Christelsie Johnson guides aspiring movie and TV make-up artists in one in every of her workshops in June 2025. (Photographs 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 each side of the digicam and discover their struggles and successes in navigating Georgia’s unstable movie and TV scene.
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Neglect the face. Christelsie Johnson sees far past it in her craft as an expert make-up artist. As a substitute, she sees your complete human being seated earlier than her as a possibility 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 kind for altruism — finds its broadest attain.
“I’m liable for hiring the make-up crew, for studying the script and breaking it down to decide on make-up appears to be like for the characters, for organizing the division appropriately and for speaking with the director and producers relating to appears to be like for the present,” Johnson describes.
One other crucial perform 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 faculty [BETA, or Building Education and Teen Achievement] as a instructor, then I took a job of their counseling middle as director of arts in remedy,” says Johnson, who earned her diploma in theater with a focus in appearing 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 middle’s funding for arts in remedy applications shifted to assist 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 method to make-up artistry — which was not a “look” in any respect.
“I like to reinforce magnificence and never give anyone a completely new face. It’s extra of a pure method,” 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 persistently recently. I additionally love to present 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 quite a few different artists in search of 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 necessary to be ok with your self from day after day,” Johnson says concerning the firm’s mission. “P.R.E.T.T.Y is an acronym for Put Actual Effort In 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 handle 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 group 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 isn’t a supply of earnings but, it’s a approach 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 subject. These movie industry-relevant workshops — provided via one other firm she based referred to as My T.R.U.E. Magnificence LLC — are provided twice every year.
“The newest one this summer time was on June 8, and many of the attendees have been from out of state,” Johnson says. “It’s rewarding as a result of they’re so excited, and so they 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?
“Primarily based on my newest workshop, college students have been most stunned that we’ve 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 tasks to this point.
“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 primarily based 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 girl 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 possibility to show an necessary lesson to viewers who might have it most — an opportunity to present again a few of the luck she has discovered via a artistic profession.
“I believe we have been put right here to present again,” she states. “Our presents and abilities are given to us to be a blessing to different individuals.”
For Johnson, she’ll proceed reworking herself and others via storytelling and wonder — 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 tasks.