Heath Ledger as The Joker
I felt the urge to make this blog post because someone I met last night had not heard of The Joker...neither Heath Ledger, neither any of the Batman films!
How can you not know about any of this?!?! It's LEGEDARY!
According to (SHH forum..no idea what this is) Heath came to the test day with makeup in hand an smeared his white greasepaint and red lipstick on his face!
'he (Heath) turned up so set with a very basic makeup kit consisting of store bought mascara, white greasepaint and red lipstick and basically designed the makeup on the spot'
Well he at least gave the makeup team and director great ideas. However there is so so so much more than just smearing on the paint. The scar had to be designed/made/tested possibly re-made a bunch of times ( and one made for each shooting day possibly).
Prosthetic scar applied before the face makeup
This looks so realistic. An incredible job, this doesn't look like there has been a bunch of chemicals/glue and paints to get this effect. It's so detailled in the brush work just like a painting to emphasize the shape of the prosthetic pieces. It's also incredible that with the amount of different facial expressions heath pulled, that the pieces stayed well and truly in place.
It had to be random, intriguing looking... and very haphazard looking.
If you imagine this to be symmetrical and neat it just wouldn't have brought us into the character.
The Inspiration: Francis Bacon (noted distinct painter)
On test day, one of the producers (Emma Thomas) brought in a book of his paintings and showed Heath and John Caglione Jr. (makeup designer) and stopped at the series of paintings named 'Study for a Portrait, 1953' (man sitting in chair). These are a series of six paintings so the one they sought is hard to pin down.
I found it hard to see the similarities, but I suppose they do! I can perhaps see the dark eyes and errie looking white face but the pictures are so distorted it's hard to see exactly.
Techniques
John used an old wish-wash theatre technique to produce more texture with cracks and crevices and even more expression. Heath would wrinkle his face by raising his eyebrows, smiling widely and scrunch his eyes whilst painting on the colours.
Did the makeup look change at different points in the film?
The makeup had a gradual change throughout the movie. Not drastically but as the joker became more and more desperate for Batman to succumb to his mind games (the interrogation scene towards the end), the makeup gradually was caking off as if a different side to the joker was being revealed.
Look at the photo at the top of this page when the makeup was mostly in tact at the beginning of the film and then look at this photo above. You can almost see his skin though the white paint, most of it has caked off and came off in the wrinkles from his eyes. His lip has smeared carelessly (in a good way!) on his cheek and down his chin and you can even see his eyebrows if you look very close!
This could resemble many things, maybe the fact that the jokers games were coming to an end or that he was reaching the end of his insanity.
You see many people creating a joker look for halloween and it's crisp and clean but this wasn't what the look was about- you should probably just use the white greasepaint, black and the red lipstick (that's what Heath did!)
Kudos to:
John Caglione Jr.
Barrie Gower (prosthetic sculptor)
Connor O'Sullivan (prosthetic supervisor)
Robert Treton (prothetic makeup artist)
Emma Thomas (producer)
Text Reads: 'Heaths last shoot day'
R.I.P Heath Ledger. Gone but never forgotton.
S-J x
