On the sur­face, Amei­ka Louis ap­pears a most unas­sum­ing young la­dy – a bit shy and com­plete­ly un­pre­ten­tious, but be­neath this fa­cade lies a tru­ly unique and mul­ti­tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­ual. Amei­ka, at the ten­der age of 18, is an al­ready well-re­gard­ed artist, ac­tor, dancer, mod­el and beau­ty queen, who re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered an in­nate tal­ent for spe­cial ef­fects make-up. She made the dis­cov­ery when she be­came in­volved in the 2011 Sec­ondary Schools Short Film Fes­ti­val (SSSFF). Her school, Bish­op's High School, To­ba­go copped the To­ba­go Award for best script/sto­ry­line, for their pre­sen­ta­tion, Re­flec­tions, but what re­al­ly set tongues wag­ging was the make­up done by Amei­ka of very life­like in­juries on one of the ac­tors. There was no award sole­ly for best make­up at the 2011 SSSFF, but if there was an award, she would cer­tain­ly have been a ma­jor con­tender. Amei­ka has al­ways had an at­trac­tion for spe­cial ef­fects make-up. "I would watch sci­ence fic­tion movies and was al­ways fas­ci­nat­ed by the make-up and spe­cial ef­fects," she said. "I had done make-up for fash­ion shows – beau­ty make-up – for about two years, but it wasn't un­til we were work­ing on the film for the SSSFF, about five months ago, that I tried my hand at the spe­cial ef­fects make­up."

Amei­ka is en­tire­ly self taught. When she was asked to at­tempt to cre­ate in­juries on one of the ac­tors, for the film, she first prac­ticed on her­self. "I com­plete­ly fooled my moth­er, who is a nurse," she said. She cre­at­ed a burn in­jury on her hand and showed it to her moth­er who be­came com­plete­ly fran­tic – on­ly to have Amei­ka con­fess that it was a fake in­jury. "That was when I knew I could do it," she stat­ed. As a self taught spe­cial ef­fects artist, Amei­ka was very re­source­ful. Who knew that Elmer's Glue would be a great sub­sti­tute for la­tex? In her first ex­per­i­ments, this was the base she used to recre­ate skin le­sions and lac­er­a­tions. Fake blood, she ex­plained, needs a good mix­ture of maple syrup, food colour­ing and flour. "All things found in my moth­er's pantry and to­tal­ly ed­i­ble," she ex­claimed with a laugh. Now, thanks to her SSSFF ex­pe­ri­ence, Amei­ka has a new tal­ent and pos­si­bly a new ca­reer. "There are al­ready so many peo­ple out there do­ing glam­our make-up and the field is to­tal­ly sat­u­rat­ed," she ex­plained. "I will def­i­nite­ly con­tin­ue with the spe­cial ef­fects make-up, be­cause there aren't as many peo­ple do­ing it – and it is what I am re­al­ly at­tract­ed to any­way."

"Amei­ka is a fine ex­am­ple of what young peo­ple en­ter­ing the Sec­ondary Schools Film Fes­ti­val are dis­cov­er­ing," stat­ed Rudy Hanamji, Mar­ket­ing Man­ag­er of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny. "It is pos­si­ble to have a vi­able ca­reer in the film in­dus­try. We were com­plete­ly blown away by Amei­ka's tal­ent – and we have no doubt that she can have a promis­ing ca­reer in the field of spe­cial ef­fects make­up." "When most peo­ple think about the film in­dus­try, they usu­al­ly fo­cus on the more ob­vi­ous pro­fes­sions – ac­tor, scriptwriter, di­rec­tor, cam­era per­son, but there are many less-con­sid­ered roles that are equal­ly as im­por­tant," he con­tin­ued. "A young per­son with a love of make-up or fash­ion or com­put­er pro­gram­ming may not im­me­di­ate­ly think of a ca­reer in film, but we want them to un­der­stand that this is cer­tain­ly in the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty." Dave El­liott, a video­g­ra­ph­er and SSSFF vol­un­teer who was re­spon­si­ble for train­ing and men­tor­ing the Bish­op's team is do­ing his part to en­sure that Amei­ka's tal­ent does not go to waste. He will use her skills on a movie project he is hop­ing to be­gin shoot­ing over the sum­mer. As for Amei­ka, she has plans to hone her skills as a spe­cial ef­fects make­up artist through cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and short cours­es while pur­su­ing her de­gree abroad – a dou­ble ma­jor in Dance and So­ci­ol­o­gy. In the mean­time, she hopes that she can con­tin­ue to do work on small­er projects that may arise at home. She can­not en­ter SSSFF again since she grad­u­ates in May, but she hopes to be able to help with the school's next film project.

Amei­ka was in high praise for the co­or­di­na­tors of the SSSFF for the sup­port and en­cour­age­ment they of­fered to her and her team­mates: "SSSFF was a great ex­pe­ri­ence, but what I tru­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed were the adults sup­port­ing al­ter­na­tive ca­reer op­tions and recog­nis­ing our tal­ents. Not every­one can be­come a doc­tor or lawyer and not every­one can be suc­cess­ful aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, but all young peo­ple have tal­ent that we can use to be­come suc­cess­ful. The or­gan­is­ers of this film fes­ti­val have recog­nised this."When asked her ad­vice to oth­er young peo­ple, Amei­ka stat­ed: "Just fol­low your dreams, work hard for what you want and de­vel­op your tal­ent. Ever since I was lit­tle, I knew that I could achieve any­thing I set my mind to do." But she al­so want­ed to re­mind young peo­ple not to ne­glect their aca­d­e­mics be­cause that too would help them in their ca­reers in the long term. "Bal­ance is what is im­por­tant," she stat­ed. "With hard work and a good bal­ance of pur­su­ing your tal­ents and aca­d­e­mics, young peo­ple can achieve suc­cess."Amei­ka should know. She is liv­ing proof that this ap­proach works.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny is now ac­cept­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the 2012 Sec­ondary Schools Short Film Fes­ti­val. For more in­for­ma­tion, please vis­it the TTFC's web­site at www.trinidadand­to­bagofilm.com or call the TTFC at 625-FILM.