World Film and Television Progress (1938)

IT used to be a generally accepted belief that there are some people who "do not photograph well". The assumption was that these people, whatever their talents might be, were debarred from the screen, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Nowadays, though this legend to some extent persists, it simply will not stand examination in the light of modern make-up knowledge and methods. The old idea was based on the theory that only men and women with high cheek bones and very broad features photograph well ; that delicate features are not treated kindly by the camera. The only grain of truth remaining in this belief to-day is that less makeup is required to achieve fine photographic values from the face of a Myrna Loy — a beautiful example of the "broad and high" bones theory. But with some care and skill equally fine photographic values can be obtained with the delicate features of Virginia Bruce, whose facial bones are tiny. In other words Miss Loy's beauty comes over almost without make-up aid, while to bring out on the screen the beauty that Miss Bruce's face possesses in real life, a little high lighting at the sides is necessary. But there is no more to it than that. Photography is essentially a matter of relationship between high lights and shadows. The make-up technician has to keep this in mind all the time and co-operate with the camera. Make-up, in the sense in which the term is used outside films — beautification by the use of cosmetics — is the most trivial part of the work of the film studio make-up department. It is not the peak achievement of my work, but the basis of its routine to be able to make photographically attractive, with fifteen moves of my hands, any normal man or woman in the world. The only exceptions I make are faces that are unbalanced to the point of deformity. Any normal defects, such as twisted or too-thin lips, drooping eye muscles and sagging chins, I can correct easily. The value of this ability to film production in general is that actors and actresses can now be chosen strictly for their ability, and not because they are suitable types. In the old days before film make-up had justified itself as a plastic art capable of co-operating in the creation of character and not a mere preliminary to photography, a producer who had to cast an actor as Abraham Lincoln, for instance, had to find a man who looked more or less like Lincoln. To-day he is in the much more satisfactory position of being able to choose a man who can act Lincoln. Making him look like the character is the work of the make-up department. There was another case of this "Presidential problem" more recently when our studio made The Gorgeous Hussy. Lionel Barry more was to play America's seventh President, Andrew Jackson. Anybody less like Jackson than Barrymore it would be difficult to find. Yet when the make-up department had finished, his own features were gone, and in their place was a life-like replica of the face of "Old Hickory". Barrymore's new face was practically a mask, yet there was no visible sign of artificiality. None of the main features 12 // the jhadows wep.\//if on I lum&nl&ces JSy JACK 1)4 WN head of M. CM. 5 Make-up Department 1 1