"Age makeups ... should be utterly persuasive"

"Age makeups ... should be utterly persuasive" - (Morawetz, 2001)

In the chapter Variant Selves from Thomas Morawetz's Making Faces, Playing God: identity and art of transformational makeup Morawetz focuses on the art of ageing a character in film and TV.

He says the intervention of makeup should not even be suggested, however the actor cannot be unrecognisable. As a viewer we must be able to see the resemblance with the change. As a makeup artist you need a knowledge of the physiology of ageing - you must know how and why cells deteriorate, wrinkles appear, cheeks become hollow, hair recedes and coarsens, jowls collapse and skinfolds form. There also needs to be an understanding of the trajectory of the characters life - how any adventures, cares, adversities, joys and indulgences make up a characters unique historry and how these in turn etch themselves into a persons appearance.

Due to the fact that we only see a portion of somebodies life during the course of a film of TV episode/series the history of someones life must be able to be read more effectively than in real life sometimes.

From the view of technical skill the prosthetic pieces must be thin and delicate. In many cases they must create the illusion of subtraction - the idea of the face beginning to collapse in on itself. These difficulties in the techniques of age makeup have made it a field for experimentation. Several artists have been trying new or once rejected materials.

1 - Matthew Mungle

2 - Gordon Smith

Gordon Smith (FXSmith) is known for his work with silicone runner materials

Matthew Mungle and Steve Jason (XFX inc.) use gelatin in ageing.

In both cases the main advantage is translucency. Silicone and gelatin are semitranslucent which allows the skin to show through. The result is an appearance of depth - it reflects light and mimics properties of skin - it tends to move, wrinkle and fold convincingly.

Achieving these same effects with foam latex is difficult. This is because latex is opaque and it covers the skin completely. Therefore it has to be coloured with layers of colour which also has to be added to the actors bare skin to match it.  Adding all this colour means the pieces can appear too shiny or not shiny enough giving it a fake appearance.

However materials such as silicone rubber are hard to attach and needs new kinds of adhesives. It is also harder to blend the edges. Gelatin has a longer history of being use in the makeup industry. It is known for the fact it can begin to disintegrate in heat, sweat and can tear through friction.

We all have previous notions of how people age as we experience age in our friends and with those who are close to us. We learn how their hair recedes, bone structure changes etc. The makeup artist must guess convincingly that this is the way a character would age. Something that many people forget is that all of our features age gradually at the same rate - a two decade change may require as many alterations (slight ones) as a five decade change.

In 1970 Dick Smith revolutionised sage makeup in the film Little Big Man. It used a framing device where 121 year old Jack Crabb recalls his life in the old west through flashbacks. The makeup consisted of multiple, thin overlapping foam latex appliances that fitted together over the whole actors face.

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"This was a landmark for me because of the great opportunity to create a 121-year-old makeup on Dustin Hoffman. I did extensive research and spent six weeks sculpting the overlaping appliances for the head and hands. There were many other makeup problems and filming on location with temperatures from over 100 to 30 below zero was rough" - (Smith, 2014)

The techniques Smith used in Little Big Man were widely imitated and remains the standard makeup procedure for ageing makeup to this day.

Another example of extreme age makeup is that created by Micheal Westmore on StarTreck: Deep Space 9 for the episode 'distand voices'. The character of Dr Julian Bashie is under spell from alien intelligence. In his mind he is living his life in fast forward which ends at his birthday celebration for his 100th birthday. The makeup closely follows Smith examples to convey great age - the folds of skin collapsed onto the skull, eyes enhanced with contact lenses to seem more sunken.

8 - Alex Siddig before and after makeup.

Generic pieces can also be used on low-budget low-visibility projects to great effect. Norman Bryn does age makeups for pharmaceutical ad campaigns and for this he uses generic pieces.

9 - Norman Bryn's makeup

This chapter was extremely helpful in ageing research as not only does it talk about the way skin and ageing works but also the techniques and materials used in ageing makeup. It mentioned many famous films that included good ageing makeup that will be helpful in my researching process. Overall it was extremely well written and was well supported with photographs.

Morawetz, T (2001) Making Faces Playing God. China. University of Texas Press. 154 – 186