DailyDirt: Digital Beauty Is Everywhere

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Before Photoshop, there were real airbrushes and paintings that were just a bit more flattering than a mirror. Movie magic is improving all the time with computer generated effects, and it's getting harder and harder to tell what's been altered (just assume everything is). You might not want to meet your favorite actors in real life after seeing how they've been modified. Here are a few links on digital touch-ups. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: beauty work, cgi, esther honig, photography, photoshop, photoshopping


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2014 @ 5:39pm

    Looks like Kenya is is still using MS paint.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Rekrul, 3 Dec 2014 @ 9:09pm

    Most of those photos make her look like a department store mannequin.

    On the subject of digital manipulation, Rachelle Lefevre said on a talk show that during the first season of Under the Dome, CBS digitally erased her visible nipple impressions.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2014 @ 11:41pm

    Digital makeup is very secretive, stars don't sent it known - but they want it in their contracts.

    There are some good examples that we are allowed to know about in the making of 'Benjamin Button' - digital makeup is used on Brad Pitt when he is younger than his actual age in the movie.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Andrew D. Todd, 4 Dec 2014 @ 5:41am

    The Logical Conclusion

    Let's carry this to its logical conclusion. A talent scout goes around American college campuses, finding girls who will accept, say five hundred dollars, to spend an hour or so in a medical scanner, and give a full release for the information the scanner generates. The scans become a kind of digital full-body leotard-mask "worn" by an Indian actress, who is sixty years old, looks forty au natural, and who, with the aid of the mask, is able to pass for fifteen. Needless to say, she has forgotten more about acting technique than any twenty-year-old ever knew. Think of someone at the kind of level that Katherine Hepburn eventually reached, only not confined to "magnificent old woman" roles like Queen Hecuba in _The Trojan Women_ or Eleanor of Aquitaine in _The Lion in Winter_. Like one of the old repertory actors in Shakespeare or Molliere's companies, the sixty-year-old Indian actress can play just about any kind of part on short notice. The movie industry will become much more enclosed. It won't go out looking for near-amateurs with the right kind of face. It will focus down on people it knows are good craftsmen.

    The British mystery writer, Margery Allingham, in _The Estate of the Beckoning Lady_ (1955, towards the end of ch. 4), postulated a kind of rubber mask ("The Old Original Skin Deep"), which would fit tightly against the skin, more or less the way a pair of pantyhose fits a pair of legs. The idea was that the mask, instead of the skin, would receive a make-up job, and the make-up job could be in permanent colors. The face would be part of the stage costume, the same as the wig. Things like wigs work on the stage, as distinct from film, because the audience doesn't get close enough to get a really good look at the actors. Allingham also postulated that copies of the masks would be on sale in chain stores, and little girls would be dressing up in them...

    We have seen some approaches to this conclusion, notably the curious case of the Everywhere Girl. An aspiring actress/model got a job for a one-day photo-shoot for a fixed fee. The photographer was able to take enough pictures that he effectively captured her entire career potential, selling her image to advertise an extraordinary range of products, and making her so "type-cast," (as "your daughter going off to college, for whom you want to by stuff") that the aspiring actress/model could never work again.

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090730/0237125710.shtml#c316

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    John85851 (profile), 4 Dec 2014 @ 6:51am

    Re: The Logical Conclusion

    Something similar to this was already done digitally for Jeff Bridges in "Tron Legacy": the visual effects team used clips of him from earlier movies to create a younger version of him.
    Of course, plenty of people complained his face looked like play-doh, but since the scenes were supposed to be set in a virtual world, we should cut them a little slack. ;)

    So the question becomes whether it's cheaper to digitally alter a character or make your "body mask".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 4 Dec 2014 @ 9:53am

    The funny thing is

    For me, the funny thing is that the standard of beauty that all this effort is being put into attaining is counterproductive. The most "beautiful" people in the movies and on magazine covers aren't that beautiful to me. I see a dozen women in the real world every day who are an order of magnitude more beautiful than any of them.

    link to this | view in thread ]

The Last Word

The Logical Conclusion

Let's carry this to its logical conclusion. A talent scout goes around American college campuses, finding girls who will accept, say five hundred dollars, to spend an hour or so in a medical scanner, and give a full release for the information the scanner generates. The scans become a kind of digital full-body leotard-mask "worn" by an Indian actress, who is sixty years old, looks forty au natural, and who, with the aid of the mask, is able to pass for fifteen. Needless to say, she has forgotten more about acting technique than any twenty-year-old ever knew. Think of someone at the kind of level that Katherine Hepburn eventually reached, only not confined to "magnificent old woman" roles like Queen Hecuba in _The Trojan Women_ or Eleanor of Aquitaine in _The Lion in Winter_. Like one of the old repertory actors in Shakespeare or Molliere's companies, the sixty-year-old Indian actress can play just about any kind of part on short notice. The movie industry will become much more enclosed. It won't go out looking for near-amateurs with the right kind of face. It will focus down on people it knows are good craftsmen.

The British mystery writer, Margery Allingham, in _The Estate of the Beckoning Lady_ (1955, towards the end of ch. 4), postulated a kind of rubber mask ("The Old Original Skin Deep"), which would fit tightly against the skin, more or less the way a pair of pantyhose fits a pair of legs. The idea was that the mask, instead of the skin, would receive a make-up job, and the make-up job could be in permanent colors. The face would be part of the stage costume, the same as the wig. Things like wigs work on the stage, as distinct from film, because the audience doesn't get close enough to get a really good look at the actors. Allingham also postulated that copies of the masks would be on sale in chain stores, and little girls would be dressing up in them...

We have seen some approaches to this conclusion, notably the curious case of the Everywhere Girl. An aspiring actress/model got a job for a one-day photo-shoot for a fixed fee. The photographer was able to take enough pictures that he effectively captured her entire career potential, selling her image to advertise an extraordinary range of products, and making her so "type-cast," (as "your daughter going off to college, for whom you want to by stuff") that the aspiring actress/model could never work again.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090730/0237125710.shtml#c316
—Andrew D. Todd

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