Living the Nightmare! Special Effects Makeup Artist, Tracey Jane

Living the Nightmare! Special FX Makeup Artist, Tracey Jane

This week I’m speaking with Tracey Jane. Amongst other things, a pregnancy at 18 meant that Tracey took some time to find her career passion. When her son was just three, she opened her own successful business, but a brush with death made her realise it was time to follow a dream for herself. Tracey is now a make-up and special effect working in film, with a current focus on the horror genre.

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[00:00:02] Tracey: I'm fine. Thank you.

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[00:00:10] Tracey: Yeah, it is recent, but I've been working towards it for quite a long time now.

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[00:00:22] Tracey: well, I grew up in Southeast London. And to be honest, I wasn't really too sure. You know, You're at school is coming up, so it's time to leave and I didn't really know what I wanted. I ended up going into the travel industry, but it wasn't really what I wanted, you know, sitting in an office all day and then drifted in and out of sort of jobs, nothing really important.

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[00:00:51] Tracey: Yes. Yes. It's not what people think. I was a YTS trainee. And the idea was that we went on different holidays, to view the hotel and things like that. But most of the time you sit in there answering the phone and, you know, trying to book tickets And yeah. Sitting behind a desk, which was quite hard for me. And then I fell pregnant when I was just 18. So obviously that sort of stopped any work for awhile. I ended up being a single parent, quite young, going back to college. Retraining to be a nursery teacher to work in childcare. And yeah, it went from there. I ended up opening up my own children's day nursery

after school club and I'd done that quite well for 11 years and off to work I went one day and I didn't feel very well. And I said to my mom, I'm going to go back home. And I got indoors. I collapsed. I ended up in hospital having emergency surgery. I had k idney failure and they give me five years for transplant and I'm in my 11th year with no transplant, just, lucky, changing diet, being more healthy.

But when I was in hospital, I was there for six weeks and I thought to myself, is this really what I want to do? And I decided to sell my nursery. I phoned up the agency while I was in hospital, sold my business and went back into retraining.

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[00:02:32] Tracey: And so it was when my son started nursing. And I went in as a voluntary parents to help. And the nursery teacher said to me, you're really good at this with good children. Why don't you go and learn and get paid for it? So I thought, yeah, okay. Working in a school, you know, I still get to some holidays off and it really fit in well with my son.

But by the time I quantified, I realized that I was really quite good at what I was doing. And. I worked towards... I think it took me about two years And, then I opened up my own preschool once I qualified.

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[00:03:11] Tracey: Oh my job. I loved my job. I loved working for kids and yeah, some great times. Yeah, it was just really good. It was just the fact that I'd done that to, you know, for my children to grow up. My oldest son is 30 this year. So for me it was something more about I'm going to do something for me.

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[00:03:32] Tracey: So when I arrived at the hospital, my kidney was about to burst and so they couldn't actually put me to sleep. They operate on me when I was awake and they cut me open. And

yeah,

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that.

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[00:03:58] Kristin: Literally

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It was shock.

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[00:04:15] Tracey: Yeah. Yeah

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[00:04:20] Tracey: Yes. For a transplant..

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[00:04:28] Tracey: yeah I was there for six weeks. I actually discharged myself because it was just before Christmas Eve, and I wanted to go home and see my children. They wanted me to stay, but, I felt okay. And I had to go back afterwards. I went with my mom and we were sitting there and that's when they said to me need a transplant.

And I was just like, no, that's not how. It's just not happening. That was it.

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[00:04:57] Tracey: from that moment, I just sort of, I don't know, so I've actually got plastic tube for my kidney down to. And it's just hard to explain. I think it's mental attitude as well. You know, you start looking after yourself a lot better than what you do and they can't explain it. They've just said, basically I'm a walking miracle. I don't know why, you know, it's sort of reversed and I've left it at that.

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[00:05:24] Tracey: No, I don't

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[00:05:27] Tracey: That's why I don't understand it myself. I just, think I'm really lucky.

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[00:05:36] Tracey: Definitely. I mean, you know, it's, you're that close to death and it's like, hold on a minute. I just need to make sure the rest of my life is going to make me happy and, That's why I don't just changed everything. It was just that decision that that's it.

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[00:05:53] Tracey: I saw

Sold the nursery. I took a year off. I went into retraining. I started off doing hairdressing cause my youngest son was still quite young. I've done hair dressing, number one, then I've done beauty therapy.

So I've qualified to level three throughout hairdressing beauty therapy and special effects. So it took me five years to train and study.

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[00:06:29] Tracey: but it all links together because if you go in into sort of special effects, you need to know about the products you're using. don't want to put something on someone's skin, what's going to irritate them. You get more knowledge from doing beauty therapy, you actually doing the special effects industry. I literally don't really focus on that.

So it's good to to have all that knowledge, but also my son being so young, it sort of fill ed time up for when I could actually get to where I wanted to

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[00:06:57] Tracey: Um, no, I literally spent five years studying training. I'll go off and do people's hair, usually treatments, you know, for a little bit of money of support study. So it was pure studying.

for five years.

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[00:07:27] Tracey: I think that obviously from having a nursery, it's sort of, around that environment all their life. They've seen you sit there working, children's records, making policies. So it's just the same for me. It's not being any different. The only time it does sort of changed bit is to some holidays where I'm not, I'm not doing anything because I spend so much time for a year doing other things.

I take that timeoff for my children.

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[00:07:57] Tracey: Oh, yeah. I still change, you know? I'm quite lucky. Um, I've got good support around me.

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[00:08:06] Tracey: it's been a few years, probably about four years now. So once I finished all that, I did take a bit time out because I'd studied five years. And then I sort of slowly started work and jobs And yeah it sort of went from there.

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[00:08:24] Tracey: Um, I wasn't worried, you know, being older coming into the industry, but it's not been an issue. I'm actually dyslexic, so that's probably been the issue for me. I think I could have done a lot better with social media putting myself out a bit more. And so that's been a sort of a difficult.

And apart from that, everything sort of really flowing smoothly at the moment.

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were younger?

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I think I kind of knew when I was growing up, but it wasn't picked up until I actually went back to college after having my son. It was a teacher who picked you up and she got me some help. And I had, I think probably that six months one-to-one with a teacher to help me sort of go through my

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[00:09:29] Tracey: And I think, Yeah. it probably would have changed quite a bit for me. I just have the attitude, well what's happens, happened, you know, I just got to deal with it now and how I'm going to deal with it.

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[00:09:51] Tracey: When I was always more creative as a child as well. I was making bookmarks and going around and selling them to the neighbors, just so I could buy makeup.

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[00:10:02] Tracey: My mom only found out when our next door neighbor told her a few months ago when they bumped into each other in the shops. And my mum was a bit sore. Oh my God. But I suppose I was always sort of making things being at home, I wasn't really allowed out much. So this was in the eighties, the only girl.

Um, if I went out, I had to be with my brothers and uh, yes, most of the time I was at home, probably studying, reading and making stuff.

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And we were going door to door to the neighbors and asking them if they'd want to buy dandelions so that we could go on a family trip to Disney World. And this was all brought to a stop because one of the neighbors, I think I either walked across, or called my mom or something. It was like, do you know that Kristin and the girls are going selling dandelions?

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[00:11:18] Kristin: Would you like to play a bookmark? Would you like to buy some of your own flowers? It's enterprising anyway. And obviously since you had your own business, at some point you were just

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[00:11:30] Kristin: As far as you said, it's going pretty smoothly, but tell me a little bit more about, just a day-to-day like what does somebody who's in special effects?

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[00:11:55] Kristin: And I'm laughing because when we started, I apologize for the

mess behind me,

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[00:12:01] Kristin: But this worked with behind me is my prop maker partners workstations. So I have a very good

idea what you're seeing.

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[00:12:31] Kristin: How many was on that team?

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[00:12:37] Kristin: You're doing 20 zombies. Is that makeup or makeup and prosthetics

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I just got blood on them. So that's them dumb, but main characters will have prosthetics on them.

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more.

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We was filming The House of Zombies And someone put one of the fingers, one of the squishy ones in their mouth to looklike, you know, like bitten it off and sort of spat it out. I'm looking, I'm thinking I could actually make something which is going to taste a lot nicer and you know, you can eat. So I come home and I made the mold and I made some body parts out of chocolate.

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[00:13:46] Tracey: it has literally gone from doing them for a film to now. People have asked me, can I buy them? And I've got a number of orders for ediblebody parts. I've actually got a press release next weekend, purely for edible body parts.

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as well,

more

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[00:14:28] Kristin: What do you use for the fake blood?

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[00:14:36] Kristin: Does it taste?

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[00:14:45] Kristin: I love it. Oh, this is the delicious orange chocolate edible

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[00:15:08] Kristin: Uh,

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[00:15:10] Kristin: yeah, I love that though. Cause I mean, you know, you're used to like hardship chocolates. Here's a delicious, salted

caramel ear. Why not?

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[00:15:18] Kristin: Any Valentine's day

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[00:15:37] Kristin: like a medically realistic one. Yeah. I was like, I'm not picturing, I'm not picturing a

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This is the alternative Ballantine.

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realistic heart

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[00:15:55] Kristin: Exactly. If things

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[00:15:57] Kristin: here's a broken

one.

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[00:16:05] Kristin: That would really mess with my mind literally and figuratively, I think.

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[00:16:11] Kristin: So people just want their body parts,

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[00:16:19] Kristin: I don't know I'm going down this road. Is it edible? Is it not edible? do they want to hang it on their wall?

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[00:16:28] Kristin: Okay, interesting. Okay. Yeah. Now my mind's going, please.

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[00:16:40] Kristin: I think I'm too naive. I really

am going to have to

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[00:16:48] Kristin: Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to think on that one and probably have to ask someone. Is there anything that you've done that's been really empowering? I'm just thinking like what would be empowering and interesting and strong versus weird.

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[00:17:10] Kristin: Oh, yeah, but I like that, you know, this is a moment in time.

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[00:17:25] Kristin: Oh, yeah. That's not what I was expecting at all, but

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[00:17:28] Kristin: really cool.

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[00:17:35] Kristin: And it does feel like that would be really empowering because it is like saying this is my body and, and actually I'd like the idea that it would be something that as you get older, hopefully keeping that confidence and saying, this was my body and this is my body now. And I don't know, it's like a, it's like a way cooler than photograph photograph

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[00:18:04] Kristin: But then I also, okay. We're going completely off track. I feel like. There is something that's really cool now to also say, this is my body it's been through, kidney difficulties. It's been through three kids. It's been through.

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[00:18:28] Kristin: You can do it, make yourself a bust lamp of your 50. This is 50

bust. I like it. So as somebody who works on horror, actually my friend asked me to ask you this question, but I need to know what is your worst nightmare.

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[00:19:01] Kristin: And did you like horror always

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nightmares. Yeah.

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released around 14,

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[00:19:23] Kristin: but once you were 14 of an age, that seems reasonable to let core, was it always the genre that you were interested?

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but yeah, I do like zombies though, that's the thing. So I like see nation. I don't know if you've seen that.

And so, yeah, I like things like that more than horror. But I think that's purely because of the nightmares I had as a child, sort of, you know, really put me off until later on in life.

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So do you think you'll continue that route or would you rather get into Vikings? It's still horrific, but an accident.

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ahead or shot or anything, especially pets cover such a wide variety of films. I do love the horror. The people are lovely. nicest people I've met. And you, I love horror so much and make horror films you think, you know, but they're not.

They're so nice. I just I'm really comfortable where I am at the moment.

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[00:21:02] Tracey: It's a very male dominated area. it always has been, but there's more and more women coming through into the industry now.

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[00:21:14] Tracey: Obviously, There's lots of men and there's only sort of a few women within the industry Um, they're not really too many on this side. Um, it would be nice if more women it's just them coming through, you know, we have children and it's waiting for the right time.

And this was a lot of my thing, having children so young, you can't just get up and leave them and go off on set for a few weeks. But from then you so much. Unless you've got support your partner behind you, who says, yeah. Okay. You're going to feel stupid. So that's sort of, what's me so long waiting for Harrison to get to an age where, he's 14 now.

my middle son is 22. They can stay at home and now I know that they're okay. My oldest son is around the corner and I can go off for 10 days and not worry. Come back to a load of washing up.

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[00:22:06] Tracey: I know but the thing is, I think that's the one area I did skip on. It's like, you know, I don't want to put my hands in the ball. Come on.

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Or whether it's, I just couldn't not have family care responsibilities, whereas yes. A lot of times that wasn't the case for.

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I can do it if I want. with this, it's just, I'm doing it, you know? And that's it.

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[00:23:12] Tracey: there's lots going on. I'm filming video towels, terror. You've got one segment in Rockford, and then I got the segment to do with Johnny. And that's her, film.

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to Danny.

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[00:23:50] Kristin: So as far as the tower of terror thing you were talking about what's that? Tell me more

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I can't tell you too much about that.

Johnny's on there. yeah, so there's lots of different, is it simple production? It's hard to talk about.

I've got another film coming up where they won't drop it's an arm and that the lady who's doing that thing. She does fire tricks.

So she's going to show me how to set myself on file.

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[00:24:38] Tracey: Yes. I'm going to self with my hand and if I can cope with that, I might go a little bit more. different kind of special effect.

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part and once there's a level of comfort there.

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[00:25:15] Kristin: that wouldn't work for me. I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of fire, very close to my body. I think I'm okay.

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[00:25:24] Kristin: I guess if somebody said, do you want to learn? I'd be like, oh, okay.

Exactly. As far as getting work, I think. I know how it works, with acting work, getting it or not. But how do you, is it just because you've worked with these same people and you've cast their face before, or you've worked with them. Does that continue to lead to more projects?

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It does Um, see my work. so I've filmed pest last weekend. Coming up. I don't know, saying they see my work on line and how they think it's so good. And So.

it's just itching my words, getting out and getting more people contacting me on different stuff, on different fields, props, edibles.

And yes, I haven't actually chased a job. work has come, is quite

good.

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[00:26:18] Tracey: Yeah. And that's how it's been since. Oh, so this time, last year, it really sort of stay immediately say.

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[00:26:30] Tracey: to work on one of the big movies Mobile, would it be good? maybe if I came one would be good, something, you know, the next sort of step out and that been meaning being part of the team. so it Something different, but yeah that's, that's my next step up in the next big.

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[00:26:54] Tracey: A lot. Yeah. It could be quite a big team that's where things change and that's where I need to think, It wouldn't be so much being part of a team like that. The prostates come in a new private people's stuff, you know, so it's a little bit different. but yeah, I still want to try it. I still didn't give it a go.

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[00:27:21] Tracey: Yeah, you've done a lot. Everyone's got different styles, you know, ways of how they do their mold in their casting. And it's nice to work with other people because you learn a lot more people are using and you might think, oh, I might want to change my material a bit because it's now. So it's different.

There's all different.

reasons. And it's nice just for me just to learn. I like learning.

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[00:27:48] Tracey: Do you know, I don't really have a lot of stuff. What I think it's what my mom had always sort of said to me, growing up, don't cry over spilled Sticks and stones will break your bones and, you know, things like to me, It's just all about treat people how you want to be treated.

know, if you're good to me, I'm good to you. And about it.

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[00:28:14] Tracey: yeah. It's just a quote. Let's just all be.

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But she had a sweatshirt on that said be kind. And I was like, we can both agree on that. So I'm just going to

leave at that, it was like be kind, you be

kind.

Yeah.

And

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[00:28:44] Kristin: And if there's anything that you haven't said that you'd want people listening to hear, whether it's about, your own journey or what you would encourage people.

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[00:29:05] Kristin: I needed that today. I was having a moment of, wanting to give up on something and I just was like, I know I'm not ready to give up yet.

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[00:29:17] Kristin: sometimes when you're having the worst possible time, it is just sleep on it.

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[00:29:34] Kristin: Obviously it's worked for you 11 years after being told you had

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[00:29:46] Kristin: yeah, I was going to ask you a few ever, are worried because you were told that and you have your boys and everything, but it seems like now, You're in the clear,

so

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[00:30:08] Kristin: Yeah, if you can't laugh

about

it,

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sit there and cry. So you might as well just laugh about it. You know, I lost to show and I just want to enjoy it be happy.

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[00:30:28] Tracey: It does make me so happy. I know it's strange. It really does make me happy.

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[00:30:45] Tracey: Yes. Thank you.

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