Birthday Timeline Concept

The Golden Ratio

My concept is looking at the Virgo, and the concept of creating an evil 'White Witch' character to represent the negative traits of Virgos. I want my character to be beautiful, but also have the vain and obsessive traits of Virgo in her quest for beauty. To this end I began to look at what is considered to be a 'beautiful face'. 

I came across a theory about what makes the 'perfect face' which dates the whole way back to the Ancient Greeks, called the Golden Ratio. Dr. Stephen Marquardt is a doctor who has been researching the link between numbers and beauty for his entire career. The number in question is 1.618, or 'Phi' as it is referred to - and the idea is that within nature all beautiful things follow measurement based upon this number (Reference 1). With the most beautiful faces in the world we can see this; the mouth will be exactly 1.618 times the width of the nose. The front upper teeth are exactly 1.618 times the width of the tooth next to it. 

The Mask of Divine Proportion

Dr Marquardt then took this to the next level by creating the mask template of a 'perfect face' which uses this golden ratio and geometry, and is called The Mask of Divine Proportion.

(Above images, all Reference 2).

As you can see in the images above the mask uses harsh lines and shapes such as triangles, and using geometric techniques to create this 'perfect face' mask. This can be applied to women throughout history who have been considered as beautiful, such as Queen Nefertiti right through to Angelina Jolie in the present day. Their face fits the outlined shape created by the mask, meaning it is a beautiful face.

Looking at this mask really inspired my final character for my birthday timeline shoot. I wanted to emphasise how beautiful she is - but how the pursuit of trying to stay youthful is dark and evil.

Contemporary Research

 (Images from Left to Right, Reference 3, 4, 5).

This Mask of Divine Proportion instantly reminded me of Lady Gaga in 2011, when she had facial and body prosthetics to give her pointed features. I felt that this is really similar to the mask of divine proportion and influenced my decision to make my witch character have these same pointed features. This ties in with the idea that she is trying so hard to be youthful, and consume souls to do so - that she is heading in the extreme direction of being quite angular and odd to look at.

As I am creating a piece suitable for TV/Film I decided to look at how pieces similar to this have been used within this genre. The one which I found most commonly was Maleficent (Image right Reference 6)in which Angelina Jolie was given prosthetic cheekbones, ears and a nose piece to wear during filming to create the witch-type look.

The Logic Behind the Prosthetics

So there is some method in the madness! These cheekbones not only refer to the 'beautiful face' ideal, but also tie in with current research from Developmental Psychology and Human Physiology doctors. Brian Holtz from Temple University has conducted research which found that people with certain facial features appear more trustworthy than others. He found that in large studies of adults, they all rated the faces which had higher more prominent cheekbones as being more trustworthy, than those with shallow cheekbones (Reference 7). 

In terms of how this fits in with my concept - I feel that this witch character would need people to trust her so that she can lure them in before devouring them. So the mixture of her beauty and the science of trusting people with the higher cheekbones - this seems like an obvious aesthetic choice for me to make.

How am I reflecting this in my piece?

Within my piece I am going to be creating cheekbone prosthetics which will be really pointed and almost triangular. This is something I will definitely be doing, but would also like to take it further. I would also like to create a nose prosthetic which makes the nose look slightly upturned and pointed. I want the models face to look really angular overall and so will continue to research how I can achieve this overall look with the use of special effects and prosthetic.

References:

1. Meisner, G. (2014). Facial Analysis and the Beauty Mask. [online] Goldennumber.net. Available at: https://www.goldennumber.net/beauty/ [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
2. GoodStein, S. (2012). The Perfect Face - Golden Ratio Beauty Calculator. [online] Facethis.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: https://facethis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/perfect-face-golden-ratio-beauty.html [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
3. An Open Vein. (2011). Lady Gaga in Egg and Gold Latex at the Grammy Awards 2011. [online] An Open Vein. Available at: http://anopenvein.com/famous-fashion/lady-gaga-egg-gold-latex-grammy-awards-2011/ [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
4. Thompson, J. (2011). Let's hope it doesn't catch on! Lady Gaga sports bizarre flesh-coloured facial horns. [online] Daily Mail. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1357258/Lady-Gaga-sports-bizarre-flesh-coloured-facial-horns-Jay-Leno.html [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
5. Robertson, A. (2011). Rihanna Beats Gaga To Facebook Top Spot. [online] digi.me blog. Available at: https://blog.digi.me/2011/07/15/rihanna-beats-gaga-to-facebook-top-spot/ [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
6. Charalambous, S. (2014). Lana Del Rey's Once Upon A Dream for Maleficent premieres at Grammys. [online] Mail Online. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2546565/Lana-Del-Reys-rendition-Once-Upon-A-Dream-Maleficent-premieres-Grammys-90-second-sneak-peek-trailer.html [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
7. Holtz, B.C. (2015). From first impression to fairness perception: Investigating the impact of initial trustworthiness beliefs. Personnel Psychology, 68(3), pp.499-546.