If you ask the next person you meet on the street about what they want, chances are they’ll have something or the other to tell you about… meaning they want more. Better. These ideas of ‘more’ and ‘better’ – of enhancement – are what keep us as a race moving forward and developing. This holds true of every field – including one that is often overlooked by us when we watch those big, effects-intensive blockbuster films: makeup.

1. DIGITAL MAKEUP IN THE MUMMY:
MAKING THE UNREAL REAL
If you ask the next person you meet on the street about what they want, chances are they'll
have something or the other to tell you about... meaning they want more. Better. These
ideas of 'more' and 'better' - of enhancement - are what keep us as a race moving forward
and developing. This holds true of every field - including one that is often overlooked by us
when we watch those big, effects-intensive blockbuster films: makeup.
While going gaga over spectacular cinematography, VFX or animation, we often forget to
realise the effort that goes into making the actors fit the look that is demanded by their
role.
As actor Andy Serkis said, actors' performances in films are enhanced in a million different
ways, down to the choice of camera shot by the director - whether it's in slow motion or
whether it's quick cut - or... the choice of music behind the close-up or the costume that
you're wearing or the makeup.
Makeup defines the final look of a character, and doesn't merely include the face and
cosmetics - outfits and character design also play a major role.
Like many other aspects of filmmaking, makeup too has gone the digital route and much is
being done through computer-generated imagery and visual effects.
People don't generally associate makeup with cutting-edge disciplines, but with technology
expanding the way it is, the truth is quite far from this perception.
The breakthrough as far as digital makeup is concerned came in 1999, with the release of
The Mummy.

2. If you go by the dictionary definition, digital makeup is a compositing technique by which
the appearance of actors are changed onscreen.
The reality of the situation is more complex, because of the myriad techniques that go into
capturing information and creating the virtual prosthetics for the final compositing.
While traditional makeup prepares actors for photography (or, in the case of stage
performers, live performances), preparations for digital makeup typically involve the
application of reflective tracking dots onto the actor so that motion information recorded
can be used for tracking and placing the digital prosthetics and effects on the actor during
compositing.
For a project as ambitious as Universal Studios' The Mummy, the visual effects were
supervised by John Berton of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). The first step in any kind of
effect for film is to decide on the look and feel of the character(s).
For the titular mummy, Imhotep, this process took around three months to complete, as the
team had to not only design the character, but plan out how the designs would be
implemented.
Twenty years ago, computers weren't as advanced as they are today, so every last detail
had to be meticulously hammered out so that the project could move into production.
The main challenge was the fact that the mummy, while looking decidedly inhuman, would
have to seem believably human so that the transition from his desiccated state to human
form would not be trapped in the uncanny valley.
The key to this was maintaining realism, and Berton felt that this could be best achieved
through motion capture.
Imhotep is a menacing character, an embodiment of good turned evil, but at the same time
he is (or, rather, was) human.
Motion capture, therefore, was key to making him realistic - everyone knows what human
motions look like, and while the technique didn't allow for much transference of

3. expressions at the time, realistic motion could be achieved with a lot less time and effort
than 3D designing would take.
Simple observation and photography of Arnold Vosloo, who played the character, helped
the VFX artists by giving references for his gait and style of movement.
There were several stages of decay for the mummy, and while the early stages were
completely digital, later stages where mummy begins to look more human used a
combination of prosthetics and digital effects.
ILM, which had previously worked on films such as Star Wars, The Abyss, Terminator 2:
Judgment Day, Jurassic Park, is intimately familiar with the complexity of realistic effects,
and this knowledge was channeled quite effectively for The Mummy.
Once the digital assets were ready, the time had come for texture painting - which could
make or break the final product.
So, to create complexity in the shading for the mummy, the texture artists created
hundreds - even thousands - of textures, depth maps and transparency maps from different
angles so that the creature would appear organic and maintain the quality of output needed
for a film of this scale.

4. Berton, in an interview, said that the real modelers for the film were the texture artists, as
their work was used to make the models into what we saw in the film and capture the
gooey, fluid nature of a rotting mummy's body.
There were numerous layers of colour, opacity information, depth and bump information
and dynamic simulation all coming together into one cohesive character.
And the best scene to prove it, according to Berton, was the one where a scarab beetle
climbs into a hole on the almost-regenerated Imhotep's cheek and he eats it.
Performance capture has also been used to transfer emotions and facial expressions of
characters onto CGI creatures, as in The Polar Express (2004), Avatar (2009), Rise of the
Planet of the Apes (2011), or The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (2011).
Today, digital makeup and performance enhancement is an accepted part of filmmaking
and has been used in films abroad and in India.
We have characters like the Terminator from Terminator: Rose of the Machines (2003),
Benjamin Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Davy Jones and Captain
Salazar in the Pirates of the Carribean films, Ahmanet in The Mummy (2017) from foreign
films, and Gaurav from Fan (2016) or Lingesan in I (2015) from Indian films as notable
examples of digital enhancement of practical makeup effects. It's not just film - TV shows
like The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or Doctor Who are using such technology to great
effect.
With more and more media forms demanding such effects being made every day, there is a
lot left to be seen in the growth of digital makeup techniques and application in the years to
come.
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