Actors may deliver impassioned speeches about achieving their “childhood dreams,” but we don’t often hear about how those sculpting wounds with clay and bubbling skin with latex are fulfilling their lifelong fantasies.
“Teenager treats” is how Pierre Olivier Persin, the special effects designer nominated for an Oscar for makeup and hairstyling for “The Substance,” described his work on the film, which involved two full-body prosthetics and countless other pieces and puppets. Mike Marino, the makeup designer for Sebastian Stan in “A Different Man,” nominated in the same category, described his childhood bedroom as a sort of cabinet of curiosities, filled with “jars of experiments and screaming Siamese twins.”
It’s a particularly exciting year for makeup and hairstyling nominees: buckets of blood and pus-filled injections in “The Substance”; face tumors sloughing off like jelly in “A Different Man”; green witches and blue horses in “Wicked”; a vampire shriveling away in “Nosferatu”; and a menacing drug lord created with facial prosthetics in “Emilia Pérez.”
While in years past the category has sometimes leaned toward honoring the subtle transformations of delicately coifed period hairstyles, these nominees reflect a year that relied heavily on the use of makeup to create practical special effects.
Once upon a time, most special effects were achieved with makeup. Think “An American Werewolf in London” (1981), “The Fly” (1986), “Beetlejuice” (1988): All the various monsters, mutations and marvels in these films were largely created with latex, foam and human hands. Then, in the early 2000s, studios became more reliant on computers to digitally generate these effects.
“When the new kid on the block shows up, everybody wants to go play with them,” said Ve Neill, who won makeup and hairstyling Oscars for “Beetlejuice,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993) and “Ed Wood” (1994), on the early CGI frenzy. But she said she knew even then that makeup artists weren’t replaceable by computers. “I was never terribly worried about it,” she said.
If this year’s Oscar nominations are any indication, her instincts were correct: Practical makeup effects might be headed for a resurgence.
Cynthia Erivo, who played the green-skinned witch Elphaba in “Wicked,” has been vocal about her preference to be physically painted rather than having the hue added in postproduction. “She wanted to see her hands. She wanted to get that reaction” from the other cast members, said Frances Hannon, the hair and makeup designer for the film.
Mr. Marino said that Mr. Stan, who wore prosthetics in “A Different Man” to resemble someone with facial tumors, personally reached out to him after hearing about his work from colleagues. Mr. Marino designed the prosthetic-heavy makeup for the HBO series “The Penguin.” Colin Farrell, who wore the complex look, praised Mr. Marino’s work after winning this year’s Golden Globe for best actor in a limited series.
David White, the prosthetic makeup effects designer for “Nosferatu,” pointed to another benefit of tackling effects practically: a stronger camaraderie among the crew. He spoke with a genuine tenderness about collaborative sets, “those kind of big spaces where we just throw things around and it’s very textural and real.”
In creating Count Orlok’s look, more than 50 prosthetics, applied on “everything but the soles of the feet” (including, somewhat infamously, a prosthetic penis) were used. The actor Bill Skarsgård, who played the count, was painted in near-total darkness, save for a spotlight to mimic the lighting of the film.
“I think the organic nature of the whole thing is just so much more tantalizing to the audience,” Ms. Neill said. When you make something with your hands, Mr. Marino said, “some soul carries through.”
Mr. Persin used the metaphor of a magician pulling a rabbit out of their hat. “This is magic,” he declared, grabbing a metal bowl from his countertop to pantomime. But if the magician procures a rabbit only digitally, “the magic is gone.” Though, he clarified, “I’m not saying that digital things aren’t magical” in their own way.
It often becomes a question, then, of the particular kind of movie magic to use. For “Wicked,” Ms. Hannon described a process of trying things both practically and digitally. They did this both for Elphaba’s green skin and for a far-less-discussed makeup challenge — Fiyero’s blue horse.
Both were accomplished practically. The horse, itself a reference to the “horse of a different color” from the 1939 “Wizard of Oz” film (in the original movie, the animals were sprayed with different flavors of powdered gelatin), was played by three different horses, all of whom were dyed black and then sprayed daily with an iridescent blue paint. Jon M. Chu, the director of “Wicked,” expressed his preference for in-camera effects, saying: “The real, physical things give me inspiration.”
When asked if they felt there was a renewed interest in accomplishing effects practically, some artists were optimistic, though others cited the looming threat of A.I. further digitizing the moviemaking process.
“We still work a lot,” Mr. Persin said. “Until when? I don’t know.” He joked about a near future where movies would need the label “made by humans.”
“There’s design areas where, no matter what you do, you couldn’t transfer them to postproduction,” Ms. Hannon said.
Many artists also spoke to the ways that digital and practical effects could be used in tandem. As an example, the standard practice for a base model of an actor wearing makeup is to create a life cast, a mold made by applying a thick liquid to an actor’s body, which cures and can then be used to create a replica.
Although life casts are still used, makeup artists now have the option of using 3-D scans, a quicker and cleaner option. Digital effects can also be used to smooth out the edges of prosthetic pieces, or to provide transitions between makeup looks. “It’s like a brush,” Traci Loader, the makeup designer for “Nosferatu,” said of digital tools.
Mr. Marino was fervent when talking about a possible renewed interest in practical effects. They are society’s rebellion against digitization, he said, a way of declaring, “We’re not going to die. You’re not going to kill us. We’re going to fight through art.”
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