Silent Screen stars (both male and female) wore a ton of eye makeup to prevent looking washed out...?

was this because the lighting was very strong for slow film or was it because they lacked diffusion and lighting was so direct?Silent Screen stars (both male and female) wore a ton of eye makeup to prevent looking washed out...?
The amount of light needed to expose film used in motion pictures continues to be much more than the eye would need in the same situation. It is partially the speed of the film, but also the short exposure time, requiring the same amount of light for just about all filming conditions. To this day motion picture cameras require more light than the eye or still cameras even with over a century of improvements to the film stock.





The lighting was manly large fresnels, which are fairly soft. The logic of the direct lighting washing them out is a little bit reversed. Fresnels have a very wide and soft beam at full flood and would have washed out the features because of how soft this light was. Also since lighting design was new for any industry, the lighting was much less precise in how it was used, aside from brightness need to properly expose the film stock. This would wash out the features of an actor if the lights were not positioned in an effective manner for modeling and shaping.Silent Screen stars (both male and female) wore a ton of eye makeup to prevent looking washed out...?
lighting was very strong for slow film methinks.
what the other guys said,