The mask was still going to stick through whatever evolution his character undertook, but the white face and heavy lipstick was going to be added as a homage to Joel Grey in Cabaret.White Face-paint.
The white face paint originally developed when theatres and music halls were lit by limelight (or calcium light). An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of quicklime (calcium oxide), which can be heated to 2572 °C before melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be “in the limelight.” The actual lights are called limes, a term which has been transferred to electrical equivalents. - courtesy of wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limelight -.
The actors/actresses had to adopt to wear white lead face-paint that would be picked up by the blue tint that came off of the limelights. The lights were incredibly dangerous due to the extreme heat that the quicklime could be heated to. The face-paint idea was taken forward to film noir films, which had the same kind of lighting, the actors/actresses had to wear the white paint so that their faces could be recognised and picked up on camera.
The fact that Jack having a white face looks more theatrical and like a performance, is also a reference to the reasoning behind why in old theatre productions, the performers actually had to wear the paint.
--------
The lipstick will be added in the form of a heart for one of the takes, and also in thick exaggerated form for another take. This will allow me to include to forms of elaborate and flamboyant lipstick, which will undoubtedly look right next to his theatrical dress code.
No comments:
Post a Comment