Lighting, makeup, and set design

[Chris Nuzzaco]

I was reading an older thread in this sub forum that discussed set design and the look of a films colors (go here for the thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6636 )

I was thinking about this recently. Not everyone can change a location to have the color scheme they want. Granted, paint is pretty cheap, however, permission to paint a location isn't always as cheap as the paint. Sometimes you just aren't allowed, period. So for these types of situations what should you do?

I had an idea!

I haven't tried this yet, but I figured I'd post it and get some feedback. I eventually will try this out soon, hopefully this week.

Here's the scenario, you have a location that is very warm colored, you however want a location that is very cold. You can't change the location either. You could easily turn the place very cold looking in post, however, once you have a person in the shot, skin tones just start getting all whacky looking.

Solution?

Perhaps the easiest way to deal with this is to simply have the makeup artists apply very warm colored makeup to the actors, much much warmer than usual. The same could be true for their clothes as well. It will look pretty strange on set, and even the raw footage will seem wrong, but the theory is this: after you apply your color correction to cool the room down, the faces will start to look more normal. Since you know you will be loosing warmth in their faces during post, you essentially make them look "super warm" on set via makeup.

Has anyone tried this? If you have, how successful was it?

I might use this trick on an upcoming show if I can get it to work.

[Bruce Allen]

Nice idea, Chris!

I think it's not often done because it's usually a lot easier to throw a colored gel on the light that illuminates the background than it is to get makeup that'll look awesome and natural when you do a big color temperature shift?

But maybe it's also not often done because people haven't thought of doing that yet?

You'd have to power-window the eyes, tongue, etc but still would be a fun look. Try it out on a music video, man, and if it looks good we'll all rip you off ;)

I am trying to think of parallel examples, but they more involve overall color tone, etc rather than what you're specifically talking about. They don't try to change makeup color temp relative to the rest of the film world.

eg
- Amelie, where they knew they would be doing an extreme green and gold DI, tested it early on, and made specific production design color choices with that DI in mind?

Doesn't really count because they didn't do your makeup trick - eg it's not as if Amelie is walking around looking normal in a green world, is it?

- The "sunset" portion of Lust, Caution? They were trying to maintain the look of the last rays of the sun (eg warm / golden overall, very warm / rosy where the sun hit it) over many, many shots. So they lit everything using very strong HMIs with the specific plan of color correcting everything warmer in post.

But again, doesn't count because the makeup isn't changed. The actors look as if they were in the same color universe as the background.

I think you've got us on this one?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[David Didato]

The Matrix comes to mind. It was greenish inside, and blueish in the "real" world. As Bruce said, much of that effect was about how they lit the scene, combined wth the DI & Color Correct. You could try some tests where you light for daylight using CTB but white balance for tungsten, to give a bluish look. Hit the talent with a CTB gelled light to normalize their look. Watch out for spill and flag off everything to the camera.

[Chris Nuzzaco]

Thats interesting guys, I never thought about just gelling light for the background and then using a different color for the foreground, but here's the issue, the actors need to be able to walk around in the background. Thats when I came up with this makeup idea.

Envision this, a simple overall primary color correction adjustment that makes a warm scene look cool. Thats all I'm aiming to do in post. The makeup will hopefully be just right and look good once that primary adjustment is applied.

As for figuring out the right type of makeup, I'm not sure. I suppose I could just have the makeup artist put out a pallet of makeup in a test shot and just go from there.

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

Believe . reality .:matrix: if you could keep those things correct then it is okay you can do it..

[Hans von Sonntag]

IMHO, skintones are prone to look artificially when touched in an "artificial" way. It's close to impossible to ajust skintones with secondaries even in a dedicated grading system and keep their subtle tonality. The same with make up. A great make up artist does her/his art with a high degree of "realism". Creating a more bluish make up will look odd. Even one "warmes" up the picture in post. People are very sensitive in this regard. Proof me wrong...

Hans