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94 Transactions of S.M.P.E., July 1927
It was about 1870 that certain German actors introduced grease paint which immediately became generally adopted. Even then, on account of the small volume of light on the stage, powder was not considered essential, and the horrible greasy effect of the paint after it had been exposed to the heat of the footlights passed unnoticed, or at least was not a subject of criticism. One colored grease paint was applied over another until the actor looked like an oil painting, crude when viewed closely, but, at a distance, appeared smooth, with the colors blending into a pleasing result.
Making up used to take the old school of actors well over an hour before they were prepared to appear on the stage. The traditions then established anent make-up have been handed down to the present day, so that many of our actors are still making up for the old yellow lights although we now have Mazda and nitrogen-filled bulbs, spot-lights of single and twin carbon arcs, nitrogen Olivettes of high amperage, incandescent lamps, etc. Then, too, side lights and powerful overhead border lights are gradually causing footlights to be dispensed with. In spite of this greatly improved lighting no one, to the best of my knowledge, has tried to alter the make-ups to suit the new conditions.
It is a fixed physical law that the power of a point-source of light diminishes inversely as the square of the distance from it, and when footlights are only a few feet away from the actor and the border lights behind the proscenium arch are perhaps 20 feet away, and assuming that equal candle power was given by each at its source, we would be getting only about one-tenth the effective illumination from the borders that we would be getting from the "foots."
As is universally known, we are accustomed to seeing people on the street with the source of light coming from above them, causing all projecting parts of the face to cast a downward shadow. When footlights are used only a few feet from the actor the upward rays of light dispel the shadows to which we are so accustomed, so that artificial shadows have to replace the missing natural ones.
Of course actors are not lighting engineers and have given no thought to this very important point, so it is up to someone to try and demonstrate the assistance which this very vital aid would give to their expression and art.
As said before, all the old ideas of stage make-up have impregnated Motion Pictures of today. Those screen artists who were not originally stage actors have readily adopted the methods introduced