India’s first prosthetic make-up institute

Prosthetic make-up, a specialty that originated in the West, will soon have its first home in India.

Prosthetic make-up, a specialty that originated in the West, will soon have its first home in India. To be situated at MHADA, Four Bungalows, Andheri, the Ritu Janjjani Make-up Academy will be the country’s first such training institute and will open in the second week of May this year.

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This form of make-up was used in the Amitabh Bachchan film Paa (2009), and more recently, to give Priyanka Chopra a variety of looks in Saat Khoon Maaf (2011).

Says Ritu Janjjani, wife of TV actor Kiran Janjjani, “For the first time, students from India will be able to learn different aspects of making people look exotic from the ordinary. With this knowledge, they’ll be able to create a wide range of characters like those we see in films.”

Before she laid the foundation for her institute, Ritu went to LA, where she studied prosthetics at the world famous Cinema Make-up School. “The school is one of the best for beauty, character and prosthetic make-up, airbrushing and digital makeup,” she explains, adding, “After my course, I worked on films like Blood Inc along with students of the New York Film Academy and met actors like Leonardo Di Caprio, Nicole Richie, Jessica Alba and Ashton Kutcher. It was like a dream. I wish I had never woken up from it.”

In the recent past, prosthetics have been used in films like The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Drop Dead Fred and My Name is Earl.

Ask whether she believes it will catch on in India, and Ritu responds, “Indian cinema is changing and more people are making character-based films, for which make-up plays an important role. Having local prosthetic make-up artists in India will be very cost affective.”

How it works...
Prosthetic make-up artistes sculpt and mould silicone rubber to exaggerate or create new features such as long noses and over-sized ears on actors.
Popular movies that used prosthetic tricks to transform actors include Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Dasavatharam (2008) and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008).