HDTV: Exposing the Ugly Side of Beauty
Category: TV & Radio...
Posted Thursday, January 08, 2004 at 11:11 AM [GMT-6]

If you're a regular guy (or gal) like me, you just love stories like this one in today's Wall Street Journal: "High-Definition TV Causes Worry Lines For Stars, Producers; New Wrinkle: The Technology Puts More Focus on Flaws; Blemish Becomes Volcano."

High-definition television -- which shows pictures that are larger and nearly five times as sharp as those on a regular set -- has the image-obsessed television business worried that a growing audience will see more reality than it wants: the wrinkles on once-ageless actors, the cracks in set walls, the brush strokes on painted backdrops. To avoid turning off viewers, Hollywood's illusion specialists in makeup, set design and lighting are finding ways to counter HDTV's less-forgiving eye.

High-definition "really scared the hell out of us at first because the images are so sharp," says Bruce Grayson, head makeup artist for the Academy Awards, which were broadcast in high definition for the first time last spring. "A blemish on a face becomes a volcano."

The story gives some examples of various trompe d'oeil techniques to fool the viewer into thinking that sets and actors are better-looking than they really are.

Many makeup artists who work on HDTV broadcasts are trying a new technique for actors called airbrushing, named for the method of doctoring photos. Artists shoot a fine spray of foundation with a gunlike machine that applies a delicate film on the skin's surface. Unlike traditional powder and liquid foundations that are rubbed into the skin to fill and cover wrinkles and blemishes, airbrushing coats skin with a smooth and even mask.

Hugh Hefner must be very proud.

Anyway, we can be forgiven a minor indulgence in schadenfreude, as we contemplate that, perhaps, beauty IS a curse...particularly when it relies on someone else's skill to make it a reality. So while the actors and actresses point their glazed, airbrushed faces (unflinching, of course, to keep the façade from splintering) toward this brave new world, the makeup artists and set designers can rub their hands in gleeful contemplation of swelling banks accounts. Score another one for the little guy!

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Comments

Not really related to the substance of your post, but in the Small World Dept.: You're not going to believe this, but last night I was on a pub-quiz team with a copy editor from the Wall Street Journal. I told him my latest headlines, and he told me that one. I envy those WSJ headline-writers for having so much space to work with!

Posted by: Dawn Eden at January 8, 2004 05:23 PM

Ah...but the real artistry is in the jewel-like precision of small headlines. Anyone can create a bonsai from a 50' oak; it takes genius to do it with a 10" yew! And that, grasshopper, is your Zen lesson for the day.

It's great to have you as a commenter, Dawn...it'll help keep me honest (whatever that means). And, note...no email address, even though I saw the one you provided in the notice MT sent me.

Posted by: Eric at January 8, 2004 05:31 PM
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