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Sunday, July 03, 2016
The Art of Special Effects Makeup Is So Impressive
sploid.gizmodo.com: Here’s an interesting portrait of Howard Berger, a special makeup effects artist who’s worked on films like The Chronicles of Narnia and Inglorious Basterds, and the work he does to transform actors into, well, monsters.
3 comments:
Sarah Schwidel
said...
As a proponent of practical effects, this is the kind of stuff I love seeing. It’s always so fun to watch special effects makeup artists at work. The teacher of my film scene study class (who was a huge horror movie fanatic, so we ended up watching more horror than not) brought to my attention the difference between practical effects and CG effects, and I haven’t gone back since. It feels to me like the film industry has forgotten what people were able to do with practical effects, and with the emergence of CGI and its growth in the film industry, much of the effects seen in movies is done with CGI. This video exemplifies what I love about practical effects: how real it looks. Although CGI has gotten to a point that people can barely tell what the difference is between real and not, the one thing that people can start to see in videos like this is that what sets practical effects apart is that if one were to reach out and try and touch something, it would be there. Not only do I think it makes it more real for the actors when they can work with someone not wearing a skintight suit, but I think it makes it more real for everyone making or watching the film.
Special effects makeup is something that has always interested me. When I was little, I saw a documentary that got me interested, very much like this video. I am always amazed by how the makeup artists are able to completely transform people. Some transformations are from human to creature, some from woman to man. Special effects makeup artists, especially for film, have to pay such close attention to detail, because every inch of the actor will be caught by the camera. It is interesting to see how effects makeup has evolved. I like to compare the makeup in the old, live action, Beauty and the Beast, to today’s special effects makeup. In Beauty and the Beast, we can see the makeup. We can see the glue in the fur and the brush strokes of paint. Today, if we didn’t know better, we would not even be able to tell that what we are seeing is makeup. I think that today’s effects makeup is helping audiences dive even farther into the world of the story.
I love the transformative capabilities that prosthesis works have. With mold-making anything you can dream up is entirely possible to be created. I didn't realize the effort required in order to have a properly fitted and realistic mask. The extra step of adding foam rubber to fill in the abbess between the actor's face and the prosthesis take me by surprise as I never considered the need of this step. It is that component of the mask that separates a quality prosthetic from the flappy plastic masks available in party stores. The fact that the mask fits exactly to the face allows the lifelike quality while low quality masks I am used to are flappy and stretched in order to be "one size fits all. Equally amazing is the detail work that goes into the masks as I didn't realize that quantity of paint and technique necessary for realistic painting.
3 comments:
As a proponent of practical effects, this is the kind of stuff I love seeing. It’s always so fun to watch special effects makeup artists at work. The teacher of my film scene study class (who was a huge horror movie fanatic, so we ended up watching more horror than not) brought to my attention the difference between practical effects and CG effects, and I haven’t gone back since. It feels to me like the film industry has forgotten what people were able to do with practical effects, and with the emergence of CGI and its growth in the film industry, much of the effects seen in movies is done with CGI. This video exemplifies what I love about practical effects: how real it looks. Although CGI has gotten to a point that people can barely tell what the difference is between real and not, the one thing that people can start to see in videos like this is that what sets practical effects apart is that if one were to reach out and try and touch something, it would be there. Not only do I think it makes it more real for the actors when they can work with someone not wearing a skintight suit, but I think it makes it more real for everyone making or watching the film.
Special effects makeup is something that has always interested me. When I was little, I saw a documentary that got me interested, very much like this video. I am always amazed by how the makeup artists are able to completely transform people. Some transformations are from human to creature, some from woman to man. Special effects makeup artists, especially for film, have to pay such close attention to detail, because every inch of the actor will be caught by the camera. It is interesting to see how effects makeup has evolved. I like to compare the makeup in the old, live action, Beauty and the Beast, to today’s special effects makeup. In Beauty and the Beast, we can see the makeup. We can see the glue in the fur and the brush strokes of paint. Today, if we didn’t know better, we would not even be able to tell that what we are seeing is makeup. I think that today’s effects makeup is helping audiences dive even farther into the world of the story.
I love the transformative capabilities that prosthesis works have. With mold-making anything you can dream up is entirely possible to be created. I didn't realize the effort required in order to have a properly fitted and realistic mask. The extra step of adding foam rubber to fill in the abbess between the actor's face and the prosthesis take me by surprise as I never considered the need of this step. It is that component of the mask that separates a quality prosthetic from the flappy plastic masks available in party stores. The fact that the mask fits exactly to the face allows the lifelike quality while low quality masks I am used to are flappy and stretched in order to be "one size fits all. Equally amazing is the detail work that goes into the masks as I didn't realize that quantity of paint and technique necessary for realistic painting.
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