His name is almost synonymous with make-up in Mollywood. His latest state award, for Yugapurushan (2010), is the sixth on his shelf. Not surprisingly, Pattanam Rasheed is busy as ever, working in films like Veeraputhran, and Akku Akbar’s yet-to-be named film starring Dileep. He has just finished work on Lucky Durbar. Ahead on his schedule are Kobral, Venicile Vyapaari, Dr Biju’s film starring Prithviraj and Indrajit and Avira Rebecca’s next. He has also done the make-up for 1993 Bombay March 12.As someone who thrives on challenging work, Rasheed is glad when he gets to experiment. And Veeraputhran, a historical film which portrays the life of freedom fighter Mohammed Abdul Rahiman Sahib from age 23 to his death at 47 presents quite challenging work. In the recently released Shankaranum Mohananum, Jayasurya appears in nine different get-ups. The advertisement for Manappuram Gold gave him the opportunity to do ‘age make-up’ onactors like Mohanlal, Akshay Kumar, Vikram, Venkitesh, Mithun Chakraborthy, Puneet Rajkumar and Uttam Kumar.However, he is a tad disappointed that his recent works failed to win the national jury’s attention in 2010. “I was just a little disappointed that Yugapurushan was not selected for the national awards. Also, my work in Adaminte Makan Abu didn’t find favour with the jury.” However, Rasheed has little time to dwell on that now as he is about to launch his dream project, a make-up school of international standards. Tentatively named ‘Pattanam Designeri Academy of Make-up and Fashion’, the school is slated to start functioning in August. With tie-ups with the Research Council of Make-up Artists, US and the Karkafi, Spain, the courses here will cover every aspect of the latest in professional and personal make-up. “Professional make-up artists in today’s films need to be educated. The nuances of make-up, a proper education and the ability to converse in English will make a lot of difference to their career. Professional qualification will also provide more credibility to not just the individual but also to the profession in general,” says Rasheed.He elaborates - “It took me God’s grace, luck and a lot of learning over the years to survive in the industry. We are hoping that this course will give a jump start to students in not just film make-up, but in a lot of other professions as well.”The comment is hardly surprising coming from someone whose humility and eagerness to learn is striking even after doing widely appreciated works in a career spanning around 27 years. While he won the national award for Paradesi (2007), his six state awards were for Aadharam (1992), Guru (1997), Kunjikoonan (2002), Anandabhadram (2005), Paradesi (2007) and Yugapurushan (2010). He has worked in Chachi 420, Cotton Mary, Kanjeevaram (Tamil), Damm 999 (English) and in several other Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi movies, apart from Arabic serials and some other foreign language works. “Not just make-up, but technology itself is changing everyday and you have to keep learning to provide the best. Working in different languages and countries exposes you to different types of make-up and working with experts helps you learn new techniques. It was while working in Chachi 420 that I learned more about prosthetic make-up, which is now widely used in films. Airbrushing and imported make-up have dramatically improved the standards of make-up but the cameras and related techniques have also advanced and you need to be really careful of many aspects to keep the whole effect natural,” he says.Referring to his work in films like Ponthanmada and Kunjikoonan, he says, “Even when creating an unattractive face in a film, the face has to appeal to the sensibilities of the audience.”According to him recreating a familiar historical face on an actor is the most difficult. “We mostly rely on prosthetic make-up techniques. In films like Yugapurushan or Veeraputhran where you have to do both the character make-up as well as age make-up, and where pictures of the ages portrayed is not available, we rely on computer and even talk to people who knew them to get the make-up right. A good make-up man must be able to create a character from any actor.”It is the quest to do challenging work that paved the way for his success. “It was Mammookka who told me that doing good and challenging work is what matters more than anything else. He told me that if you do good work, money and everything else will come by itself.” For Pattanam Rasheed, son of Hussain, a musician, and Jameela, make-up and art is family affair. Rasheed learnt the art of film make-up from his elder brother Pattanam Shah (State Award winner for Puli Janmam (2006)). His sister and nephew are also make-up artistes with a leading TV channel. Married to Najma with three children, Althaf, Alfiya and Al Rinshid, Rasheed says it is entirely upto his children whether they will carry forward the family’s artistic traditions.
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