How Hyperrealistic Wigs Are Made For 4K Movies & Tv | Movies Insider | Insider

In the era of 4K and HD cameras, the standard for film and TV wigs has never been higher. Digital cameras are significantly less forgiving than film, meaning that hairlines must appear seamless and lace fronts must be finer. To find out how a master wigmaker designs full heads of hair to be undetectable on-screen, we visited the New York and Beverly Hills studios of Wigmaker Associates, where founder Rob Pickens creates hairpieces ranging from Millie Bobby Brown's buzz cut in "Stranger Things" to Ana de Armas' Marilyn curls in "Blonde" (2022).

Rob's team shows us how they trace the intricacies of actors' hairlines and growth patterns to create wigs that mimic nature. He explains how he worked with "Stranger Things" hair department head Sarah Hindsgaul to make make the short-haired Eleven wig sit invisibly on Millie Bobby Brown's scalp, using techniques such as point knotting and an ingenious application process. And having worked on period pieces like "Pose," "The Gilded Age," and "American Crime Story," Rob discusses how historical settings shape the color and texture of his wigs.

Rob also breaks down how factors like camera and lighting influence wigs' coloring, from Amanda Seyfried's blond in "Mank" (2020) to Eddie's ash brown in "Stranger Things." He worked with hair department head Jaime Leigh McIntosh to perfect the red of Olivia Wilde's wig in "Don't Worry Darling" (2022) and the multi-dimensional color of Michelle Pfeiffer's Betty Ford wigs for "The First Lady" (2022). Meanwhile, on "Pam & Tommy" (2022), lead hair designer Barry Lee Moe incorporated four shades of blonde into Rob's wigs to make Pam Anderson's signature platinum pop on camera.

Wigmaker Associates' other creations include Tom Hardy's Scarface wigs for "Capone" (2020) and Tom Hanks' Mr. Rogers wigs for "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" (2019). The studio has also built wigs for Will Ferrell in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga" (2020), Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween" (2018), and Billie Eilish in her "Xanny" video (2019).

For more from Rob Pickens and Wigmaker Associates:

https://www.wigmakerassociates.com/

https://www.instagram.com/wigmakerasso...

For more from Jaime Leigh McIntosh:

https://www.instagram.com/jaimeleigh.h...

For more from Barry Lee Moe:

https://www.instagram.com/barryleemoe/...

For more from Sarah Hindsgaul:

https://www.instagram.com/sarahhindsga...

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How Hyperrealistic Wigs Are Made For 4K Movies & TV | Movies Insider | Insider

Narrator Recognize this hairline. It belongs to Eleven on `` Stranger Things.'', Her signature buzz cut returned for the show's fourth season. Millie Bobby Brown couldn't shave her head this time around, so it was all up to the hair, department. TV and movie. Wigs like these call for an especially high standard of detail, one that keeps rising with the advent of HD and 4K cameras. And at Wigmaker Rob Pickens' studio. It'S a long road to creating a hyper-realistic wig like Eeven's. One that starts here.. Wig makers can't just measure different parts of the actor's head for size.. They need to record the nuances of shape and even the template of the hairline.. That means a hyper-customized fitting. [ Rob ]. The initial fitting, with the actor, is our time to capture as much information as possible. [ Narrator ]. First, they mold the precise shape of the actor's head with a head wrap using cellophane and a lot of tape.. Then they get even more granular tracing the intricate growth patterns at the hairline. [ Rob ]. All of the marking are our roadmap for the entire process., Everything from where the actor's hairline ends to maybe we mark they have quite a slope at their neckline below the occipital. [ Narrator ], The head wrap goes onto a canvas block which they shape to match. The actor's head, using a mix of cork and stuffing. [, Rob ]. This process is called padding the block. So think of it like padding a pillow., [ Narrator ]. This step is laborious, but once it's done a production shooting anywhere in the world can call in to have a wig made for an actor, even if the actor can't make it to a fitting.. [ Rob ] We're paying attention to the direction of the lace. How it's fitting the block.? This is where we start to dart and shape it to fit the actor's head. [ Narrator ], Just as the hairlines must be traced to the finest detail. The lace that forms the foundation of production - wigs has to be a very fine denier. [ Rob ]. They used cotton lace in the early days and it didn't show up because you were working with film.. Film is much more forgiving than digital HD.. So that's the thing just as the cameras change the hairlines have gotten finer. The lace has gotten finer. [ Narrator ]. The same goes for the silk base. That'S sometimes used to simulate skin under a wig. [ Rob ]. It used to be a much heavier silk. Fabric. [ Narrator ] On Eleven's wig Rob sewed pieces of a super-light semi-opaque silk to make it look like her. Scalp was visible through the buzz.. Sometimes, silk isn't enough to complete the illusion, so the hair team will add a prosthetic piece under the wig's foundation.. That was the case on `` Blonde ,'', where three prosthetic pieces concealed Ana de Armas' darker hairline and on `` Pam and Tommy ,'', where a forehead prosthesis under Lily James' wig, replicated Pam Anderson's, naturally higher hairline.. The same considerations apply to the next step: the ventilating process, where they stitch in each hair, one by one., [ Rob ]. We use a variety of knotting techniques, one of which is called point knotting, which involves a particular way of tying the hair, so that the cuticle allows the hair to push down as close to the scalp as possible. [ Narrator ]. This technique allows short-haired wigs like Eleven's to be virtually undetectable.. It'S also useful for the back and sideburns of men's wigs.. It'S all about matching the idiosyncratic natural patterns of the actor's head. [ Rob ]. So, for example, temples either go back or down.. This particular actor grew down, so the hair was knotted that direction. We actually tie in crown swirls growth, patterns., We've built it and knotted it naturally, so that you can part the hair anywhere on top of the head. Just as you would your own head of hair. [, Narrator ], As for the hair itself, -- [ Rob ]. Hairdressers use synthetic wigs from wig shops all the time to use for background characters. [ Narrator ], But it won't measure up for hero wigs, which require real human hair.. [ Rob ] Synthetic hair has more of a sheen to it than natural human hair, which is kind of something we're always trying to fight. [ Narrator ], Sometimes Rob even adds mohair to hairlines to mimic the soft baby strands that naturally grow. There. Like for Olivia Wilde's wig in ``, Don't Worry, Darling, ,'' and Ana de Armas' in `` Blonde.''. The hair they choose also helps tell the story. When making hair pieces for a film or TV character, Rob might have to convey something. A wig would normally try to disguise like aging or ill health.. That was the case for Tom Hardy's, wigs in `` Capone ,'', which showed the aging mobster at a time when he was living with syphilis. [ Rob ]. The hair texture speaks to that in the specific situation of `` Capone'' and the origin of the hair was actually a bit sickly before we texturized it. [ Narrator ], Capone's hair was also thinning at that age, so Rob thinned out the density of the hair at The crown and temples and gave him a more wiry texture in some areas, with a softer texture in others. Then comes the coloring process, which requires a close understanding of a scene's lighting and how that might interact with the wig. [ Rob ]. Reds can be quite the nightmare sometimes. If we create a red wig and they put a blue filter over the entire thing. It could look brown.. A lot of our job is alchemy and color theory and figuring out how that's going to play in the final product.. For example, for `` Mank ,'', we knew the entire project was going to be shot in black and white.. So when I was doing Amanda Seyfried's wig in choosing the blonde hair, we ran a number of samples and actually put them on camera against similar backgrounds. They would be using before we ever put a hair in the foundation of the wig to make sure that the blonde wasn't going to look gray. It wasn't going to look too white. It had enough dimension at the root to look like it was grounded in her head. [ Narrator ]. There were similar considerations on `` Stranger Things.''. Because of the way the show was filmed, everything showed up darker on screen. Even Eddie's wig. [ Rob ]. His wig was actually like a level seven/eight ash brown, but it was more of a green ash.. So when we do more of a green ash and then they put a darker filter on it, it appears a much darker brown. [ Narrator ]. Meanwhile, some period pieces call for very era-specific hair colors that we may not see around very much anymore. [ Rob ], There's a very specific apricot-blonde that you notice in older women, because it was the way the oxidative dye was showing up on the gray hair. [ Narrator ], When the actor's playing a real person, it's even more crucial to nail every detail of the wig's design from texture to color. For the wigs in `` Blonde ,'', Rob and hair department head Jaime, Leigh McIntosh sourced hair, with Marilyn's exact, natural density and tightness Of curl, even though it'd later get styled into her signature, pin curls. And to achieve Pam's, almost reflective shade of platinum in `` Pam and Tommy ,''. The show's hair designer Barry Lee Moe combined four different shades of blonde on Rob's wigs.. Those four shades created little bursts of light and shadow, preventing the high-level blonde from looking flat on camera. [ Rob ]. We can use as many colors as we would like upwards of five or six depending on what we're creating, but at least three.. So here we're just painting on a root shadow to add a little bit of depth at the base of the wig. [ Narrator ] For ``, The First Lady ,''. The team used the same technique on the six wigs Rob made for Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford. [ Rob ]. Each of those wigs has anywhere from five to six colors to carry through the color of the previous wig into the next era of Betty. So that way, you're not jarred her going from a dark brown wig to a lighter blonde., Making sure those were rooted in the same color palette was really important.. To look like it was a natural progression of the same human being over their lifetime. [ Narrator ]. Sometimes wigmakers have to make multiple versions of the exact same wig. [ Rob ]. These are a variety of stunt. Wigs we've created for photo doubles stunt performers. They're cutting from a shot of the actor close up in the custom wig to the stunt performer shot from the side.. The hair better look exactly the same as it did in the shot: before. [, Narrator, ], But creating identical wigs is notoriously difficult. [ Rob ]. We do that through a variety of dipping processes using oxidative dyes, non-oxidative dyes, silk, colors and different texturizing processes to make sure that we get the wig right down to the root to look exactly like the custom. Wig we've created. [, Narrator ]. It can get especially tricky matching stunt wigs to hero, wigs with totally different hair types. Hero, wigs, usually get natural hair and stunt wigs get synthetic hair for durability. [ Rob ]. They need to hold up for take after take of rolling down the stairs jumping off the building et cetera. [ Narrator ] Synthetic hair also dries more quickly between takes and stunt. Wigs need to be faster in general, with minimal application processes for comfort and safety.. [. Rob ] You want to use a limited number of pins in case something goes awry with the stunt. That wig needs to be removed. Quickly. [, Narrator, ] Wigmakers, might also have to make multiple hero. Wigs like Eleven's on `` Stranger Things ,'', which the team had to spend an hour and a half resetting and remolding after each wear. To allow for this. The team alternated between three or four different matching wigs throughout filming. When applying the wig, the show's hair department head Sarah Hindsgaul, had to make it sit, naturally, on top of Millie's armpit-length hair, which was all bundled up at the crown of her head.. She didn't go with the traditional braiding method. That would've added bulk risking a cocoon head, effect. [ Rob ]. It'S a variation off of an old school wrap, called a fracture, wrap that using gauze and pins to really create tension and lay the hair as flat as possible on the head. [ Narrator ]. Even a look as simple as Eleven's required duplicate, wigs ingenious application and painstaking work at the foundation and hairline to pull it off convincingly on screen.. The stakes are just that high with film and TV wigs.. They can either take us out of the story or keep us immersed in it.

Jennifer Butler: Really cool feature! I’m the type to get distracted by bad wigs so I appreciate when the hair styling artists are able to help me stay in the entertainment moment.❤ It would have been nice to also include a part about wigs for actors of a variety of races however. The skill needed to do wigs of braids or locs or the beautiful variety of naturally textured hair is equally deserving of a spotlight I’m sure!

clever username: I bet the process of placing each individual hair actually gets pretty therapeutic over time. My hobby is building plastic scale model battleships, and there's a therapeutic quality to the repetitive nature of making tons of little guns. Seems tedious, but it's actually soothing once you get a rhythm going.

Hollee Lifestyles: I commend the wig makers! Its such a tedious and beautiful process

The WIG BAR London: Such amazing work! Really enjoyed watching this one.

Joshua Ultimax: Pretty impressive tho...lots of hardwork is put into this

Cindy Lewis: Informative…as a person who wears hair pieces this is pretty amazing

Michael Wynne: Incredible detail and artistry!

Jonathan Lasry: Well amazing work because I was sure Millie cut her hair again for season 4

CherryBeeBee: God I wish I had one of those wigs, I finally got a full lace human hair wig (so it’s similarly made to these with every hair hand tied to the cap) but it’s no where near as realistic as these, mine needs a ton of plucking and fixing of the hairline before it can look anything close to these

TN1: Drag queens around the world are like "Yeah, we already know girl"

Vegetable Autopsy: The entertainment industry has always been the place to look for the best in Prosthetics in my humble opinion.

KillerTacos: These movie/TV Insider episodes are so good

C. Hill: Amazing detailed work!

Blender Study: Amazing work..!! Thank you for the update, Insider..!!

Jenny Kwan: Super high quality video, interesting content and fab flow!

Long Dong Silver: Nothing really to say, but I enjoyed this video. Thanks for making and sharing it.

Brenda Etheridge: Very interesting, creative, and detailed. I loved it!

T. Miranda: Something that these kind of companies need to investigate further to effectively replicate it is black hair and all its variations. One frustrating example is House of the dragon, the wigs on the Velaryons look weird, they don’t have a silvery shine, and look more like powdered wigs from the 18th century. Laena’s hair looked specially off and dead. The hair of a woman with her same heritage in our world would never ever look like that. Hopefully HBO will update their methods for the next season.

Orange Balloon : Dear friend, thanks for this great share. It is dazzling to see how hard they work on details

Mara06: That is absolutely incredible

967tree4: 9:28 I am so dumb, I had to play this back a couple times to make sense of “armpit-length hair” .

Jason Luong: Given the specificity of the wigs, I presume after the filming is over, the wigs are given to the actors as mementos.

Danielle Franco: What's the social media handles of the studio I would love to learn more from them

Kian Fahrentia: The owner looks so much like Dylan O'Brien

Ms. Elite: America's top model should of hired them vs being shaved for real.

arielxmoore: lovvvvvve these types of videos.

LadyAzalea: Amzing love it

Roland McLovin: "One that starts here" *aggressively hammer someone's head model

I'm Always Right: Fascinating!!

Amy Hansen: Did she say “armpit length hair”?

Zachary Manick: When she said armpit length hair, i thought she meant as long as armpit hair

mizfrenchtwist: hello , pretty impressive , very interesting , brilliant really........great share , thank you , for sharing..........

Nomanul Islam: I'm speechless...

J.J. B.13.: What I've been waiting for

Soumyaditya Agarwalla: Now i want to see them tracing hairline of vin diesel...

Ragamuffin: Yet house of the dragon wigs still manage to look like trash

Orashidimaru: Amazing

singlecatt: Fascinating.

AA: They need to hire more black women for wig making on sets.

Abdullah Bülbül: I want to take part in the movies that show how it is done behind the camera that you publish, what should I do?

Nilraj Patne: The Owner of Wig company looks like Dylan O'Brien.

scofiэld: Impressive. Let‘s see Paul Allen‘s wig.

John Lucas: Key and Peele has great wigs.

Zach Ryder: Very interesting video

Gisselle Ayala: Tyler Perry needs to hire y’all.

Angella Johnson: I never knew they premade zuckerberg's piece

J: Wait, they stuff the heads with pork?

𝙎𝙊𝙊𝙉𝘼𝙋𝘼𝘼𝙉𝘼: Thalapathy Vijay ku oru wig Parcel.....

Amorn Thanee:

Senua: just put hair and glue and hope for the best

Gladys Mba: Tyler Perry, take note

Karl Giant: Yes!!!!!!

Sammy: rolex spotted

⛔️TAP MY PROFILE TO MEET ME AND MORE⛔️: *48:28** Let’s just take a minute to appreciate how much time and work she put into these videos?* *It's unbelievable, and I think they deserve a lot more than that*

Judah Atanázio: Filme

Judah Atanázio: 5

Super Hans ✅: I really don't think this much effort is necessary, who really cares if a wig doesn't look absolutely perfect on TV

Follower of Jesus👑.: Horrible job. Useless too. People waste so much time in life doing silly/unfruitful things.

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