How actors are rejuvenated and aged in movies

Characters in movies and series live according to particular laws of space and time. To show the viewer a scene from the hero’s childhood, the director just needs to find a similar child. But what happens when an adult or elder is transported back to their younger years?

O awesome.club discovered how film protagonists “return” to youth and what difficulties creators face in carrying out this process.

In the era when digital technologies had not developed enough, all the amazing reincarnations were created by makeup artists, who also belong to the category of special effects. In addition, the photographic grain also helped professionals to hide possible imperfections.

It’s always been easier to rejuvenate the actor than to age him, because it’s not just about adding drawn wrinkles and graying wigs. Pictured above, Rachel from “Friends” went to high school. In this case, the make-up artist was helped by the hairstyle and outdated outfit, as well as an eye-catching detail: a large nose. But this television show did not claim to be the “Oscar” winner for best special effects, so the members of the production team did not need much effort to achieve a good result.

Now, the quality of cinematic equipment has advanced: we can view a video at such a high resolution that even the pores on the person’s face are visible. Girls know that even a thick layer of fluid foundation is a kind of mask, but abundant makeup will be noticed too much, especially on an actor. Fortunately, digital technologies began to develop very quickly. Now the work of special effects masters is called “digital makeup”.

The standard of digital rejuvenation is now seen in a scene with Kurt Russell in the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. two”. His character is very dynamic, constantly talks and conveys emotions. This effect was achieved with the help of make-up and special computer technologies (called CGI). In favor of the masters of digital makeup was also the fact that Kurt Russell ages gracefully, and his face shape has not changed much over the years.

First, in the necessary scenes, Kurt Russell appeared with makeup, and then his gestures and facial expressions were repeated by a young actor with similar facial features: Aaron Schwartz. Her youthful skin was “transplanted” onto Russell. According to the creators, it took several months to complete the whole process.

Russell’s rejuvenation, like other special effects in many popular films, was done by the Lola VFX studio. Another masterpiece of digital art was the time transfer that took place with Michael Douglas in the 2015 film “Ant-Man”. The 70-year-old actor had to look 25 years younger. Defects in the work were unacceptable, as millions of viewers remember what he looked like in his youth.

The artist’s work was similar to that of a plastic surgeon. With age, human skin sags, especially on the eyelids, cheeks and lips, and ears grow throughout life. The masters worked on Douglas’s skin, adding elasticity and “youth”.

The young character of Michael Douglas was really believable. However, when he starts talking, the lower part of his face still looks a little unnatural.

The artificiality of the special effects is sometimes very noticeable, especially when the digitized character starts to speak. Therefore, flashbacks in movies are usually short and the hero doesn’t say much. For example, in the movie “Star Wars”, the digital princess Leia only uttered one word, but her face still seemed unreal to many.

Masters of special effects showed incredible results in 2008, when the audience was conquered by the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. The main character, played by Brad Pitt, is born an elderly man and, throughout his life, becomes younger. Many people mistakenly believe that Pitt was made up. The “old” Button was created by the incredible effort of many people.

First, it was necessary to digitize Pitt’s facial expressions. Then, a sculptor created 3 models of the character’s head of different ages, which were also digitized. In the end, special effects specialists transferred the actor’s mime to these models. The body of “old” Button, on the other hand, was played by two people of equal stature.

A lot of time is spent on creating high-quality special effects. For example, to rejuvenate the two characters shown in the video below, it took a talented digital artist about 3 weeks.

Studio Lola VFX has also rejuvenated Captain Jack Sparrow, although some fans notice an unnaturalness in his facial expressions.

But the digital copies of the characters are not to everyone’s taste. Some critics believe that the viewer still tests the naturalness of the characters. It is much better to resort to young actors with similar traits in such scenes. After all, to rejuvenate the characters of Depp and Russell, it was necessary to involve alternative actors: Anthony De La Torre and Aaron Schwartz.

In any case, the viewer understands that he is watching a movie and that the actor’s rejuvenation or aging is artificial.

What do you think about this job? To film these scenes, is it better to resort to a young substitute or to digital technologies?