[MUSIC]
It's just amazing how every piece in it
has a lot of collaboration.
Hi, I'm Sanna Seppanen and I'm the designer of hair.
I'm Rebecca Lee, the makeup designer.
It's my second time working with Sanna and also Rebecca.
You know, there was no hesitation in sharing ideas.
And I love them both.
I grew up in Japan, was watching those Japanese samurai
era movie or TV show.
I never thought I'm going to wear that.
I'm really proud to be on this show
because my background is Asian.
And I've never had a chance to work
on a show with such representation
and an almost exclusively Asian cast
here in North America for a global audience.
Japanese society in the 1600s had a very specific look.
Hair played an important part in stature and hierarchy.
We have everything from people in the village who work outside
and have more of a tan, weathered complexion,
to our lords and ladies in the palace
who have a much lighter makeup and a more
refined, groomed look.
Obviously, in 16th, 17th Century,
they didn't have a lot of options for makeup.
So, we had to play with the simple things,
like skin and just lip color.
Authenticity is really important for this show.
Everybody wants to make a very authentic product.
And how do you make something that's authentic
when there are no photographs?
We studied a lot of previous films
and looked at what was working and what wouldn't
work in our society today.
You know this bald part?
We all used, what we called habutai, which
is like oiled paper cloth.
That's a Japanese bald cap.
These are very fine pieces of silk treated with
a special type of Japanese wax.
And they're applied on the head, like a bald cap,
wrapped with these straps.
Some days, we have hundreds of samurais.
And we weren't sure how we were going to do this.
Fortunately, the Japanese wig technicians that came over
to work on the show and our other advisors
had a solution to this.
The technicians came to teach our crew how to manage
these beautiful masterpieces.
The way they honor their craft, it just
becomes a piece of artwork.
The stuff that we've learned from Japan
has been a real cultural exchange for us
within the hair and makeup departments
with our Japanese counterparts.
They work in this time period a lot and they know it so well.
So, it's incredible to have them just in the trailer next door.
You know, so, we work very closely with them.
Each one of these wigs, the hair is laid on
and then it's styled.
And so, there isn't a lot of room to play with the wig.
Once it's styled, it pretty much needs to stay exactly as is.
But we wanted to have a little more of our action and
adventure feel to our stories.
[YELLS]
We wanted the hair to break down and to look windswept at times,
and to look messy, and to go through what the character was
going through.
We tried a lot of ways, especially
for the guys, chonmage.
We finally decided mixing version.
So, East meets West on my head.
Here is Hiro Sanada's hero wig.
This is known as ohatsumage, which
means that it is a full wig.
And this ponytail that stands up is known as the mage.
This is his colors, black and gold,
so all the cords match their costume colors,
their costume palette.
And then we have thousands of cords and thousands
of colors and textures to create these very elaborate hair ties.
Here's our wig for Ochiba.
Ochiba's hair is so special and it has these beautiful drapes.
All of this is handmade and then sewn into the wig.
And she has the longest hair because she
is the woman of the highest rank in our world.
Mariko's hair goes all the way until my hip.
And for every kimono that I wear,
I was able to choose a beautiful ribbon that went well with it.
Sometimes we went with something that was more vibrant
so that we see the contrast.
And sometimes we just wanted to go simple so that the kimono
would stand out more.
The fun thing with Anna's hair was, you know, you could easily
rock this on the runway, as much as you
can look completely perfectly natural in 16th century Japan.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun creating her character.
[CLAPS]
[LAUGHS]
This experience of "Shogun" has been monumental.
I think it's probably been one of the biggest
shows I've done, ever.
The mastery, the artistry, seeing the sets,
and how incredibly cinematic and beautiful the show looks,
this is an absolute high point in my career.
Yeah, I'll never forget it.
[MUSIC]