Daleville business owner turns movie stylist

Daleville business owner Shawntell Mitchell recently added a new line on her resume: head stylist for a movie.

Mitchell, owner of Just Shear Madness hair salon, served as head stylist for the independent film "Second Samuel," which was recently filmed in the Wiregrass. The film is adapted from the play of the same name by Pamela Parker.

She said she learned about the opportunity through a client who also worked on the film.

"I never in a million years thought that I would have an opportunity to work on a film, especially a film that was being shot in Alabama, in Dothan, that was actually a true story," she said. "It was really interesting to get to know the characters and the people behind the scenes that make it all come together."

The film, directed by J. Wayne Patterson Jr., is set in 1940s Georgia. The cast for the film includes Actress Bethany Anne Lind, E. Roger Mitchell, Stan Houston and a lot of local Wiregrass talent. The film is slated for a 2019 release.

"I worked with people that worked on larger productions," she said, stating that some of the cast and crew have worked on Marvel movies, Divergent films and more.

"It was really neat to listen to them."

Mitchell said she and one other hair stylist, Leighanne Polson, had to research hairstyles to prepare for the film.

"The movie was set in 1949 in small-town Georgia," she said. "We had to go through and kind of get an idea of what somebody would wear in that era in a small town."

She said Pinterest and the hairstyles of old movie stars were inspiration for those seen in "Second Samuel."

"The guys were pretty simple," she said about the hairstyles. "It was just making sure that their hair was the same every day, whether it was giving them a haircut every few days or making sure they didn't get a haircut.

"With the females, it was the more extensive roller sets and pin curls and victory curls," she said. "The victory rolls of what people think of today are not what was from 1949. Nowadays, they're more over exaggerated; they're more rockabilly pinup than what the everyday housewife (would wear).

"We really had to do our research to make sure we stayed realistic with the movie."

On set, Mitchell worked for three weeks creating hairstyles for the movie. A day on the set could last from 12-14 hours, she said.

"Typically, we got there between 7 or 8 every morning," she said. "(We) got everything set up, and then we would have the talent come in on about a 20 minute rotation. Then, we had a certain time we had to have them out and ready for the shoot for the first scene.

"From there, if we had nobody else coming in to be done that day, then we (Mitchell and Polson) would both travel to set and take turns doing last looks, making sure everything was done and stayed with the continuity of the scenes before."

She said she and Polson would have to also help keep continuity between shots.

"We did learn a lot," she said. "The biggest thing was continuity, making sure everything was the same.

"It was a challenge, to say the least," she said.

Mitchell said working with the cast and crew was "fantastic." Despite never working on a film set before, she said there were similarities between working on set and working in the salon.

"The biggest thing, of course, was making sure that, like it is here (at the salon), the talent is comfortable," she said. "Our job was not only to do their hair, but also to put them (at ease)."

She also said her experience just reminded her how it "takes a village" to do a big project and make it work.

"It was an amazing experience," she said. "It's an amazing transition to go from what you read in the script and then to actually watch it being put together."

Mitchell also called the experience "humbling," and said she and the other cast and crewmembers became a family during filming.

"I made some really great friends and learned an awful lot," she said. "Like I said, I never, in the 10 years I've been doing hair, would have ever thought that I would have a chance to do this."