Christelsie Johnson guides aspiring movie and TV make-up artists in one in every of her workshops in June 2025. (Pictures courtesy of Christelsie Johnson)
ArtsATL’s new collection, Set Life, focuses on native creatives who work in Atlanta’s movie and tv {industry}. We’ll speak to those that work on either side of the digicam and discover their struggles and successes in navigating Georgia’s unstable movie and TV scene.
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Overlook the face. Christelsie Johnson sees far past it in her craft as an expert make-up artist. As an alternative, she sees your entire human being seated earlier than her as a chance to replicate a fancy character and convey a narrative authentically.
As a make-up artist for movie and tv, Johnson works primarily as a division head. On this position, her private fashion surrounding make-up — and her use of the artwork type for altruism — finds its broadest attain.
“I’m chargeable for hiring the make-up crew, for studying the script and breaking it down to decide on make-up seems for the characters, for organizing the division accurately and for speaking with the director and producers relating to seems for the present,” Johnson describes.
One other important operate of Johnson’s job is ensuring there’s continuity in actors’ make-up and appears from scene to scene and in each single shot.
Whereas make-up artistry in movie and tv and division management is fulfilling and interesting for her, it wasn’t Johnson’s first calling — that enterprise was nonprofit work.
“In 2004, I used to be working at a teen parenting college [BETA, or Building Education and Teen Achievement] as a instructor, then I took a job of their counseling heart as director of arts in remedy,” says Johnson, who earned her diploma in theater with a focus in performing and a minor in schooling at Florida A&M College in Tallahassee, Florida.
On the finish of August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, the nonprofit heart’s funding for arts in remedy applications shifted to help the hurricane victims. This repositioning of funds, because it seems, allowed Johnson an opportunity to make use of her artistic expertise in new areas.
“I took a job with MAC Cosmetics to complement my earnings, and that’s when the alternatives began opening up,” Johnson describes. Within the new position, she honed her strategy to make-up artistry — which was not a “look” in any respect.
“I like to reinforce magnificence and never give someone a completely new face. It’s extra of a pure strategy,” Johnson says.
Her work with MAC within the cosmetics {industry} opened up alternatives to work on movies and commercials as effectively. So when the movie and leisure {industry} started flourishing full-force in Georgia, Johnson relocated to Atlanta the place her sister lived.
“It was probably the most pure transfer, and it was a better transition than going to LA,” she provides.
“I’m grateful for the chance right here in Atlanta, even because the {industry} ebbs and flows,” Johnson notes. “Typically there’s extra work than others, however I’m grateful to be an artist and division head who’s labored constantly these days. I additionally love to provide alternatives to different make-up artists.”
In her work as division head, she hires a mean of 5 to seven individuals to workers the make-up division on every movie or tv collection. She’s additionally a member of the hair and make-up union, Native 798, the place she’s in a position to attract upon a lot of different artists searching for work within the movie and TV {industry}.
Nonprofit work, nevertheless — and utilizing her management expertise in entrepreneurial efforts that concentrate on serving to others — has remained an lively a part of Johnson’s private palette of passions. As such, Johnson is CEO of a nonprofit she created, Deliberately P.R.E.T.T.Y. Inc.
“It’s essential to be ok with your self from daily,” Johnson says in regards to the firm’s mission. “P.R.E.T.T.Y is an acronym for Put Actual Effort In the direction of Treating Your self.”
Maybe most stunning of all, the enterprise is directed towards serving to individuals in underserved communities by providing applications that deal with bodily, psychological and financial wellness wants. As a part of Deliberately P.R.E.T.T.Y.’s bodily wellness initiative, Johnson created Beating Most cancers Superbly applications, the place lots of her friends within the movie and tv neighborhood come collectively to supply companies to individuals grappling with most cancers.
“In 2020, I used to be recognized with most cancers when every thing shut down,” Johnson shares. “And whereas this nonprofit enterprise just isn’t a supply of earnings but, it’s a means of giving again.”
She does acknowledge the significance of out of doors sources of earnings for these working in Atlanta’s movie and tv industries, although. For herself, that earnings comes from providing magnificence companies and workshops for aspiring make-up artists and hairstylists who need to pursue an expert profession within the area. These movie industry-relevant workshops — provided by one other firm she based known as My T.R.U.E. Magnificence LLC — are provided twice annually.
“The latest one this summer season was on June 8, and a lot of the attendees had been from out of state,” Johnson says. “It’s rewarding as a result of they’re so excited, they usually stroll away studying a lot and it empowers them to take the following step of their careers.”
What’s the factor she teaches that surprises up-and-coming skilled make-up artists eyeing movie and tv as their area of interest?
“Based mostly on my newest workshop, college students had been most stunned that we’ve got to learn the script,” Johnson laughs. “Together with how a lot what we do is predicated on the script. The make-up should make sense for the character being created.”
As an intuitive and passionate script reader in her personal work as a make-up artist and division chief, Johnson says with conviction that she doesn’t essentially have a favourite character or movie in her repertoire of almost 60 skilled movie and tv initiatives thus far.
“I’m grateful for every alternative I get to make use of my expertise and to have the chance to work and create,” she notes.
There was one story that sticks together with her and stands out as one in every of her favourite movie units to work on, although. As she describes: “It was a small one, ‘When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakeley Story’ (2017), directed by Tasha Smith and based mostly on a real story. It gave me the chance to do some interval work, in addition to to inform Falicia Blakeley’s story.”
Blakely, Johnson goes on to explain, was an Atlanta lady in an abusive, controlling relationship who dedicated a homicide and wound up in jail. “It’s a tragic story of management and abuse and of if you don’t have correct steerage,” she provides.
True to the nonprofit calling she mingles with make-up, Johnson noticed the story as a chance to show an essential lesson to viewers who might have it most — an opportunity to provide again a number of the success she has discovered by a artistic profession.
“I feel we had been put right here to provide again,” she states. “Our items and skills are given to us to be a blessing to different individuals.”
For Johnson, she’ll proceed reworking herself and others by storytelling and sweetness — from the within out.
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Carol Badaracco Padgett is an Atlanta-based freelance author who focuses on movie and tv, the automotive {industry}, architectural design and collaborative storytelling initiatives.
