Howdy Ho ~
I am finally done with exams for a few weeks, so I am able to post more entries again. ^-^
Most of all I am happy to share this interview with you which I had on my PC for a decade, unable to edit it.
Today I want to introduce everyone to my favourite youtuber in terms of halloween looks and everythings odd and special: Cat Tanchanco or better known online as Audfaced. She is by far the most incredible and creative youtube artist, if you haven't already you definitely have to watch her videos and subscribe to her, ASAP! (●´∀｀●)
Cat is not only a marvelous artist but also has one of the greatest and nicest personalities, she is beautiful inside and out. In contrast to average beauty videos hers feel like watching a marvelous movie starring an interesting and extreme character. I better stop here so I hope you have as much as I reading the interview to get to know this great mind and person. (⌒▽⌒)☆1.) First, thank you so much for making time for this interview, I appreciate it a lot. Do you mind introducing yourself in a short paragraph?
I'm flattered for the opportunity to do this, thank you again for asking me!
I'm Cat Tanchanco but most people through YouTube know me as "Auds" "Audie" or "Audfaced." I LOVE creating extreme characters using makeup. Right now I'm studying filmmaking in school & I also do makeup & photography gigs on the side. It's fantastic and the three mediums really intertwine.
2.) In the beginning you started with common make-up videos, why did you decide to jump on this film / character inspired bandwagon?
You're right, I definitely didn't start out with my character makeup videos. My very first videos were either simple makeup tutorials or product reviews. I started my channel back in 2009 and that year, I only had Macbook's Photo Booth program to record videos. It was terrible quality and glitched in so many ways. I was very aware that during Halloween, YouTube makeup gurus would post these exciting, themed videos. And as much as I wanted to be a part of that -- I decided to wait one year in hopes that by 2010 I would have two things: a better camera and a little more makeup knowledge. By next Halloween I had already been slightly transitioning into themed makeup videos PLUS I had all my anticipation from the previous year still stored up. Halloween 2010 was the year I posted my first ever character themed tutorials with videos like Evil Nurse, Corpse Bride, Left 4 Dead's "The Witch" and Bellatrix Lestrange. It was a lot more fun to edit character themed videos opposed to say, a video about winged eyeliner. The feedback I got from these halloween videos was tremendously inspiring and ... I just felt right. There was something A LOT more fulfilling about becoming a completely different character that out-shined regular makeup videos. People identified me the most with my extreme character looks and I too identified the most with my characters. I felt a lot more like myself and didn't feel like I was living in someone else's shadow anymore.
3.) How did you end up studying bachelor fine arts in film and video? And what does a normal day in the life of Cat look like?
Haha well, it definitely wasn't an easy occurrence. Note: Prepare yourselves for a long story. If you're not interested, I highly recommend skipping this answer! :)
So, growing up, I actually thought I was going to be a painter, a writer or an animator. I never really had an undying fierce passion for those things but I didn't seem to be good at much anything else. Math, science and sports were things that I was capable of and took part in but they held no spark for me. So I was to be an artist. I lived in that general mindset until I was literally graduating highschool. But even then I had no idea what I REALLY wanted to do with my life.
It's hard to choose a school to attend when you don't even know what you want to do. I ended up in this giant university school in a big city as an English major. I had a handful of English teachers throughout my life that had been especially inspiring and at the time I did think teaching was something I might enjoy doing and it was a way to bring about positive change. And you know how 'we call wanna change the world.' So while the city was amazing and I had friends from highschool with me, something never felt right about being at this university. I would spend most of my time wandering the Fine Arts building hallways, writing down information from flyers and bulletin boards made for the film and media majors. I spent my time entering film student contests rather than attending English major meetings - the ones where my attendance was mandatory ... whoops.
I went through a CONSTANT push and pull stage of confusion during this time and I can't express how difficult it was to choose to leave. No matter how much I wanted to like this school and this city, I couldn't help but feel that I didn't belong and that I wasn't challenging my artistic limits by being there.
To save money and to buy time to think about what I really wanted, I ended up withdrawing from the university, moving back home and enrolled in a small local community college. The hot to cold transition killed me. On top of that I still had no idea what I wanted to PURSUE as my career. I had ideas of what I wanted to be, but not enough courage or confidence to just go for it. The loneliness of being in community college didn't exactly help either.
But here's the thing: If I hadn't gone to community college I highly doubt I would have gotten to where I am today. You know that quote from Steve Jobs where he says 'you can't connect the dots looking forward, only backward'? It's completely true. BECAUSE I barely had any friends to hangout with at home and BECAUSE I had a lot of free time, I was able to really focus on my makeup channel. "AUDFACED" became my artistic and emotional outlet. I would spend so much of my time learning more about makeup, creating my own looks, doing trial makeup in my room and editing videos to distract myself from how sad and confused I felt from everything else going on with me.
On top of that, I had time to make my first 'big' film for a class I took in community college. 'Big' definitely just refers to the size of the crew and cast. It was a zombie film called "Human Root." If I hadn't gone to community college I would have never met the people that were essential crew members that helped me make this film happen. On top of that, if I hadn't moved back home I would have never worked at Fright Fest. If I hadn't worked at Fright Fest I would have never met the majority of the actors in my zombie film nor the FX makeup artists who ended up becoming MUA's on set for my film. On top of that, with my free time I also decided to take up portrait photography - which really, at the time was just me borrowing someone's camera and photographing some friends from highschool. Back then all of this was more of a test run -- I didn't think I could actually turn all of this into a growing career.
In short, BECAUSE I had all this time to do makeup projects, start doing portrait photography and had time to make a large scale movie --- I slowly gained confidence in myself as a makeup artist and photographer but more so, I gained confidence in my passion for film. Even though my zombie flick was just a student film, I realized that if I am doing all of THIS in my freetime and spending so much time and money on this craft, it must be what I want to do. Why choose any other career if I was always going to be squeezing in time to do films on the side? Don't get wrong, filmmaking still intimidated me and I was so afraid that if I messed up or 'didn't make it' I would just waste money and time. But I thought, 'As long as I have passion, I will can find a way to make this work. So just run with it and go for it with all you've got.'
When I finally realized this and faced my fears of failure, I applied to CalArts for the film & video program not thinking I had much of a chance getting in --- after all I had only made a handful of films and heard that it was a prestigious school to get into. But I had to try. I really slaved away working on my portfolio and all the essays they asked me to write - I took my application for them so much more seriously than any other school I had ever applied to.
I submitted work I had made in highschool, from the big university and from community college. These included short films, hand-drawn artwork, my makeup work and my photography. And lo and behold I got in! I'm convinced that if I had stayed in the university (the first college I attended) I would have never had the variety of work that I did when I applied to CalArts. And the years of struggle disciplined me and made me even more sure of what I really wanted to do.
So that's how I became a film student :)
A normal day in the life of Cat (at least, for this previous year) .... haha well it's definitely different depending on what time of the year it is. During the summer, lately, I'm usually working a job as a costume character, planning the upcoming school year during my time off and catching up with old friends. Summer is also the time when I'm usually pre-planning and pre-filming a lot of my Halloween tutorials. When it's not summer, my life has become extremely hectic and my calendar is packed! Just so packed but I love it. During the school year I'm usually helping on someone's film shoot almost every weekend and during the week while attending classes. And if not that, I have my own film shoot going on or I'm doing a photoshoot. I also experience many many all-nighters from editing a film or just you know ... procrastinating and wasting away on Tumblr, Facebook or Adult Swim like most college students :) And of course on very unexpected days I have my crazy adventures with my friends as all college students must. And sleep. For some reason college students forget to sleep then sleep too much. I'm no exception!
4.) Did the youtube community affected you like in the way you present yourself to others and the way you think?
I realized this down the road but you know, I'm so glad I was exposed to the YouTube community. As much as some people say 'I don't tolerate haters' and spend all this time blocking them or fighting back or putting them on blast --- as weird as it is to admit, being exposed to those kinds of attitudes and comments can really make you stronger if you learn to rise above it. It's just one of those growing-up things that you really can't appreciate fully until you're past it. Learning to deal with negative criticism and knowing you can't please everyone is something very useful to be exposed to early on. And I know I still get a little stung sometimes but there's this sweet spot where you realize the difference between criticism trying to help you and criticism that's purely said to try and make you feel bad. And you learn which ones to listen to and which ones to let right out the other ear. The even sweeter spot is the point of realization where you don't really care what EVERYONE thinks because who you are and what you do is really for YOU to be satisfied with.
Also, having the experience of filming your videos and talking to people you have never met on say, BlogTV really boosts your confidence. I know at first it's awkward to be talking to a camera but for me, it helped bring out my personality and helped me feel more comfortable with speaking. I really do feel like I'm able to small talk and strike up conversations with people I just met a lot more easily compared to a few years ago. Maybe it still shows in my personality today, but I was definitely an extremely sensitive AND shy girl growing up. People that knew me when I was in elementary school and high school would be very shocked to know what I'm like today. And I've heard it from them before. Old classmates see me or my videos and they're like, "Wow. When did you get out of your shell?"
5.) Apart from Tim Burton is there another producer/director you admire and look up to?
I really admire Christopher Nolan. As a filmmaker what I really am interested in doing is finding a way to make 'horror' films or just artsy stylized films in a 'Christopher Nolan' way. His characters are just so non-formula, the plot twists are addicting and I just love his mind. His movies strike me as not only visually cinematic but the stories and characters really strike you and make you think about your morals and how you're living your life. That's the main thing that I really love about movies. I think if a story connects with a viewer enough, it can really impact the way they see the world and the way they live their life. We all want to change the world one way or another and I figured as an artist, this might be the way to do it if I can create a transcending movie like that, someday.
6.) If someone offers you a career as an actor instead would you stop making films?
Oh I would LOVE to just dedicate my time to be an actress (especially for movies). I know it's a tough life but sometimes I wish being a filmmaker or makeup artist didn't require having to buy so many materials! As an actor you really just need a good reel, a variety ward robe, an amazing headshot, connections and the energy to HUSTLE to all those auditions!
I was interested in being an actress long before I knew anything about film, photography or makeup. It is one of those childhood dreams that still lingers when I let my mind wander. I hope my love for portraying different characters shows in some of my makeup videos but I don't think I could ever give up filmmaking completely. I always have stories running around in my head and I am thankful that I'm in a career where I can actually bring those stories to life. I recognized early on that by learning how to write scripts, be a cinematographer, editor or director --- you have a lot more power on guiding these films to really tell the story. As an actor, while you do have main control over your character, you're still a pawn to the bigger chessboard of the story.
However, now that I'm living much closer to the Los Angeles area I definitely plan on showing up to what auditions I can and dabbling my way into the voice acting and acting industry. All these things are easier said than done but I really intend to! I can see myself moving between 2-4 related jobs throughout my working life as an artist. I'm very thankful to be a filmmaker and have the power to bring all these stories in my mind to life but I don't think I could ever give it up completely --- I see filmmaking, acting, makeup and photography as 4 extremely intertwined mediums of the arts so I hope I never have to choose just one! 3 years ago I thought I had to cold turkey choose JUST ONE CAREER and the only thing that finally gave me piece of mind was the realization that you don't have to choose just one thing to pursue and dabble in throughout your life. My big dream is to experience filmmaking, photography, working as a makeup artist and working as either a screen actress and/or voice actress on a professional level during my lifetime :)
7.) Is there anything you dislike in the film and video business?
Oh yes definitely, but I think that goes for any career choice. You just gotta make sure that the loves will continue to outweigh the dislikes! You definitely meet a lot of pretentious people and it also gets confusing on figuring out who actually likes you, who wants to be your genuine friend, who wants to be your friend just so you'll work for them, who is acting like your friend in order to keep you close because you're a threat to them ... Ta-da! It's a little tricky because the people you spend the most time with can be crew members or actors; and having a friendship or relationship with either of those people can really complicate your work life and personal life. On top of that, if you're in a relationship with someone who's completely out of your 'filmmaking circle' they have to be really understanding of your crazy and often unpredictable schedule and how little time and energy you may have left to spend with them. But honestly, I love how chaotic and unpredictable the life is sometimes. A daily schedule that was the same everyday would bore me very quickly.
8.) Including preparation, costume, make-up and filming how long does it take to finish a video?
The day of filming ... makeup from start to finish usually takes 1-3 hours to film. It also takes some time before that to put up my backdrop, bring in the makeup I need, tape reference pictures to the mirror and anything else I'll need. For really extreme looks it can take up to 4-5 hours. I'm not sure why it takes so devilishly long but filming a tutorial is really a lot different than putting on makeup, comfortably in front of a large mirror. When you're filming a makeup look, you have to constantly make sure you're in frame, make sure that it looks flattering, you have to show the products and what you're doing in between, and for me it's always a little difficult to do makeup on camera instead of in front of a mirror.
Theoretically if I started editing that video the same day and made that my number 1 priority that week, it would probably take me about 2-4 days to finish editing & ready to publish to YouTube. This rarely ever happens and sometimes I have videos waiting to be edited for up to 5 months! Lately I pre-film a lot of tutorials and edit them later, especially my Halloween ones.
9.) What are your top 5 goals in your life?
For the past 2 years of my life I've really had my eye set on 4 main "careers" which are 1) being a filmmaker 2) being a makeup artist 3) being a portrait photographer and 4) being a voice actress/actress. All of these to me are mediums of arts that help release the 'characters' and visions within me.
Those 4 things are constantly in my mind, by default. As a 5th overall goal I think that the main idea that really drew me to film was the fact that I see it as an entertaining medium of art that can bring about change in a human being. Most of the time it mainly just entertains but I strongly feel that there's a handful of movies out there that have completely altered people's lives. Sometimes people see things in movies and feel certain emotions that impact the way they see the world, the way they see other people and how they live. I would love to make a film that would do just that. Whether that story will be about love, loyalty, morals, fear --- I don't know yet. But I hope before I go, that I can make 'that movie' with a message that won't die.
10.) If you could choose one superhero power, what would it be and why?
I ... wanna be an airbender! I'm a huge Avatar fan so I immediately thought of which element I would want over being like ... Spiderman or something (whom I also love) I just think air is everywhere (yes I know I'd be screwed in outer space) but I feel that for it it would be more discreet as opposed to being an earthbender or firebender... okay geeking out. And if I couldn't have that then I'd probably end up being a super villain, damnit!
11.) Do you have any special plans for your youtube career? You said once you're thinking about becoming a partner.
I've been working on trying to "step up" my channel and my makeup work for the past year now but I'm still in a very uncertain and in a slightly confused state. YouTube has been changing a lot so that hasn't helped in me trying to figure out how the whole YouTube Partnership thing could work out. I'm aware that a handful of my best and most popular videos would need to be remade, privatized or deleted if I ever became a partner, mostly because they contain copyright-something. That's been the biggest issue for me. I would hate to delete or change videos that made people notice me in the first place.
What I would love to do is, find a way to efficiently make my themed character makeup videos in a way that is still both entertaining, educational and ... copyright happy. I would love to just keep dishing out new character videos and fancy makeup looks but lately something just keeps getting in the way of moving forward, be it school or money.
I just want to find a way to take the 'next step' to make things more professional and more 'top notch' haha. I want to create a system where I can more efficiently produce character themed makeup videos. I would love to have a website where people can more easily browse the looks I've created and see what I have to say about the look, products I used, the 'Making-Of' and more. I'm seeking a way to turn what I do on AUDFACED into a part-time career so that I don't have to hesitate to spend extra time and money putting together these videos. All these character themed videos are unfortunately quite expensive to make!
On a completely different note, for awhile now I have been prospecting about designing a t-shirt line with self-confidence boosting messages and artwork. I'm also interested in eventually publishing a makeup book. I've also been considering selling handmade prosthetics online as well as feather earrings. But ... all of these things have been a bit slow in progress or just prospects.
I don't know how other YouTube gurus have done it, but if I ever got high enough up there on the ladder, I would love to travel and meet people who watch me on YouTube and do makeup workshops, put them in my videos or do photoshoots for them. I love traveling and meeting new people so I hope that someday, something like this can happen!
12.) What is your secret of being so motivated and dynamic? Any last words you want to share?
It takes a lot out of me, I'll tell you that! I know in my past videos I've somehow been able to portray these wild characters while being IN-character ... But so much is put into planning these makeup looks prior to the day I'm on camera. I definitely don't whip all of this out in one day, it takes a lot of brainstorming, trial and error and preparation! It's no secret at all that PASSION + PLANNING is what will make any successful piece of work. This is why it's VERY important for me to be 100% into a look that I'm working on, otherwise it definitely shows in the video if I'm not happy or feeling it and people do notice and catch onto your mood.
As for last words ... I hope these mini long stories about me finding my path have been helpful in some way to anyone reading who may be going through a similar struggle! I still struggle a lot day to day and I'm definitely just starting the journey. My message to anyone trying to take the jump to follow their dreams -- the hardest part is getting the courage to just swallow your fears and go for it. If it's really what you want, you are the only force holding yourself back from finding a way.
Wow, this was dope! When I mailed her asking if she would be interested in doing an interview I never thought it would turn out like this, I have the feeling she let everyone into her life like real friends. Again, thank you so much!
Do you liked this interview? Then make sure to check Cat out on her blog, facebook and don't forget to watch her videos!
Her blogspot
Her youtube channel
Her facebook fanpage
