How do you manage models with flawed skin?

[Scott Welsch]

Without having to use tons of post processing?

In several Michael Bay films you'll see actors/actresses with fairly flawless skin, but in person some of these actors have pretty flawed skin such as acne scars...

How can I avoid bumpy/ugly skin with my models?

 

[Kenneth C Merrill]

There's a midtown sharpness slider in DaVinci resolve that can help a little with this kind of thing. I used it recently on a music video, in a couple shots, and it did the trick for free, and it wasn't TOO bad making and applying it. It really depends on your project. Bottom line is you will probably have to mask/track whatever it is. Global effects really mess with footage.

 

[Björn Benckert]

In flame you do a lot of optical flow retouch and then use Logic Crok_beauty Matchbox.

Flame you can download for free as a trail and also the crok stuff here: https://logik-matchbook.org

 

[Josh Wilkinson]

Resolve Face refinement can help a ton when it works. You can pull a skintone key and lower midtone detail/blur.

 

[Remington Chase]

it's a big part of VFX now days. For easy shots of little movement and subject looking toward camera some of the amateur tools like Cosmo and Face Refinement in DaVinci can work but you really want a VFX crew that specializes in that.

 

[Nick Gardner]

Lighting is a huge part. Some people do have a a "good side". In general, slightly overexposing a female leads face compared to everyone else helps. As do less than razor sharp lenses. Black Diffusion/FX® are great for softening skin tones without blooming everything else. And of course, a kick ass make up artist.

Nick

 

[Marc Wielage]

Without having to use tons of post processing? In several Michael Bay films you'll see actors/actresses with fairly flawless skin, but in person some of these actors have pretty flawed skin such as acne scars... How can I avoid bumpy/ugly skin with my models?

Biggest thing: hire a really good makeup artist (HMU). There's a reason the makeup person is one of the highest-paid people on the set.

Soft lighting helps. Boris FX, Sapphire, and a number of other companies have "beauty" applications designed to help smooth skin. The truth is that actual beauty commercials often use tons and tons of very careful tracking masks and different kinds of frequency-selective defocus and makeup fixes. Trying to get a model's face all the same color and also eliminate pores and all that is a task that can take hours. We're talking very careful secondaries, tracking masks, and very subtle adjustment. So it's not just one thing -- it's a bunch of things.

I tend to use one tracking mask on the forehead, one under each eye, then an overall on the face (sometimes just for a little mist/glow), and a final one on the neck if necessary. Additional sharpening/lightening masks on the eyeballs can help as well, but I generally use those only on the big close-ups. Sometimes cheeks & jowls as well. Lightening eyes and teeth are pretty standard.

You would be amazed at how much this stuff is often done in films and commercials, and has been for the last 15 years. I seem to recall the defocus knob only popped up in the daVinci 2K around 1997 or so, but it got used very quickly for a lot of projects. The trick is figuring out how far to push it and when not to use it.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Great lighting, and great makeup - a great grade goes a long way too, but that's vastly helped by the first two being done well.

 

[Sergei Franklin]

https://digitalanarchy.com/beautyVID/main.html

 

[Gene Sung]

Very first line of defense is a good makeup artist. This is so important. I cannot emphasis this enough, and this is coming from myself who started off / very knowledgable in post production. While you can fix blemishes in post, it's fairly easy to avoid this by doing it right from the start.

While filters like Hollywood Black Magic, BPM, etc... can soften wrinkles and blemishes to a certain degree, they cannot fix bad skin, not by a long shot and anything over 1/4 strength they start looking really crazy IMO, like some bad classic Hollywood movie.

 

[Aaron Lochert]

While you can fix blemishes in post, it's fairly easy to avoid this by doing it right from the start.

Shit, this can apply to just about everything.

Fix it in production.

 

[jake blackstone]

I know, I know, the question was how to address the bad skin without doing a ton of post work, BUT this one is a good one. Guys at Flame introduced some new tools in the latest version of Flame (Motion vectors) So, some crazy talented crew writing most of the Flame Shaders managed to use these Motion Vectors in order to come up with some pretty wild stuff for a complete skin REPLACEMENT with the procedural skin. And here is the result. The skin of the model on the right had been completely replaced with synthetic procedural skin. On the left image the model's skin is her own.

 

[David Peterson]

Biggest thing: hire a really good makeup artist (HMU). There's a reason the makeup person is one of the highest-paid people on the set.

Really? Interesting. More than say a 1st AC?

Doesn't seem like that in the low budget indie world however.

 

[Josh Wilkinson]

Really? Interesting. More than say a 1st AC?

Doesn't seem like that in the low budget indie world however.

My wife is a SFX makeup artist. Her day rate for corporate stuff is $600/day.
Indie film like $200-$400/day, just depends.

 

[C. Burkhart]

The best way I know to deal with flawed skin is to use a Cooke lens. Preferably an older one like a 20-100 Zoom.
There was a time when aging film stars knew that these lenses were their best friends.
The layer/coating which is most associated with skin tones has a slight halo in it, while the rest retain maximum resolving power.
Thus the skin is smoothed out and the eyelashes and other details retain their sharpness.

 

[Phil Holland]

The best way I know to deal with flawed skin is to use a Cooke lens. Preferably an older one like a 20-100 Zoom.
There was a time when aging film stars knew that these lenses were their best friends.
The layer/coating which is most associated with skin tones has a slight halo in it, while the rest retain maximum resolving power.
Thus the skin is smoothed out and the eyelashes and other details retain their sharpness.

If you're going "this route" a Tiffen Pearlescent filter might be your best friend with the concept of optical smoothing while maintaining an edge.

 

[C. Burkhart]

If you're going "this route" a Tiffen Pearlescent filter might be your best friend with the concept of optical smoothing while maintaining an edge.

Similar, but the advantage of the Cooke's is that they target the skin tones without blooming or glow in the highlights, so the rest of the image feels sharper.

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

When I worked with Faye Dunaway on a feature she asked what net I was using. I said "Fougal". And she hoped I was using a white one. I was using black Nobless but she was happy.

 

[Marc Wielage]

The best way I know to deal with flawed skin is to use a Cooke lens. Preferably an older one like a 20-100 Zoom. There was a time when aging film stars knew that these lenses were their best friends.

I think modern digital defocus and makeup fixes are a lot more exacting, because that way the hair, the lips, the eyes, the clothes, and the backgrounds are unaffected. The problem with trying to do it with lenses or glass filters is it's an "all or nothing" proposition. If you only want to optimize the skin, you need to be able to solve the problem surgically (and by that I mean with digital keying tools, not a scalpel).

To give a plug to the upcoming Blackmagic Conference in Burbank, Dan Moran is doing a one-hour presentation on Beauty Fixes with Resolve, and I think it's good for DPs and colorists alike to be aware of these techniques. Dan does a lot of makeup and fashion TV commercials in London, and he's the expert's expert on this subject.

http://www.blackmagicconference.com/program/

 

[Dominik Muench]

a makeup artist who can do airbrush makeup is probably your first and cheapest option, then several filter options for the lens, then post processing......but yeah....start with an airbrush makeup artist....they're worth every cent.