The make-up process from the golden age of cinema compared to now has a massive difference – mainly because in the olden days, it was easy to cheat.
Modern colour films have the curse of High Definition, meaning we (the ever-judging audience) can see every single stroke of the foundation brush, every clump in the mascara and every bleed in the lip-line. Make-up artists of the earliest era of film had a much easier job when technology was, well, crap.
Not only was the resolution a little blurry – so it didn’t matter if one eyeliner flick was a little lower than the other – but the grayscale lens meant that it didn’t even matter if the lipstick completely clashed with the eye shadow.
That’s not to say colour didn’t matter at all. It did. When the camera couldn’t differentiate between white and pink, make-up artists had to be a bit crafty with the application. This gave them the freedom to reshape faces to give that stunning Marilyn Monroe beauty we all love.
This was done through ‘contouring’ (playing with the light and shadows of the face).
Applying a dark bronzer just under the cheekbones, jaw lines and temple, and along the edges of the nose, creates a shadow. This shadow slims the face and nose, and exaggerates high cheekbones. The artists also filled in eyebrows with a dark pencil, drawing an arch-shape to open out the eyes. Dark lipstick highlighted the lips, and false eyelashes and thick eyeliner framed the eyes. Finally a sheen was put over the brow bone, along the nose, and on the uppermost part of the cheek to finish off the look.
Here’s how to recreate the look for the modern-day.
Use foundation and concealer to create the perfect base (remember – this isn’t black and white. Find a colour which matches your own).
Use a pale eyeshadow as a base, then contour in the folds around the eye with a darker shadow to create depth.
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Lightly fill in the eyebrows using either a pencil or eyeshadow which matches your natural colour.
Now add eyelashes and flicked eyeliner to lengthen the eye and draw attention to it.
Using a bronzer underneath the cheekbone and a blusher on the apple of the cheeks, start to lightly contour your face.
Using a red lipgloss with high shine, create a cupids bow on your upper lip.
And finally lightly go over the cheeks, nose, and brow bone with vaseline as a highlighter.
If you still aren’t convinced about contouring, take a look at Phan’s viral youtube transformations…
Monochrome Movies 