French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic Jean Luc Godard once said:
“Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world’. With the advent of high definition (HD)
television and more recently the introduction of Ultra HD (4K) television comes
technology that through clever utilisation of algorithms, compresses data to create a
better, clearer picture on a bigger, better screen, a picture so crisp and vivid that
cinematic “fraud’ becomes nigh impossible. So much so that news anchors and A-list
actresses all desire new blurring techniques to avoid exposing their skin blemishes.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the CBS Network used to intentionally blur Doris
Day’s face on every close up shot so that she looked younger. For decades people have
been fooled by visual alchemy, quite literally.
Set designers, indeed film directors could, until now, rely on a certain amount of
impressionistic leeway that their audiences couldn’t see through. Metal they accepted as
wood, stone that was cardboard and glass that was plastic; it was easy for the model
makers to fabricate anything they wanted.
The higher definition of the 4K format has attempted to recreate the experience of
watching the original film print in the theatre. Screens have become much larger and
closer to the audience so that the amount of information you perceive with your eyes is
now much greater than when it was several screen heights away. You’re now twice as
close and you can see twice as much.
For all its amazingness, the human eye has a finite resolution. This is why you can read
your computer screen from where you’re sitting, but not if you’re on the other side of
the room. Everyone is different, but the average person with 20/20 vision can resolve 1
arcminute which is 1/60th of a degree. This basically means that from close up you can
see hairs on your arm, wrinkles on your thumb, etc, but the further you move your arm
away the more blurred the image becomes.
But the development of 4K television screens, purely through their large dimensions and
pixel technology, allows our eyes to see in greater detail…warts and all. If Doris Day was
still on the screen today, it wouldn’t only be the wrinkles she would be worried about,
you’d be able to count every grey hair with ease!
Facial imperfections
HD shows all the imperfections on a face – every wrinkle, asymmetry, blemish or scar –
because it intensifies surface textures. In standard definition (SD), these imperfections
were less evident and the measures we took to correct them were less apparent.
The make-up effects industry is battling with the new resolutions. They’re even less
prepared to deal with 4K than on-set crafts people or model makers. Contemporary
make-up effects cannot even stand up to conventional HD photography very well
because digital renders rubber as rubber, paint as paint. It doesn’t look like anything
other than what it actually is.
The biggest problem that makeup artists face today is being able to correct the
imperfections while hiding all the steps it took to do it. In other words, cosmetics that
simultaneously camouflage imperfections, cover blemishes and still manage to appear
invisible.
HD-friendly makeup
“To avoid the cakey texture of standard TV makeup, high-definition makeups are
sheerer while still hiding uneven skin texture and other un-telegenic flaws,’ says makeup
artist Joanna Schlipp. She has applied HD-friendly makeup for the Oscars, Grammys and
Emmys. “You can see the skin through the makeup, but the makeup creates a softer
focus,’ she says.
The industry is mobilising to meet this completely new set of demands. Artists are
experimenting, debating, discarding old techniques and discovering new ones. Needing
to find ways to confuse the all-seeing eye of the HD lens has also led to the
development of the digital makeup artist.
US company Digital Anarchy has released a product called Beauty Box Video for the
production market. Among others, Avid editors now have access to this plug-in for
removing blemishes and wrinkles from film, 4K and HD. It also further refines OpenCL
support and increases rendering speeds allowing a live work flow, perfect for sprucing
up aging newscasters for example. There are over 35 pre-set styles that can be chosen
from to make things even easier when getting the perfect look for feature films,
commercials and music videos.
“We always need to make our artists look their best and Beauty Box from Digital
Anarchy is the go-to software plug-in for this purpose,’ says Dave Pollard, head of
Video Production for Universal Music. “It’s an enhancer rather than a replacer and it
brings out the natural flesh tones and removes unsightly lighting effects without looking
air-brushed.’
Beauty Box Video is considered by many as being a critical tool for dealing with skin and
makeup problems that HD and 4K video reveal, solving this problem by giving subjects
an incredible makeover, using state-of-the-art face detection, masking and smoothing
algorithms that preserve important details and the natural skin texture, combining to
create realistic digital makeup. The retouching is subtle and the resulting product looks
natural creating a look that is indistinguishable from real makeup.
The 4K and HD revolution in terms of makeup is comparable to the advent of colour film
in the 1930s; it’s that big, not that I have heard many people complaining about …uuh,
just pull focus a little there, it’s a little too sharp… (do I really look that old?).
