21-year-old electrical engineering student and amateur makeup artist gets asked by a friend to do free makeup for 12 hours for her school project, gets mistreated by cast for being 20 minutes late, doesn't return to set: ‘I feel so uneasy’

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Jul 1, 2026 1:00 PM EDT

At what point are you doing your beloved hobby just because everyone else wants you to?

This is a real problem for people who have gotten very good at their hobby. For instance, you love to sew and make your own clothes, and guess what? You get really good at it! You have a friend who ripped their favorite jacket, so you offer to fix it for them. But before you can even realize it, you're not the go-to friend for any sort of tailoring work. Now you're just an unpaid amateur tailor… The need for your skills has started to depreciate the love for you actually doing the hobby. You see what I mean?

Redditor u/Last_Might2596 is an electrical engineering student whose hobby is makeup artistry. She has a friend who is a film student and, well, you can guess where this is going. The film student friend asked if she would be the makeup artist for her school project… For free. For two 12-hour sets!. That's a wild ask from a friend. It's one thing if she were trying to be a professional makeup artist or was also a film student, but nope, she wanted her friend's hobby done completely for free. 

This Redditor must be really nice, because she agreed. Who doesn't have a soft spot for their besties? But the friend ended up throwing her to the wolves. If you have ever worked on a film set, especially a student one, nobody is really in a good mood. Everyone is sleep-deprived, hungry, and has artistic egos battling each other. This electrical engineering student had no idea what she was walking into. She had to study all night the night before the filming, so she was 20 minutes late. Because of her tardiness, she was treated poorly for the rest of the day. So she backed out of day two. Good for her, tbh!

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  • A woman on a film set gets her makeup done by a makeup artist
    via Unsplash+ (Alena Plotnikova)

    A woman on a film set gets her makeup done by a makeup artist. (stock)

  • "AITA for refusing to return to my friend’s short film set?"

    Hi, I (22F) am studying electrical engineering, so this is way out of my field, but here is what happened. I have a friend (22F) who is studying cinema. She asked me to be the makeup artist for a short film she was shooting last Friday and Saturday. She
    via Last_Might2596
  • wanted me to work from 7 AM to 7 PM with absolutely no pay, and I had to bring my own materials to do the actresses' makeup. I didn't study makeup professionally, but I'm a huge enthusiast. Also, I don't live in the US/Europe, so I have to get good brands imported to my country, which makes them way more expensive.
    via Last_Might2596
  • Film students use a clapboard between takes as they film their school project.
    via Unsplash+ (Avel Chuklanov)

    Film students use a clapboard between takes as they film their school project. (stock)

  • Since I had to be there at 7 AM on Friday, I decided to skip my college classes that day just to help her and her crew. I arrived 20 minutes late-I know that's on me, but the day before I had a major final exam, pulled an all-nighter,
    via Last_Might2596
  • and only slept for two hours just to make it there. When I arrived, nobody greeted me at all. Mind you, a lot of the crew members were late too and hadn't even arrived yet.
    via Last_Might2596
  • My friend had told me she would provide some makeup, but the "makeup" she gave me consisted of dirty brushes, one lipstick, and a gloss. Meanwhile, I was supposed to do a red smokey eye on one actress and a very high-contrast look on the other. Neither of them had foundation, and they told me both actresses had to share a single concealer. No foundation, no powder,
    via Last_Might2596
  • no nothing! I did what I could and ended up using my own high-quality palettes to do a decent job. (FYI: I wasn't getting paid either day to be on set for 12 hours fixing makeup and wasting my own expensive products).
    via Last_Might2596
  • A woman in white professionally applies makeup to another woman for a film set.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    A woman in white professionally applies makeup to another woman for a film set. (stock)

  • As soon as I finished the two looks, I asked for feedback. Everyone just stared at me like I was crazy, and my friend (the director) just said, "It looks fine." Not even a thank you. They started filming, and since I had only slept two hours in the span of two days,
    via Last_Might2596
  • I fell asleep. Eventually, my friend woke me up saying the makeup needed a retouch. I looked at it and it honestly looked fine, so I asked what specifically needed fixing. She just answered, "Just put some powder or something." So I
    via Last_Might2596
  • did. I just added a bit of powder where I thought it might be needed and redid one girl's lips. At this point, nobody had even asked for my name or said hello. Later, I asked to leave for two hours because I had a pre-arranged time to sell a phone. My
    via Last_Might2596
  • The view from a professional camera's viewing screen, recording an actress at a table.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The view from a professional camera's viewing screen, recording an actress at a table. (stock)

  • boyfriend came to pick me up, and he told me everyone looked at him in a very ride way. We just tried to leave as quietly as we could. After that experience, I felt so incredibly uncomfortable and unwelcome that I didn't want to go back on Saturday. I decided to stay home, eat pizza, and watch a movie. Later that
    via Last_Might2596
  • night, my friend texted me asking if I could lend her my makeup palettes so she could do the looks herself the next day. I actually went and dropped them off at her house that same night because I wanted to be responsible, but I still feel so uneasy about how I was treated. So, AITA?
    via Last_Might2596

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Tags

college project makeup university film student friend drama self worth self respect film project makeup artist electrical engineer self confidence college
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