Black and White Wasn't

[Subdeacon Joe]

Some neat trivia about makeup application for early black and white film, esp relevant to early horror movies. 

 

Until about 1926, most motion picture film was orthochromatic. Orthochromatic film is sensitive to blue-violet hues on the visible spectrum but is less sensitive to the yellow-red range. Some problems created by this could be blue eyes that looked almost white when projected on the silver screen, or overcast skies and skin tones that looked uneven, muddy, or simply did not "pop" satisfactorily from other elements in a scene.

 

Early filmmakers examined which colors would show up as grey, and especially what shade of grey, they would become when filmed and projected for audiences. Cameramen found that viewing scenes through a blue lens could give decent tonal approximation. 

 

Early horror and character effects masters like Lon Chaney had to work on multiple, and sometimes complicated, levels when applying makeup for horror films in the silent era: On the one hand, colors had to "pop" (or blend) in just the right way for the finished film; and on the other hand, the monster's makeup still had to plain old scare audiences, too (or achieve whatever effect Chaney or any other makeup artist intended).

 

In modern color movies, blood on the set is filmed as red, and it shows up in the finished product as red -- period. In early silent film, however, the impression of "red" blood was often suggested with black, syrupy, or viscous fluid. (Although Psycho was made well after the silent era, Hitchcock infamously used dark brown Bosco chocolate syrup for blood in that movie.) Horror effects artists in the silent era had to similarly improvise to impart impressions of color within the constraints of the primitive film stock they had to work with.

 

Many studios developed and relied on "cheat sheets" like this image, below:

 

[Mud Marine,SASS#54686 Life]

My Great Uncle Milton used to tell about looking weird off the camera because of the makeup needed for the camera. 

 

[Warden Callaway]

I happen to watch an old 1919 movie from a short lived studio.   I noted the "coon eys" in the makeup.   Buck Jones pays the Indian sidekick.