Elyse Raisley, a junior at Fossil Ridge High School, is very involved in school plays and musicals. As the lead makeup artist and head of production design at Fossil Ridge High School, Raisley is seen behind the scenes of theatre productions as well as other performances, such as the homecoming assemblies and production organizations for Ridge TV.
Most of Raisley’s time is consumed by working on productions here at Fossil. Considering most of the Fossil community is unaware of the effort put into the behind the scenes work of production design, Raisley explains in more detail of what exactly it is that she does. “I specialize in special effects makeup. So basically all the blood and gore that anyone may need, I get to jump on that. Also, I work closely with theatre, and so I’m the one who designs all the sketches, and train and pick out my crew who is going to be able to help with the plays and musicals as well.” As the head of design, she gets to do hair, makeup, and costume design as well. “It’s a blast because it’s really cool to see myself find something that I’m actually good at.” One of Raisley’s favorite parts of doing production design is getting to meet and work with so many people and being able to use her art for a good purpose. Because there are so many things to love about production design, Raisley spends most of her time covered in makeup.
Production design is a very time consuming hobby. Since Raisley is so committed to what she does, she is willing to give up time, including late starts, to work on and perfect her skills. Unfortunately, with a commitment like this, there isn’t much room for free time. “In my free time, I work at a daycare and make movies,”, Raisley says. When she is not creating battle wounds or crazy hairstyles, she is either working at her part-time job, a daycare facility, or doing something else related to makeup and production design. Although production design is a very time consuming passion, it has had such a great impact on Raisley and inspires her to have an impact on others. She loves working with people, especially the students and teachers at Fossil.
Not only does she work with hair and makeup at Fossil, but Raisley has also had many opportunities to take her talents elsewhere. In October 2015, Raisley had the opportunity to do zombie makeup for the cover of Scene Magazine. “It was absolutely amazing because I got to work with a couple stars and really make some connections,” Raisley said. Raisley has also done makeup for productions at the Lincoln Center such as “Shrek the Musical”. Starting off with such a great talent at such a young age has allowed Raisley to make many connections and think about where she wants to take this talent of hers.
As a junior looking into her future, Raisley is researching her options to continue production design. She hopes to graduate this year, a year early, and attend Colorado Film School in Aurora. She wants a career of working in production design as well as working at the Denver Theatre. With as much talent and work ethic as she has through makeup and production design, she hopes she will continue painting blood on people for the rest of her life.
Although Raisley is such a young artist, her work is beyond her years. She gets to use her creativity and passion everyday while making connections and everlasting friendships. Raisley is so excited to keep working in production design and is anxious to see where it takes her in life.
