Research into Make-Up (Cuts, Bruises and Scars)
As I am doing a fight scene, I have to get a realistic style of bruises, cuts and wounds. I have some understanding of how to already do this, the picture beside this being my knowledge of how to create a wound/ cut. I managed to make mine with red, brown and black pen, smudging some of the ink to make it look bruised around the outside of the wound. I believe this looks fairly realistic and works well on a camera, the camera making it look more realistic than it may look in real life.
I decided to look into the way media make up would create the same realistic wounds that I did with different coloured pens and pencils. They use a lot more make up and fillers to make it look realistic, making bumps and making the cuts stand out more from the face. I believe that my style is up to the same standard of these cuts in this video without having to spend a larger budget for my final major project. I have expanded my knowledge on how they would do the same style of make up for this and I now know a secondary way of doing these cuts and bruises for my fight scene. Searching around on the internet, I cannot find any process of making the red marks on the cheeks after being punched. From experimenting, I have found out a process to do so. It works similarly to the red in the cuts by blending colours together and making red the primary colour of the mark.
"When you first injure or bump yourself, fresh red blood flows out under the skin. This blood is bright red because it is full of both iron and oxygen. The bright blood in a bruise does not stay red for long. This stage of having a bright red mark may be so brief that it may be gone before you even notice it. Also if the bruise is quiet deep, by the time the blood rises to the surface skin, it will have already darkened."- ("Life Cycle Of A Bruise; Understanding Bruises")
The colours used to make a cut or bruise look realistic are reds, black, a small bit of purple and brown. These colours blend to make the skin look damaged and recently created in a fight. Bruises are more purple as they have been on the skin for a long time and the blood underneath that patch of skin is less oxygenated, meaning the skin changes to a different colour and appears blue or purple. Because it is a fight scene, all of the marks will be recent, meaning there should be a lack of purple or blue in the marks as they are recent and should have more red in them as oxygen is still flowing in the blood.
"As the iron in the blood starts to break down in the bruise, the colour will darken further. This process is a great step, as the break down of iron is the stimulus that your body needs to respond to the injury and trigger the clean up process. There is no oxygen left in the blood and the red blood cells have also started to die and break down. These changes all take place as the bruise grows and gets to ‘capacity’. From this moment your bruise will start to heal."- ("Life Cycle Of A Bruise; Understanding Bruises.")
Knowing the scientific reasoning behind the bruises and cuts from secondary school and from the research carried out above, this allowed me to figure out what cuts would be which colour and when I should add them to the actresses' face as make up slowly fades off and looses its colour which makes the bruises look older. Timing will be the key to this to make sure the bruises look like they age correctly throughout the fight scene.
References
"Fight Club Brushes FX Makeup | Silvia Quiros". YouTube. N.p., 2017. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.
"SFX Makeup Tutorial | THREE STAGES OF BRUISING | Realistic Buises Using Creams". YouTube. N.p., 2017. Web. 22 May 2017.
"Life Cycle Of A Bruise; Understanding Bruises". itpandme.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 22 May 2017.
