cynthia shared some great advice and the results are below.

Jimmy Lee Jr. as Andrew Jackson (Before & After Makeup/Hair by Jessica deBen)

The edge of the wig is where you need to be very careful. Because I was working with high def, Cynthia recommended that I cut off the hard edge of the wig and ‘lay down hairs’ one at the time to blend the edge toward the hairline.

The step-by-step picture from set is below. You can see that I left Jimmy’s real hair out of the front of the wig. I used a tiny flat iron and curled his hair to match the wig. Then I colored his real hair with Mehron’s white liquid makeup. I also coated his real hair with spray on hair color that I got at Hollywood Toy & Costume. I used a disposable mascara wand to coat the sideburn and eyebrow hairs. Be careful not to get the white makeup on the skin.

And to avoid all the hassle, just get Cynthia to create a wig for your film’s lead characters.