Lauren Cataldo - Makeup For Media

I first came to CIT when I did my hairdressing apprenticeship just over 10 years ago.

While I was at school, I worked part-time in the family hairdressing business. I always enjoyed it, so I decided to get into it after school.

After a decade in the hairdressing industry, I felt like a change, and decided to come back to CIT to study beauty therapy. The course touched on makeup, and I found I really enjoyed that aspect. I found out a new course, Makeup For Media, was going to be launched, so I changed over to study that.

I absolutely loved the course - you learn a whole different area of makeup that I didn't even know existed. I just learnt so much and built a lot of skills, so it's been very worthwhile.

Our teacher was awesome - she pushed us along and gave us encouragement and was very patient with us. She had so much knowledge about makeup.

Through her connections, we were given the opportunity to apply to work as the makeup artist on a feature film, filmed by a Brisbane-based company on location just outside of Canberra. I submitted my portfolio and was selected, and it was the highlight of my studies. At the start it was a bit scary, but after a few days in, it was so much fun! It was definitely like nothing I've ever done before. It was really great to have the experience and apply my skills to a real life sceanrio. And my hairdressing skills came in handy as well - I ended up doing both the hair and makeup.

Next year I'm going to study the Advanced Makeup for Media. After I finish that I hope to work in the industry. There are so many avenues with makeup - with TV and photography - but now that I've had my first taste of doing film and loved it, I'd really like to head that way.