The Hollywood Reporter: In preparation to star as Mötley Crüe rocker Tommy Lee in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, Sebastian Stan needed tattoos — lots of them. Thirty-five, to be exact. To pull it off, he went to special effects house Autonomous FX before shooting and had his body scanned and measured; he was then covered in plastic wrap as tattoo designers sketched onto his arms, back and torso. The artists then cut out the images, fully designed them in Photoshop, printed them onto decal paper and, after two hours in the makeup trailer, Stan, tattoo-less in real life, was transformed into a sleeved rocker.
3 comments:
There are many unsung heroes in theater, and the entertainment industry in general. From assistants, to managers, to understudies all levels of support allows for streamlining and the effective saving on energy, allowing for a high amount of efficiency. Special effects makeup artists definitely fit in this category, as well as any artist that contributes to the cohesive design of the film. It makes sure that no little detail shatters the illusion of the story they are trying to create. All entertainment workers in any capacity are world builders and effectively story tellers. As this article describes these people are required to do an intense amount of work that can in some ways be considered as tedious, for example covering Pete Davidson’s many tattoos in flesh covered makeup every time he is needed for a shoot for something as bureaucratic as copyright claims. On the other hand, Sebastian Stan’s need for the addition of these details has an entirely different emotional connotation.
The example of Sebastian Stan’s fake tattoos in Pam and Tommy is a perfect example of the difference in the makeup industry of film versus theater. In a play or musical about Pam and Tommy, the tattoos could be accomplished with mesh sleeves or less accurate fake tattoos. However, on film the amount of detail captured by the camera instead of the bare human eye in the theater is miraculous. On film, inaccuracies in the tattoos would stand out like a thumb, especially because of the audience of Pam and Tommy superfans the tv show is curating. In general, historical films are asked for much more historical accuracy by the public than historical pieces of theater are. In my mind, this difference is because Theater is a much looser art form with less rules than commercial film. It makes me appreciate how theatrical designers twist historical accuracy to serve their designs.
I found this to be very interesting. I have watched Pam and Tommy and the primary thing that has always stuck out to me has always been how dark Tommy’s back tattoo is. This wasn’t answered in the article but I am still curious. Tattoos fade over time. This could be that the tattoo was recent but I wonder if artists are able to make tattoos appear older. I feel like they are as it has never stuck out to me before as it has in this film. Another thing I noted was the comment about having to apply them each day or every other day. Now there are subscriptions to the public where you can purchase ink that will last around 12 days, like henna. I wonder why they don’t use things like that on set and touch it up. I know it can be done in a non-free hand form.
Post a Comment