Making Masks for the “Head Over Heels” Chorus

Picture of a KN95 Mask covered with a smiling cloth cover

The masks for the chorus of Head Over Heels (Film, 2021 Diablo Valley College) were made by sewing a cloth cover which had been drawn with sharpies to a KN95 mask. You can see the images below of the cloth covers before application to the masks. If you want to make a similar mask you can print out these pages and use them with a light box to see and draw out the images to replicate or adapt these designs.

Smiling Chorus Masks were worn through most of the film

Weeping masks were worn for the Death of Musidorus/Permanent Distemperature scenes

Snaklettes Masks — Snakelettes masks were individually colored for slight variations.

Owlets also had minor variations because of the hand drawing process.

Designs were drawn in black sharpie first, allowed to dry, and then colored in afterwards to reduce bleed on the black outlines. Skin colors were made using sharpies and other alcohol based markers, and teeth were given white highlights with a white paint marker or white-out pen.

Ensemble performers had makeup designs solely for the eyes up, which they applied in the makeup room while wearing their masks.

KN95 Mask — All the mask covers were sewn to the outer edge of KN95 masks which were the best filtration available to us at the time we began filming in early March 2021 (N95s being reserved for essential Healthcare workers). Chorus performers were thus the most protected performers in our film.

Mask covers were made curve fronted and larger than the KN95s so they could easily fit over the KN95 masks without tightening them.

FAILED SEWING TEST: As a first test we tried sewing the covers over the edge by machine as shown below, but as you can see, it both crumples the nose of the mask, and reduces the seal on the edges, so we instead hand sewed the covers to the outside edge, with no fabric turned inwards, and also leaving a bit of extra “nose” room at front so we could get a more perfect seal and maximum interior for the actors faces. While sewing by machine is faster, it substantially reduces the effectiveness and comfort of the mask.

SUCCESSFUL SEWING TEST: Below you can see the first successful test of the hand sewing method, done in thick black embroidery thread so you can see the configuration of the stitching (chorus masks were sewn with normal thread). This keeps a good edge seal and does not crush the nose area of the mask.