tv HD TV making celebs anxious

Stars are concerned that HD TV may be too good?

An amusing article from the NY Times.

Original article here.

June 12, 2005

Not Ready for Their Close-Up

By CLIVE THOMPSON

Cap Lesesne, a New York plastic surgeon, hears from a lot of women worried about aging. Late last year, he says, he had one visitor, a female newscaster, whose inquiries puzzled him. She was only in her 30's, he says, and still looked terrific. (Lesesne, citing doctor-patient confidentiality, wouldn't identify the woman.) When he asked her why she wanted surgery, she explained that her show was about to begin broadcasting in ''high-definition,'' the hot new digital technology that makes TV images look as crisp and sharp as IMAX films. On normal TV, she said, you can't see her few tiny wrinkles; in high-def, they stand out like folds of origami. ''When she walked in here,'' Lesesne says, '' 'high-def' was the first thing that came out of her mouth.''

Celebrities are considered attractive at least in part because they're suited to the technology of the age. The transition from silent movies to talkies destroyed many actors' careers, as did the shift from black-and-white to color. While almost all prime-time TV on the major broadcast networks is shot in high-def, there are only 18 million of the pricey, wide-screen sets in use. But that number is expected to more than triple by next year, and the new scrutiny that comes with high-def is already making some on-camera talent nervous. ''There are a lot of people who are going to be affected by this,'' says Deborah Paulmann, a makeup artist for ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien.''

To understand why high-def is so unforgiving, consider the numbers. Today's new top-of-the-line HD televisions can display two million pixels, nearly 10 times the resolution of a regular, old-style TV set. Also, the screens are the size of a tabletop. Watching a show in high definition is thus rather like being Gulliver in the land of Brobdingnag -- where every pore on the giants' faces looms like a shell-blasted crater. Many new HDTV owners have tuned in to high-definition celebrity events, only to discover that their favorite stars suddenly look downright haggard.

''I'm seeing people in a whole new way,'' says Phillip Swann, president of OnHD.TV, an online magazine. ''If somebody's aging or if they've got any old acne damage, it just jumps out at you. They've got no chance.'' The editors of OnHD.TV examined several dozen stars and compiled a list of heartthrobs who (they claim) wither under the unblinking gaze of high-def, including Cameron Diaz (''littered with unfortunate pockmarks''), Jewel (whose makeup ''looks like it was done by Ringling Brothers'') and Bill Maher (''scary''). I've seen the effect myself: when I recently watched a high-def close-up of Bradley Whitford -- a handsome star of ''The West Wing'' -- a normally insignificant mark on his forehead suddenly stood out like a third eye. I couldn't stop staring.

The high-def format's merciless gaze isn't solely a matter of screen resolution. Color is a factor, too. For years, government standards have limited the range of colors available to broadcasters, based on the technological limits of the time. With high-def, more colors can be used, including some formerly forbidden shades of red -- which means that blotches, zits and tiny nose-veins can be presented with the brutal clarity of a surgery textbook.

''It's almost too realistic, too digital and computery,'' complains Alexis Vogel, a veteran celebrity makeup artist who recently worked on ''Stacked,'' a high-def show starring Pamela Anderson. ''We'd all like to go back to the old days.'' Makeup artists are now engaged in an arms race with the new medium. But they face a paradox: while makeup is more necessary than ever, its artifice is more obvious. You can't slather on powder when every grain looks like a boulder on your client's face. And interestingly, many cosmeticians predict that high-def could actually reduce the amount of plastic surgery in Hollywood, because the tiny seams look Frankensteinian at such high resolution. High-def is, in essence, a medium peculiarly unsuited to dissembling. ''It's harder to change people from their natural form,'' Vogel adds.

This will probably put an ever-higher premium on genuinely natural beauty -- those lucky few people who require virtually no touch-up. Indeed, high-def fans say that some stars look better in the new medium: Anna Kournikova, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones glow like supernovas, and, Vogel says, ''in high-def, Halle Berry's skin is so beautiful and flawless, she's almost a genetic freak.''


Clive Thompson is a contributing writer for the magazine.
 
Is this not the saddest thing you've ever read?

Well,
Bush selected in 2000 and elected in 2004
tops it...
smiley_creepy.gif


...but yes, it's pretty sad still.

It's all a rather interesting mess. Just to toss some more wtf into the fire, here's another article that's semi-related... but from the opposite angle. What's going on, people?! :huh:

Original article here.

Prim Hollywood’s ‘digital boob jobs’

John Harlow, Los Angeles

HOLLYWOOD is downsizing its assets. Lindsay Lohan, teenage star of the forthcoming Disney movie Herbie: Fully Loaded, has become the latest actress to have her bustline digitally reduced to avoid offending audiences.

Lohan, 18, had finished work on the fourth sequel to the 1968 film The Love Bug, about a sentient Volkswagen Beetle, when reports from test screenings indicated that some parents felt she came across as somewhat sensual for a family-oriented film.

Disney technicians went though scenes showing the actress jumping up and down at a motor racing track and altered them with a computer program — reducing her bust by up to two cup sizes and raising the necklines on her T-shirts.

Lohan is said to have been amused by what technicians call her “digital boob job”.

“I don’t know how Renée Zellweger kept swelling and shrinking for Bridget Jones: it’s no fun,” she said recently. “Bring on the computer guys.”

Lohan is not the only actress to have had her body shape altered by Hollywood’s computer wizards. Angelina Jolie was “trimmed” in a scene from the forthcoming film, Mr and Mrs Smith, in which she slides down a rope.

“She did her own stunts, but that meant there was a bit of loose bosomry we had to tidy up and flatten down,” said a technician on the film, which opens next month. “Maybe the original shot will turn up on the DVD.”

Paul Dergarabedian of Exhibitor Relations, which gauges audience reactions to movies, said such cuts reflect growing uncertainty about the place of breasts in Hollywood, dating back to Janet Jackson’s “nipplegate” incident during last year’s American football Super Bowl.

“Breasts are fine in PG films providing they are discreet and no larger than a C-cup,” he said.

“Anything more formidable is reserved for films aimed at teenage boys, unless they are action heroines like Carrie-Anne Moss of The Matrix, in which case the women are supposed to be slim and athletic. There are a lot of mixed messages now.”

It is a dilemma facing Eva Mendes, who is filming the comic book adaptation Ghost Rider with Nicolas Cage. Both have faced “body challenges”, said an insider.

Cage had a Ghost Rider tattoo removed from his arm before he played his hero, while the buxom actress has been asked to “strap down” for action scenes. Mendes is said to have told the film-makers to “fix it in post-production”.
 
The ice weasels can not come fast enough for the idiots who inhabit the industry. Seriously, they're giving shallow a bad name.

More and more I find myself drawn to British films from the 1950's and 1960's where the actors looked like regular people. It's getting insane out there. I know of one British Soap where the audition is to walk round the room in a circle silently with twenty other actors, whilst the directors and producers discuss their bodies. I guess that's the moment that every actress wonders whether the three years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts was worth it. :no:

Just as well that I'm a Panda and naturally cute.
 
Is this not the saddest thing you've ever read?

Maybe, but I think having a 'beauty pageant' of CGI game vixens is, even more, profoundly sad (G4 TV).

I agree with Clive, I long for the days when you had a mix of great faces like Bogart, Robinson, Cagney, Lupino, Stanwyck, Jerry Cologne, Barry Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre, Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles, Jack Mckean, all the dudes in any Jerry Lewis film.....along with the supra-beautiful.
 
Well, we can bemoan the shallowness of the industry all we want, but the reason they are shallow is because of the general movie going public. I can't tell you how many times I've exited a theater only to hear people talking about the actor's and actresse's "looks" rather than story or performance.

When I ask "Is this not the saddest thing you've ever heard?" think about it from a filmmaking perspective (and not from a
sore loser perspective
;) ). We are gonna have to deal with this whether we like it or not. And that to me is sad.

Poke
 
We are gonna have to deal with this whether we like it or not.

I agree, but we can deal with it by hiring good character actors and not turning our own movies into a charnel house of plastic surgery.
 
Zensteve said:
Well,
Bush selected in 2000 and elected in 2004
tops it...
smiley_creepy.gif


...but yes, it's pretty sad still.

Couldn't agree with you more. Latest reports indicate the GOP is getting mighty nervous now since his ratings are plummeting. But, I suppose, this is a discussion to be had elsewhere.

I can understand some concern about this (Cameron Diaz anyone?) but for the majority of people I don't think it's a big deal. It would be enlightening to bring them back down to "normal looking" status.
 
clive said:
I agree, but we can deal with it by hiring good character actors and not turning our own movies into a charnel house of plastic surgery.

Hey, I'm all for the right actor/actress for the job. I'm not looking to only cast beautiful people, but be honest, wouldn't you agree that most actors/actresses are very ineterested in how they look on screen? Even the ones who'll play "down-and-dirty" roles ususally follow it up with a glam project. I am saying we're gonna have to deal with it, cause we're gonna have to deal with actors/actresses who are constantly fretting about how they look in HD.

Thunderclap said:
But, I suppose, this is a discussion to be had elsewhere.

On a different forum perhaps.

Poke
 
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