Off-topic, I know, but back in the days of B/W movies weren't the actors faces all covered in green make-up as that was the only way to get convincing flesh tones on the film of the time?
No. The case of this I'm aware of is the Frankenstein monster make-up, where they used a shade of green that photographed as more of the dead white they were after. Costumes, sets, props and inanimate objects and sometimes lipstick were more apt to use "odd" colors on set for the way they looked on film.
An example of the differences in the way B&W is planned and shot came up with Kenneth Brannagh's film
Dead Again. The screenplay suggested that the 1940s story be presented in B&W to capture the period feel, while the parallel modern mystery it intercut with be in color. Brannagh decided the film would work better if it was in color throughout, so that's the way he shot it. But when preview audiences saw the finished film they lost track of which part of the story they were in from scene to scene. So for the release prints the '40s segements were done in B&W, much to the horror of the DP, the costume designer and the production designer, all of whom insisted they would have done everything differently if they had shot in B&W to begin with. And, indeed, the '40s sections don't have the lush look of period B&W photography. Constrast this with Mel Brooks's
Young Frankenstein which was shot in B&W (over strenuous objections from the studio) and captures the look and feel of the first two Karloff films perfectly.
Was the animated series any good? It just came out, or is soon coming out, on DVD.
It wasn't bad at all. In addition to the original actors providing the voices, many behind-the-scenes folks from
TOS were involved, and the series continued the original show's connection to the world of literary SF. David Gerrold wrote "More Tribbles, More Troubles" for instance, and one of the episodes was adapted from a Larry Niven story. D. C. Fontana ("A Distant Star", "Journey to Babel") contributed a memorable episode where Spock travels back in time and, in the guise of a distant cousin of Sarek's, helps his younger self through a crisis. The animated episodes also respected the series continuity, which is more than I can say for some of the other sequels.
The DVD set is due (in R1) on November 21st.
Regards,
Joe
