Dissing 20 year old technique thats still widely used in the industry, ON TOP of dissing a good make-up artist is pretty much making a mountain out of a mole-hill.
first of all
i was 12 years old when i baked the foam in the oven. how many seventh graders do you know with access to industrial ovens?
don't be so condescending.
second of all you state that ledger's makeup design is a major departure from what has come before, that the joker never had scars and that nicholson's look was based on 60 years of comics history. that may be true but it has nothing to do with our convo and still does not prevent jack from looking like he's wearing white makeup (because he is). besides i dont really recall joker having a perma smile caused by a bullet wound in my dc back issues. i'll go look again but i dont think im going to find anything
i believe our conversation was about the amount of work it took to bring each look to life. and you asked me how long it would take to design the makeup.
and on silicone. im not trying to impress you. and conversely im not impressed that you work in fx. a little jealous maybe.
anyone who even remotely follows fx or reads fangoria for that matter(which im sure is alot of peopel around here) knows all about it. dont assume others dont know how things work. the fact remains that silicone is lighter, more flexible, and also has the added benefit of being somewhat translucent allowing it to have more depth and appear more realistic and allowing fx artists to make much smaller and less restrictive prosthetics that can be applied much easier. a good example is the elf ears in lotr. the one time use appliances slipped right over the tips of the actors ears, did not need additional makeup or time consuming blending edges, and allowed some light to pass through them making them look much more realistc and seamless. the fact that it can move allows fx artists to do things like make eddie murphy's jowl in nutty proffesor actually jiggle. foam doesnt do that. i would call that an improvement in technology. everyone i know who still works in fx thinks silicone is a massive improvement over traditional foam.
i read somewhere on here that ledger was talking about the makeup and said something to the effect that there were three applainces and the fx guy just "stuck them on" and that they did not hinder his movement whatsoever. maybe i'll try to find a link.
so yeah ledger's makeup was probably easier to apply but that has more to do with fx improvements than anything. and you are entitled to think ledger's scars look "like they were sculpted in five minutes" but i think they look quite like real scars actually do and not at all gratuitous and over the top like most "movie" scars do. and as far as designing the makeup wouldnt it be harder to design something new than copy something that already exists? you said yourself that jack's joker in '89 was based on comic precedent. so all they had to do was translate it to the screen. nolan and crew took joker back to the drawing board so its quite possible and probable they spent alot of time designing his look.
my point is just because ledger's face is "just makeup" in the film doesnt mean it didnt take some work to get it to look the way they wanted on screen. you can dislike the look they went with but saying the execution is amatuerish or easy is just...hyperbole.
again, i can underatand your love of jack's joker and the skill it took to bring it to life but it was 20 years ago and i think (at least to anyone who knows) it looks it. and you should really hold off from commenting on how much work went into tdk's joker until you see it on screen. it's really quite impressive and no pics that we have seen come close to doing it justice.
it's a different angle on the character. not necessarily better (or worse) but different. change is refreshing.
