Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1530961
THE ARTISAN SPRING 2025 • 31 PHOTOS BY HOPPER STONE/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT An ice-skating bumblebee, a burning couch, the Muppets, Milton Berle dancing, and a llama don't sound like they would fit in the same script, but on Saturday Night Live (SNL), that is exactly the chaos we had to recreate. The 90 minutes leading up to the first time we hear, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night" was such a daunting task for us to establish, but so worth it. Our director, Jason Reitman, created a world for us that transported us right into 1975 on the 8th floor of 30 Rockefeller. Because of the fluidity of the set design, we had to have all our actors ready just in case we could see any of them in our moving scenes. ankfully, we had such a phenomenal cast that was up for the challenge to transform into some of the most well-known and beloved comedians and talent. Eric Steelberg, our incredibly talented DP, shot the movie on 18mm film which immediately and very effectively draws you into the time period. Between the lighting, set design, costumes and everyone involved, we knew we were about to create something magical. We felt a huge responsibility in representing the likeness of the cast. ankfully, Jason knows exactly what he wants but is also open to collaborating and hearing our ideas and interpretations. Janine and I immediately went to work researching each character and presented him with 10-20 photos each meeting. Character by character, we would break them down deciding facial hair, beauty marks, eyebrow shapes, and skin tones. Jason trusted us, our opinions, and our feedback making prep a seamless start—which was great because our prep was just as fast and furious as filming. ank goodness we had the amount of prep time we did because the entire movie was shot in only six weeks! Once decisions were made, we went into testing and execution. Meeting with each actor prior, we were able to test with most of them. We also had the good fortune of having the same background actors throughout filming and met with each one individually to determine their look. For men, we were able to cut and style their sideburns and/or facial hair, and for the women, we could predetermine their looks down to their nail polish colors. e amazing Jillian Erickson was my BG supervisor and ran a flawless team. Every morning, she and her team got 50-100 people ready for camera and the film would not have looked the same without their talent. Since the movie was shot like one long take, we got almost all of the main cast ready every day. I had a team of five full-time artists, including myself. Each of us were responsible for 5-7 characters. Marissa Lafayette was my Department Head Assistant and was responsible for Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennot), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), Billy Preston (Jon Batiste), Jaqueline Carlin (Kaia Gerber), and Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany). Rosie was such a classic 1970s beatnik beauty, so we wanted to make sure Rachel always had the same effortless, ethereal beauty with clean fresh skin and a natural '70s eye. Dan Aykroyd had a very specific "chevron"- shaped mustache that not all men can grow, so she applied a mustache and sideburns. MAKE-UP B Y T R I C I A S A W Y E R D E P A R T M E N T H E A D M A K E - U P Continued on page 32 Continued on page 33 Doing a film based on SNL (Saturday Night Live) was such an honor. This iconic show was a start of an era that television had never seen. No one knew what they had on their hands, how entertainment would never be the same. These characters, these artists, would go on to shape our world of comedy. Bringing the audience into the world of 1975 and SNL wasn't really the challenge. e challenge was bringing them ONLY into the 90 minutes before SNL went live for the first time. We needed to capture the intensity, the fluidity, the chaos of what happened in that 90 minutes. We all have our ideas of what these characters look like. We've seen them for years. We needed to choose one look for each character out of the hundreds of looks they each had that was iconic, recognizable, as well as historically correct. Jason Reitman, our director, wanted this film to look and feel like it was continuously moving. To help him achieve that, we had our entire main cast ready every day so he could HAIR B Y J A N I N E T H O M P S O N D E P A R T M E N T H E A D H A I R L-R: Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), Jacqueline Carlin (Kaia Gerber), Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith)