Black Room is Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event's training program dedicated to the visual language and artistry of cinema. Each year, the course invites art department crew members - production designers, art directors, costume designers, makeup artists, props masters, etc.,- to participate in a masterclass aimed to empower their skills and industry knowledge in creating visually compelling cinematic worlds.
The course comprises 4 days in-depth training session for eight selected art department talents. Each year, the masterclass led by an renowned mentor, selects a topic to reflect on current issues in film industry to better the expertise and knowledge in working as a creative professional.
The submissions for 2025 are now closed. Thre selected participants and will be announced in autumn.
Black Room 2025 focuses on hair & make up design in film. The sessions will take place on 19-21 November 2025.
The thee days of workshop will be divided into topics like hair design, SFX, and prosthetics & character design, including the practical workshop The Chemistry Lab: Mixology of bodily fluids.
The session of character & prosthetic make up design is led by mentor Thomas Foldberg, who is known for his work with films as Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013), Men & Chicken (2015), Border (2018) and The Ugly Stepsister (2025).
Additionally to the closed workshops, there will be an open lecture by costume designer Debra McGuire (series Friends), panel discussions and sessions led by Aalto Production Design department.
The detailed programme with open and closed sessions will be announced in autumn.
Prosthetic Makeup Designer
Thomas Foldberg, born, raised and still based in Copenhagen, Denmark, has worked
professionally with makeup effects and prosthetics makeup since 1997. His education doesn’t come from formal studies, but by being an assistant to different established artists in the Danish film industry. From 2016, Thomas has been running his own prosthetic make up workshop with a small international crew.
Character work has been the object of interest of Foldberg’s since the beginning, and today character and creature design is the cornerstone of his artistry.
In Black Room, Thomas will take you behind the scenes of his career, present case studies of different characters and practical requirements and technical solutions for different character design projects.
Among Debra McGuire's many accomplishments as a fine artist, fashion designer, and costume designer, she is best known for her 10-year run on the hit show Friends and for designing many of David Mamet's film and theatre projects, including Phil Spector (starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren), which was nominated for 11 Emmys and for which she received a nomination for Best Costume Design. Debra has also designed many of Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan's film and television projects.
Debra designed Sonic the Hedgehog #1 and #2, starring James Marsden and Jim Carrey (Paramount Studios/Sega), which premiered in February 2020 and became the #1 box office success in 2022. Currently, Debra designs for Jennifer Aniston in The Morning Show (Seasons 2, 3, and now Season 4). She was in Atlanta in Fall 2023 designing the TV series Hysteria! and subsequently in Montreal and Budapest designing the epic film Mayday, an end of the Cold War comedy starring Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds, directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.
Passionate about theatre, she began designing costumes for a dance theatre company in Paris in the early '80s. In 2006, she was nominated for an Ovation Award for Best Costume Design for Boston Marriage, and in 2007, she won the NAACP Award for Best Costume Design for Atlanta at the Geffen Playhouse. In the summer of 2016, she designed the original period musical, I Only Have Eyes For You (written by Arlene Sarner and Jerry Leichling, directed by Kay Cole), at the Montalban Theatre in Los Angeles, which was nominated for several Ovation awards.
Debra is primarily a fine artist whose career began as a painter, working and teaching in her Bay Area studio. She later became an instructor at colleges and universities in Northern California, as well as a jewelry and accessories designer in New York. Additionally, she has worked as a fashion designer, fashion consultant, couturier (with a store in Pacific Palisades, CA for 10 years), and costume designer. Debra has spoken at galleries, art colleges, and film festivals, and recently taught a Master Class at The Visegrad Film Festival in Bratislava titled "The Refinement of Process: Visual Journey of the Artist as Costume Designer." Recently, she has been back in the studio and travels between her LA office and her home/studio in Rhode Island.
Workshops are held in English.
2024 Steve Summersgill "Game of Thrones", "Grand Hotel Budapest", "A Hidden Life", "Inglorious Bastards") and Marco Bittner Rosser (Only Lovers Left Alive, "Tár", "Role Play", "Berlin Station".
2023 Kave Quinn “Trainspotting”, “Judy”, “Emma”, “Layer Cake”
2022 Brunella De Cola “ The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”, “Maleficent”
2021 Sabine Hviid “Another Round” and Christian Olander “Tom of Finland”
2020 Jaqueline Abrahams “The Lobster”, “Lady Macbeth”, Simon Weisse “Matrix 4”, “Isle of Dogs”, “Grand Budapest Hotel” and Maria Djurkovic “The Imitation Game”, Billy Elliot”
*Header photo: „Layer Cake”, dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2004