talkmagic.co.uk

Hey guys. I'm part of a small amateur production group in Swansea, and one of our productions needs a white person to dress up believably as a black man, before taking off the latex on stage. Imagine a "Gollum-esque" type "ripping off the mask", but with a believable face.

The peron never speaks, so the lips do not be able to move. The costume however, does have to be believable.

The only thing we can think of is to take a liquid latex cast of the actor's face and head, and use that. It seems very cost effective, and not too difficult to do. We cannot find any "Dark Flesh" colours anywhere though. I have found both brown and dark brown, but have no clue if they are flesh colours or not.

Note that the few scenes that the character are in include both bright and dark lighting, so I can't just have the stage dark so they don't pay attention to the character!

Does anybody know of the shade that we should use, or any alternate suggestions within budget of an amateur, for fun-only non-profit performance society could do?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Chris,

Although he has not posted here for a while (that I know of), Tom Lauten may be able to help you?

http://www.nimbacreations.com/special-e ... upply.html

Cheers
LP

I tried that site but couldn't get through unfortunately...

I may try and PM him later

Having done a prosthetics course, Ive got to say that it isboth expensive, and time consuming to produce a latex mask of the kind your talking about.

what defines a negro face ( forgive if this sounds non pc, its not ment too ) is the shape of the nose, and what i would be inclined to do,is use grease based make up, and a prosthetic nose, and chin.
these two pieces can then be reused, and the make up, can me removed, using wipes, hidden in a towell. oh...and add a wig. remember disguises in the real world, only use small elements.

this is going to be much cheaper.

( your not doing finnians rainbow are you? the change can also be done with tightly focused lighting, and a wig)

if you do use Latex, what you do is apply make up to the surface. you dont just use flesh coloured latex. The edges all have to be blended in.
and it takes hours to do every night.

Chris, I'll look through my Al Jolson biography and tell you how he did it.

Lord Freddie wrote:Chris, I'll look through my Al Jolson biography and tell you how he did it.

body double.

Tommy Cooper used to do an act where half of his face was made up as a German Officer and the other half a British Tommy. Just face the other way to make the change.