Yellow face paint?

[Termite]

Back in the silent days, most actors wore heavy makeup to make their faces
brighter on screen. Was this because the film stock used at that time
rendered skin tones too dark, or because of a current fashion (a movie
star's face should be as white as possible, not tanned), or a combination of
both?

Also, what was the colour of the makeup used for this purpose? For some
reason, I've got a mental image of silent actors with bright yellow face
paint -
is this correct? Any side effects of this face painting habit that would be
fun
to know (poisonous make-up, etc)?

The idea of actors with bright yellow faces strikes me as weird as
painted Greek statues were to Chaplin...

Hakan

[BlakeMF]

<<Also, what was the colour of the makeup used for this purpose? For some
reason, I've got a mental image of silent actors with bright yellow face paint
-
is this correct?>>

Without sounding like a plug, read the chapter "Master of Makeup" in my first
book on Lon Chaney ("Lon Chaney: Man Behind the Thousand Faces"). I explain
the colors and what they needed to use for orthocromatic film stock.

<< Any side effects of this face painting habit that would be fun to know
(poisonous make-up, etc)?>>

None really. Although Stein's greasepaint at that time had a large amount of
lead in the makeup. But I have never heard of anyone getting sick from the
makeup application.

Michael F. Blake

[Neil Midkiff]

Termite wrote:
>
> Back in the silent days, most actors wore heavy makeup to make their faces
> brighter on screen. Was this because the film stock used at that time
> rendered skin tones too dark, or because of a current fashion (a movie
> star's face should be as white as possible, not tanned), or a combination of
> both?
>
> Also, what was the colour of the makeup used for this purpose? For some
> reason, I've got a mental image of silent actors with bright yellow face
> paint - is this correct?

Lillian Gish, in her book _The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me_ (p. 38),
tells us:

He [Griffith] gave us a stick of pale-yellow grease paint and
cautioned us not to use rouge, except a little on our lips. "Red
photographs black," he explained.

and, during the filming of an indoor scene:

The Cooper Hewitts, powerful mercury-vapor lamps hanging from the
ceiling, gave off a pungent odor and a weird purple glow that transformed
the audience into rows of corpses.

---

I think the makeup was made necessary by both the film stock and the
mercury-vapor illumination, as I explained a few weeks ago (search for
"mercury-vapor" in this newsgroup in Google to find it). As someone noted
then, "actuality" films shot on public streets in sunlight on ortho film
don't make people's faces look terrible, and surely nobody was handing out
greasepaint to the crowds before filming those scenes.

Certainly a pale complexion was desirable; it wasn't until the 1920s that
suntan became fashionable. And ortho film, even in sunlight, would
exaggerate skin blemishes, which tend to be redder than the surrounding
skin, and so would photograph darker. So romantic leads would need makeup
to give that impression of creamy youth, even in natural light, and
especially under artificial light.

-Neil Midkiff

[eric stott]

Neil Midkiff wrote:
>
>
> Certainly a pale complexion was desirable; it wasn't until the 1920s that
> suntan became fashionable. And ortho film, even in sunlight, would
> exaggerate skin blemishes, which tend to be redder than the surrounding
> skin, and so would photograph darker. So romantic leads would need makeup
> to give that impression of creamy youth, even in natural light, and
> especially under artificial light.
>
> -Neil Midkiff

Comedians seem to have used makeup to stylize their faces- certainly
Harold Lloyd wore a considerable amount, It's pretty obvious during the
football sequence in FRESHMAN where you can see the sharp line where the
makeup stops on his neck. It also helps him to look a bit younger.

Eric Stott