Beautifying an actress
August 5th 2010 01:18
Someone once asked me: "How can you draw attention to the beauty of your lead actress?".
Now, I thought it a very odd question, and I didn't have a proper reply at the time (instead, I scored a cheap laugh out of saying something like, "To which part of their beauty?").
Here's what I (perhaps) should have said:
1. Cast a stunning person in the first place.
2. Costumes, make-up, hairdressing, and touching up in post-production.
3. Expressions -- the right sort of "Blue Steel" look, the right smile...
4. Camera-type stuff -- like lens, framing, shot size, angle, zooming, dollying, lighting (differently shaped faces need different lighting). Diffusion can help, and vaseline on the lens is a traditional portrait photographer's trick (if need be, "shoot her through linoleum").
Incidentally, one thing you'll find when working with professional models is that they know what their best sides are (every model has flaws), and they're able quickly to move from one good pose to another. With a pro, you really can say, "change position" twenty times in a minute, and they'll have a repertoire to draw on (or, rather, they'll automatically change, without your asking, as you click away).
5. The reactions of others. If characters treat her as desirable, she'll become desirable.
6. For minor roles, cast people who are less beautiful, so no one outshines her, and she's made to look more beautiful by comparison.
7. Story context. If the audience know she's supposed to be beautiful, they'll look to see that beauty (or will at least attempt to suspend disbelief).
8. The beauty of an entire image can enhance the beauty of a part. A naked body amid lush green is more beautiful than a naked body in a gaol cell.
Sometimes this is an issue of taking from or uniting with the environment.
For instance, a person at a party, laughing, with sparkly bits in their hair, is perceived as of a piece with the party, seems to carry the party with her.
Dealing more squarely with how to draw attention to something:
-- focus;
-- colour contrast (very common -- the hero and heroine will wear clothes that stand out in a crowd);
-- luminance contrast (for instance, the eye is usually drawn to the brightest part of the screen);
-- movement contrast;
-- positioning relative to other objects and people -- for instance, standing the romantic interest in front of or away from a group;
-- perspective lines; have lines and shapes in the composition that point to the person;
-- frame placement -- for instance, objects on the right are more noticeable (for Europeans anyway) than objects on the left;
-- bizarre special effects, like spotlights (which are often used in parodies of love-at-first-sight shots).
All of this sidesteps the question of what beauty is in the first place.
After all, there's beauty of a hand or an eye, there's beauty in movement, there's beauty when placed into a specific situation -- becoming beautiful while sleeping, when laughing, when unified with music when dancing, when playing the piano, etc.
Not to mention the more intangible sorts -- beauty of personality, beautiful minds, beautifully good, beautifully evil...
So there's always the issue of discovering what is beautiful about your actor...
Also the question of whether beauty is simply a sensory thing, and whether there is no thinking component.
Is sexiness just a sensory thing, with no thinking component? Does knowledge of availability or inaccessibility affect sexual attraction? Does reference and meaning (someone dressed as a nurse or police officer, or someone in an iconic movie pose) affect attraction?
Is there such a thing, really, as a "purely sensory" effect?
After all, the same object, surely, can be regarded as funny, terrible, awe-inspiring, beautiful, just depending on how you look at it. -- A can of coke in "The Gods Must Be Crazy".
A final thought... Just as Tarantino has a foot fetish prominently on display, Terry Gilliam is apparently into redheads.
I've noticed, because I'm partial to both.
Think of almost any Gilliam movie, and the lead actress will be a stunning redhead -- Uma Thurman in Munchausen, Kim Greist in Brazil, Madeleine Stowe in 12 Monkeys (when she dyes her hair), Lily Cole in Imaginarium...
A lot of art is about contrast, the loud and the soft; and perhaps Gilliam's use of redheads is connected with this, quite apart from any personal attraction.
Whatever makes special a main character, whatever distinguishes them, is dramatically useful, can be milked for dramatic mileage -- be it a mannerism, an accent, an unusual look, a hair colour...
Now, I thought it a very odd question, and I didn't have a proper reply at the time (instead, I scored a cheap laugh out of saying something like, "To which part of their beauty?").
Here's what I (perhaps) should have said:
1. Cast a stunning person in the first place.
2. Costumes, make-up, hairdressing, and touching up in post-production.
3. Expressions -- the right sort of "Blue Steel" look, the right smile...
4. Camera-type stuff -- like lens, framing, shot size, angle, zooming, dollying, lighting (differently shaped faces need different lighting). Diffusion can help, and vaseline on the lens is a traditional portrait photographer's trick (if need be, "shoot her through linoleum").
Incidentally, one thing you'll find when working with professional models is that they know what their best sides are (every model has flaws), and they're able quickly to move from one good pose to another. With a pro, you really can say, "change position" twenty times in a minute, and they'll have a repertoire to draw on (or, rather, they'll automatically change, without your asking, as you click away).
5. The reactions of others. If characters treat her as desirable, she'll become desirable.
6. For minor roles, cast people who are less beautiful, so no one outshines her, and she's made to look more beautiful by comparison.
7. Story context. If the audience know she's supposed to be beautiful, they'll look to see that beauty (or will at least attempt to suspend disbelief).
8. The beauty of an entire image can enhance the beauty of a part. A naked body amid lush green is more beautiful than a naked body in a gaol cell.
Sometimes this is an issue of taking from or uniting with the environment.
For instance, a person at a party, laughing, with sparkly bits in their hair, is perceived as of a piece with the party, seems to carry the party with her.
***
Dealing more squarely with how to draw attention to something:
-- focus;
-- colour contrast (very common -- the hero and heroine will wear clothes that stand out in a crowd);
-- luminance contrast (for instance, the eye is usually drawn to the brightest part of the screen);
-- movement contrast;
-- positioning relative to other objects and people -- for instance, standing the romantic interest in front of or away from a group;
-- perspective lines; have lines and shapes in the composition that point to the person;
-- frame placement -- for instance, objects on the right are more noticeable (for Europeans anyway) than objects on the left;
-- bizarre special effects, like spotlights (which are often used in parodies of love-at-first-sight shots).
***
All of this sidesteps the question of what beauty is in the first place.
After all, there's beauty of a hand or an eye, there's beauty in movement, there's beauty when placed into a specific situation -- becoming beautiful while sleeping, when laughing, when unified with music when dancing, when playing the piano, etc.
Not to mention the more intangible sorts -- beauty of personality, beautiful minds, beautifully good, beautifully evil...
So there's always the issue of discovering what is beautiful about your actor...
***
Also the question of whether beauty is simply a sensory thing, and whether there is no thinking component.
Is sexiness just a sensory thing, with no thinking component? Does knowledge of availability or inaccessibility affect sexual attraction? Does reference and meaning (someone dressed as a nurse or police officer, or someone in an iconic movie pose) affect attraction?
Is there such a thing, really, as a "purely sensory" effect?
After all, the same object, surely, can be regarded as funny, terrible, awe-inspiring, beautiful, just depending on how you look at it. -- A can of coke in "The Gods Must Be Crazy".
***
A final thought... Just as Tarantino has a foot fetish prominently on display, Terry Gilliam is apparently into redheads.
I've noticed, because I'm partial to both.
Think of almost any Gilliam movie, and the lead actress will be a stunning redhead -- Uma Thurman in Munchausen, Kim Greist in Brazil, Madeleine Stowe in 12 Monkeys (when she dyes her hair), Lily Cole in Imaginarium...
A lot of art is about contrast, the loud and the soft; and perhaps Gilliam's use of redheads is connected with this, quite apart from any personal attraction.
Whatever makes special a main character, whatever distinguishes them, is dramatically useful, can be milked for dramatic mileage -- be it a mannerism, an accent, an unusual look, a hair colour...
Lily Cole in Imaginarium
Uma Thurman in Munchausen
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