Death By Make-Up, The Artists' Way

It could rightly be called a voice from beyond the grave when one of the actors who plays a dead body in CSI: Miami spoke in an interview yesterday, to describe what it was like to play a member of the not-so dearly departed on TV's premier prime time show.

Yahoo! News interviewed actress Megan Boye in her role as the victim of an unfortunate sex game gone wrong, as well as some of the make-up crew and CSI: Miami's conversational coroner Dr. Alexx Woods, played by Khandi Alexander.

"Hey, everybody dies. I get to practice," said Boye, during shooting at a Los Angeles botanical garden. "It was freezing and I die in this very skimpy lingerie [...] I was laying there for so long and so exposed. There's about 75 people standing around, and I'm just in my underwear, and I started to really feel like this dead body — which was very violated and very much forgotten about." Boye ended up with a head cold from the experience, but described it as "so much fun".

The make-up artists themselves were on hand to discuss the creation of death. Green veins were added to Boye along with a white pallor, created using an ivory-toned base sponged on to the actress's lips face and chest, with autopsy scars to be added later for the scene at the coroner's office. Hidden bruising is painted alongside the drawn green veins, both of which will show up later under a blacklight on the coroner's table as the CSIs attempt to unravel the mystery of the woman's death.

Quite often though there are directorial concerns, noted chief make-up artist Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf. "They still want her to look beautiful," said Montesanto-Medcalf, in reference to Boye. She is often aided by David Campbell, a 23-year veteran of the county coroner's office brought in to help ground the show in reality. "One thing I have learned is that you tell the director what is real and the director decides what works," he said.

The lady in charge of playing the coroner to Boye's victim, Khandi Alexander, had her own take on acting alongside death. "Because my character speaks to the dead, it gives me something to feed off. A lot of our dummies don't have faces molded; it's just a foam body. We don't get anything back," said Alexander. "The only time it's odd is during lunch, and they're sitting there eating and their brains are blown out!"

For a more in-depth look at the cosmetic process, plus why a snoring corpse completely threw David Caruso, you can read the original article here at Yahoo! News.

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