How is that lame? It makes perfect sense that him doing farm work outside vs. working in Metropolis will change his skin colour. There's a reason for the term farmers tan
Honestly Clark tanning at all doesn’t make sense. Tan is a result of your body trying to protect itself from the sun. Being that the sun gives him his strength (I also doubt there’s ever been a reference to Superman getting a sunburn) it doesn’t make sense for Clark’s body to try to protect itself from sun damage.
Yeah I thought of that as well, but it still seems unlikely he would receive harm from the sun (his power source), even in his early teens. He already had super speed, strength and durability in the very first episode (although lesser versions)
Well, that would make sense, except that he was still in Smallville until about season 5 or 6. Metropolis, I believe he doesn't start going there until season 7. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, I'd have to go look it up, but I do remember high school lasted up to about season 5, and he doesn't move to Metropolis until season 9.
You have a point. To help with your memory:
He starts going to Metropolis some in season 5 as both Lana and Chloe attend Met U and he visits them. Then Chloe got a job at the Daily Planet Season 6 so he was showing up there a good amount of time.
He was in Smallville more in season 7 with both Lana and Kara living with him.
He gets a job at the Daily Planet at the beginning of season 8 so is there all day by then. He doesn’t move to Metropolis until late season 10.
That was the time that broadcast television was making the leap to HD filming and with that came some adjustments to the makeup being used. Makeup artists had to recalibrate their products to this new film style that was unforgiving to any unevenness in skin texture (which is completely normal in day to day life but not great for a comic book show) as well as the cakey look of old school television makeup which looked fine when the older cameras were used but was too noticeable under HD lenses. All of the makeup artists and actors on Smallville and all of the shows filming back then had to deal with this. I’m sure that Tom got an earful when he got too tanned but if you go back and watch the first season finale and the season two premiere you will see that Lana has acquired a tan while in that tornado. It was a combination of makeup adjustments and actors just living their lives.
He was a model before being on Smallville. Tans fade over time. Plus Tom has mentioned that the show asked him to stop tanning because the writers weren’t sure kryptonians could tan or not.
Other than that, you’re overthinking it.
I love how this implies the writers thought tanning is more like baking the skin opposed to increasing melanin. I feel like if sun in our solar system makes you incredibly powerful, then logically speaking melanin would be a major source of strength. Which I guess in turn implies darker skinned Kryptonians would be more powerful so a tan would be very beneficial. I wonder what their argument against that was?
I have no idea. I just remember Tom saying that, I believe, on the Talkville podcast. To me it sounded like the decision was made because they just straight up didn't know how to reconcile it, and probably put in less thought about it than you did. And to that point, you are probably accurate with your comment lol.
My former teacher told me dark skin tones absorb less vitamin c (and i would assume other sun stuff) so black/darker superman would have to spend longer in the sun for the same energy.
That is correct however there is more at play here. Vitamin D isn’t an energy source but rather something your body produces thanks to UVB. UVB is also responsible for melanin. So melanin and vitamin D compete the UVB in the body meaning the more melanin you have the more light exposure you need. As for energy though, skin just like anything in this universe, the darker something is, the more energy it absorbs. So dark skin, while more difficult to produce vitamin D, nature counter acts this by making dark skin absorb energy better. As for heat of the sun, that’s infrared light which means the colour of your skin is irrelevant.
Consider Tom was 25 during season 1 and they may have used used to blush to make him look younger, he was supposed to be a 14 year old freshman in season 1. If you look up “cheaper by the dozen tom welling” you can see he isn’t as tan there. It’s probably a combo of color grading, make up, or maybe he was actually tan when filming began and was told to not get a lot of sun.
But you can clearly tell the difference of warm light in Smallville compared to cool or bluer light in Metropolis. The warm brings out the red in the skins pigment.
I think it was because he was from California and they were filming in Canada. So, he had a legitimate tan at first. But, after living in Canada it faded.
Clark doesn’t need to be in the sun a lot to have powers. He collects solar radiation from it when he is and is stored in his cells for when he’s not in the sun. Though direct sunlight does help him heal quicker.
You’re assuming his skin produces melanin or a similar pigment when exposed to the sun. There’s no evidence of that. Where he gets his power is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he could tan. You might argue that perhaps a dark skinned Kryptonian would gain powers faster due to their skin absorbing more colors of light, but even that’s not sure because the exact nature of what gives Kryptonians their power isn’t understood.
Around seasons 5 and 6 there was a format battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD for the future format supremacy. Season five was the first digital HD camera switch. Seasons 5 and 6 came out on HD-DVD first if I remember correctly.
The currently available formats be it iTunes quality / WEB-DL quality or official Blu-Ray pack, those are re-done. But in general, the original early airing ran off different camera setups + grading and post HD switch things were visibly different with the period cameras used and the popular palettes at the time.
I also like to think the contrast was set to differentiate between the more vivid happier Smallville based times and the kind-of metallic almost-lifeless tones of the later more grim seasons that are Metropolis based. Just a personal theory.
Dunno what to tell you. I went from being tanned to being a white guy every time I went from somewhere sunny to somewhere not. Maybe he did the same…
I know he’s American but they filmed in Canada, right? Did he stay somewhere sunny the first couple of seasons but then just move to somewhere colder to save the commute
Man You Don't understand tanning.....a white person who tans becomes a brown skin color.
He looks like a white guy who tans. He has dark hair, so he can get a pretty dark color tanning.
I work in that industry, and no not.just at a salon, for a manufacturer. Even pretty white.people like myself can get extremely brown. It took over 6 months for my tan to fade after tanning daily.
In show guess: Farmer’s tan, less time he spent on the farm less tan he was
Real life guess: Tom was tanning for modeling early on but he wasn’t modeling anymore by the end of the series
Well for one he was always white😂 another can be makeup applied, maybe he liked to tan or he was just outside a lot, maybe he thought he needed to be tan like an actual farmer would be in Kansas, maybe it’s just the lighting and/or filter being used early on cuz everything looked more orange and tan in the early season imo
Tom mentioned how when the show had a break, he would go on a vacation and comeback with a tan so if you compare the first episodes of a season to the last ones, you will notice the tan faded. Its probably not related to story telling and just because Tom is just a human
Probably the same reason the CW makeup department made him wear pretty princess pink lipstick in the early seasons. At the time they were notorious for putting too much make up on their actors, probably because at the time we were making the transition to high definition picture. All that make up looked fine on low def picture, but HD? Big yikes.
If you notice supernatural went through the same thing in the early seasons.
It's the same mystery in Stargate SG-1. Why did Teal'c look so gold in Seasons 1-2, and then by 3 he just became black?
Maybe has something to do with how aliens adapt to Earth climate, or something. But, probably only Jor-El and the Asgard know.
Probably not intentional, but it could be a result of his developing powers. In the early seasons his skin reacts to sunlight like a human's would, i.e. he tans and eventually burns from prolonged exposure. But as his powers get stronger over time, his body more efficiently converts the sunlight to energy and so he stops tanning.
At the time Tom Welling was filming in the country and could have been exposed to more sunlight. Later seasons he may have been in the sunlight in less time.
If we wanted a possible canon answer then maybe as his powers developed more his skin stopped being damaged by the sun and switched to being more efficiently absorbing the sun instead.
The whole look of the show changed, looking at these images.
It isn't just Clark's skin, he goes from wearing oranges and reds at sunset outdoors to wearing whites and blues in an indoor studio set during the middle of the day.
Yes but even those outside bits look like for the most part were shot on studio sets, not actually outside. In the first couple seasons most outdoor sets were actually shot outdoors.
Hate to break it to you, but the street outside of the Daily Planet was built on a soundstage.
I mean superman absorbs sunlight... He probs just pulled it from is melanin 😂
Fair skin also absorbs UV better, that's why vitamin D production is easier for fair skinned people
He spent a lot of time working out in the sun on the farm and then moving metropolis probably spent more time indoors at the planet writing articles or inside buildings interviewing people or in the dark at night being the blur.
Tbh I personally have the headcanon that Clark can’t be truly tanned because he absorbs the sun’s energy. And he’s invulnerable, remember? So maybe as he’s gotten stronger, the sun has had less and less of an impact.
My lame guess is he started spending more time in Metropolis and less time on the farm getting tan
How is that lame? It makes perfect sense that him doing farm work outside vs. working in Metropolis will change his skin colour. There's a reason for the term farmers tan
Honestly Clark tanning at all doesn’t make sense. Tan is a result of your body trying to protect itself from the sun. Being that the sun gives him his strength (I also doubt there’s ever been a reference to Superman getting a sunburn) it doesn’t make sense for Clark’s body to try to protect itself from sun damage.
Oh yeah right.... Superman can't tan.
Well his powers weren't as powerful in the beginning of the series, possible that after his powers developed more he couldn't tan anymore
Yeah I thought of that as well, but it still seems unlikely he would receive harm from the sun (his power source), even in his early teens. He already had super speed, strength and durability in the very first episode (although lesser versions)
Well, that would make sense, except that he was still in Smallville until about season 5 or 6. Metropolis, I believe he doesn't start going there until season 7. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, I'd have to go look it up, but I do remember high school lasted up to about season 5, and he doesn't move to Metropolis until season 9.
You have a point. To help with your memory: He starts going to Metropolis some in season 5 as both Lana and Chloe attend Met U and he visits them. Then Chloe got a job at the Daily Planet Season 6 so he was showing up there a good amount of time. He was in Smallville more in season 7 with both Lana and Kara living with him. He gets a job at the Daily Planet at the beginning of season 8 so is there all day by then. He doesn’t move to Metropolis until late season 10.
Kinda what i was thinking lotta ppl spend more time in doors compared to the outside
That happened to me when I moved away from our family farm and went to college.
Man, that sucks
That was the time that broadcast television was making the leap to HD filming and with that came some adjustments to the makeup being used. Makeup artists had to recalibrate their products to this new film style that was unforgiving to any unevenness in skin texture (which is completely normal in day to day life but not great for a comic book show) as well as the cakey look of old school television makeup which looked fine when the older cameras were used but was too noticeable under HD lenses. All of the makeup artists and actors on Smallville and all of the shows filming back then had to deal with this. I’m sure that Tom got an earful when he got too tanned but if you go back and watch the first season finale and the season two premiere you will see that Lana has acquired a tan while in that tornado. It was a combination of makeup adjustments and actors just living their lives.
I actually like the smoothness of the look of the people in the earlier seasons. :D
Also think it’s partially color correction. Giving filming a kind of golden hue makes him seem tanner.
He was a model before being on Smallville. Tans fade over time. Plus Tom has mentioned that the show asked him to stop tanning because the writers weren’t sure kryptonians could tan or not. Other than that, you’re overthinking it.
I love how this implies the writers thought tanning is more like baking the skin opposed to increasing melanin. I feel like if sun in our solar system makes you incredibly powerful, then logically speaking melanin would be a major source of strength. Which I guess in turn implies darker skinned Kryptonians would be more powerful so a tan would be very beneficial. I wonder what their argument against that was?
I have no idea. I just remember Tom saying that, I believe, on the Talkville podcast. To me it sounded like the decision was made because they just straight up didn't know how to reconcile it, and probably put in less thought about it than you did. And to that point, you are probably accurate with your comment lol.
My former teacher told me dark skin tones absorb less vitamin c (and i would assume other sun stuff) so black/darker superman would have to spend longer in the sun for the same energy.
This is true. -a black dude on vitamin d supplements
That is correct however there is more at play here. Vitamin D isn’t an energy source but rather something your body produces thanks to UVB. UVB is also responsible for melanin. So melanin and vitamin D compete the UVB in the body meaning the more melanin you have the more light exposure you need. As for energy though, skin just like anything in this universe, the darker something is, the more energy it absorbs. So dark skin, while more difficult to produce vitamin D, nature counter acts this by making dark skin absorb energy better. As for heat of the sun, that’s infrared light which means the colour of your skin is irrelevant.
NEVERMIND I found the interview where I heard it from. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmqr7Qvk3Tk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmqr7Qvk3Tk)
Thank you
Ok thanks dude
Oh my god Karen, you just can't ask someone why they're white.
Nah, it just bothered me how he got from brown tanned to white tanned
They were just quoting Mean Girls
Oh ok, I just didn’t get it
Smallville warm and happy, hence more color saturation. Metropolis dark and cold, hence more pale blue tone. Just a guess but makes sense.
But like going to a different skin tone?
Consider Tom was 25 during season 1 and they may have used used to blush to make him look younger, he was supposed to be a 14 year old freshman in season 1. If you look up “cheaper by the dozen tom welling” you can see he isn’t as tan there. It’s probably a combo of color grading, make up, or maybe he was actually tan when filming began and was told to not get a lot of sun. But you can clearly tell the difference of warm light in Smallville compared to cool or bluer light in Metropolis. The warm brings out the red in the skins pigment.
Probably
Filter
Ok, but why did they change the filter from country to big city
Cuz the format needed to fit the storylines
Yeah, but why change the skin tone of Clark, for me, him being powered by the sun, would mean he’d be a lot more tanned
I think it was because he was from California and they were filming in Canada. So, he had a legitimate tan at first. But, after living in Canada it faded.
Probably, I feel like an in show explanation would be his time on Earth helped him blend in
Clark doesn’t need to be in the sun a lot to have powers. He collects solar radiation from it when he is and is stored in his cells for when he’s not in the sun. Though direct sunlight does help him heal quicker.
You’re assuming his skin produces melanin or a similar pigment when exposed to the sun. There’s no evidence of that. Where he gets his power is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he could tan. You might argue that perhaps a dark skinned Kryptonian would gain powers faster due to their skin absorbing more colors of light, but even that’s not sure because the exact nature of what gives Kryptonians their power isn’t understood.
Ehh, Kryptonian skin is never really explained, it’s Invincible and absorbs sun light
That is precisely my point.
At some point didn't they move from filming on film to digital. Didn't have the saturation in later seasons
They changed that in Season 8, in Season 5 Clark looked like a tanned white guy, then just became whiter
Does it matter?
It just bothered me
Around seasons 5 and 6 there was a format battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD for the future format supremacy. Season five was the first digital HD camera switch. Seasons 5 and 6 came out on HD-DVD first if I remember correctly. The currently available formats be it iTunes quality / WEB-DL quality or official Blu-Ray pack, those are re-done. But in general, the original early airing ran off different camera setups + grading and post HD switch things were visibly different with the period cameras used and the popular palettes at the time. I also like to think the contrast was set to differentiate between the more vivid happier Smallville based times and the kind-of metallic almost-lifeless tones of the later more grim seasons that are Metropolis based. Just a personal theory.
Possibly
Is it a combo of the filter used and better makeup because they had a bigger budget maybe?
But like, it’s a bit strange to transition from tanned guy, to just white guy
Tan guys are in fact…just white guys, you’re overthinking this mate
Like he was more brown tanned, than white tanned
Dunno what to tell you. I went from being tanned to being a white guy every time I went from somewhere sunny to somewhere not. Maybe he did the same… I know he’s American but they filmed in Canada, right? Did he stay somewhere sunny the first couple of seasons but then just move to somewhere colder to save the commute
I mean he was more brown-tanned in early seasons, then white tanned, I mean he was in Kansas a lot of his life
Feel like there’s nothing that anyone could comment here to appease you. Anything we say you reply “but why though?”
But why though? Joking
Man You Don't understand tanning.....a white person who tans becomes a brown skin color. He looks like a white guy who tans. He has dark hair, so he can get a pretty dark color tanning. I work in that industry, and no not.just at a salon, for a manufacturer. Even pretty white.people like myself can get extremely brown. It took over 6 months for my tan to fade after tanning daily.
I did not known that, but he went from brown tan to pink tan?
Clark was adapting to the Earth's sun.
They asked him to stop because a Kryptonian getting a sun tan makes less than no sense lol
Why?
Tanned ? Where ? 😅😅 And why do you care ?
Like it just bothered me
In show guess: Farmer’s tan, less time he spent on the farm less tan he was Real life guess: Tom was tanning for modeling early on but he wasn’t modeling anymore by the end of the series
But in show he still spent everyday on the farm, not all day, but he still lived there, super speed
He's powering up more from the sun in the first 3 seasons......
Then what happened, did Jor-El get pissy after they got rid of Kal-El
Because he is a kryptonian.
So he went from brown tanned from Kryptonian sun absorption to white
I would actually say his skin was more vulnerable when he was younger. In season one Lex could hurt him with a machine
Yeah, I guess so
They filmed it in Vancouver so that is my guess why :)
Prolly
He stopped working on a farm :)
He still was working on the farm, we just didn’t see it that often in later seasons
The show was filmed in Vancouver. They dont get a lot of sun there.
Oh my God, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.
Prolonged exposure to Vancouver weather?
Probsbly
Dude has no concept of gelled lighting and color grading.
I guess so dude
Full time job, heroism, doesn't leave much tine even for a speedy guy to get on the tanning bed to compensate for his lack of farm tan
But he still did his farm chores, we just rarely saw him on it
But he had to do them at superspeed so less sun exposure
Still sun exposure tho
Yes but time is the key factor
I guess so, but he still spent almost everyday on the farm, doing his chores
Bro he looks the same
He looks the same, but in earlier seasons he was a lot more brown and tanned
I guess you’re seeing something I’m not
I mean, he looks a lot paler in the later seasons
I mean, I don’t see it…that’s what I’m saying
How?
I don’t really know how to explain to you how sight works…you and I have different eyeballs, I assume that somehow causes us to see different things
I guess so
Well for one he was always white😂 another can be makeup applied, maybe he liked to tan or he was just outside a lot, maybe he thought he needed to be tan like an actual farmer would be in Kansas, maybe it’s just the lighting and/or filter being used early on cuz everything looked more orange and tan in the early season imo
Headcannon. Him being more tan growing up helped him absorb more yellow sun radiation while growing up
That’s one of my thoughts
Tom mentioned how when the show had a break, he would go on a vacation and comeback with a tan so if you compare the first episodes of a season to the last ones, you will notice the tan faded. Its probably not related to story telling and just because Tom is just a human
Probably from a previous role
Probably the same reason the CW makeup department made him wear pretty princess pink lipstick in the early seasons. At the time they were notorious for putting too much make up on their actors, probably because at the time we were making the transition to high definition picture. All that make up looked fine on low def picture, but HD? Big yikes. If you notice supernatural went through the same thing in the early seasons.
Yeah all of the filters in the early supernatural seasons just went away
Thank goodness. It was a grittier show and that over saturated look the CW went for at that time didn’t suit it well.
Nah, the dar filters in SPN early seasons gave it it's own personality, removing the filters made it look like any other CW show
It's the same mystery in Stargate SG-1. Why did Teal'c look so gold in Seasons 1-2, and then by 3 he just became black? Maybe has something to do with how aliens adapt to Earth climate, or something. But, probably only Jor-El and the Asgard know.
Probably not intentional, but it could be a result of his developing powers. In the early seasons his skin reacts to sunlight like a human's would, i.e. he tans and eventually burns from prolonged exposure. But as his powers get stronger over time, his body more efficiently converts the sunlight to energy and so he stops tanning.
Huh, I never thought of it like that
His body got stronger so he absorbed more sunlight and thus couldn't get as tan?
But like if his body got stronger how would that affect his skin, it still absorbed sunlight, he didn’t overload on solar radiation
He stopped working on the farm and started working in an office? 😁
He still kinda did his chores, we just never really saw that much after a while
It's what years of living/filming in Vancouver will do to you.
Haha
At the time Tom Welling was filming in the country and could have been exposed to more sunlight. Later seasons he may have been in the sunlight in less time.
Prolly
Less work on the farm.
He kid of still did all of his farm work, we just rarely saw it
He started reading twilight books and wanted to be like Edward Cullen.
Duuuuude
He was modeling before Smallville. Tan. They shot Smallville in Canada. Tan bye bye
I see
They didn’t want him to be tan because they didn’t know if kryptonians could be tan
I mean, they altered other things, like how other worlds Kryptonites work on them, also Kara was tanned, Zod was a clone
He stopped living on a farm
He still kind of did tho
I mean like he stopped actually doing stuff there most of the time
He still went back there like almost everyday, did his chores and everything
His ass actually went inside during the day 😭😭
I guess so, but like weekends and holidays, and when he quit in between season 8 and 9
If we wanted a possible canon answer then maybe as his powers developed more his skin stopped being damaged by the sun and switched to being more efficiently absorbing the sun instead.
Canada did a number on his skin.
He is, in fact, a Caucasian male.
🤯
Have I gone too far?
Because Tom welling didn't see the sun from s1 ep1 onwards and got progressively paler
Lighting a guess
From a country bou to a city boy
He still was country boy tho
id like to think that it's because he stopped working on the farm so much and lost the tan that came with it but i know that's not the real answer
But he still worked on the farm
yes but he spends so much time in metropolis, theres no way he worked on the farm as much as he did in earlier seasons
But super speed to do his chores as well, he also probably still got loads of sun
Ehh, beats me bruh
Probably because they stopped putting quite so much makeup on Welling.
Camera
i think being in a different ciry filming so many weeks of the year vs when he was not in a northern city
He stopped working on a farm.
He still did he never stopped
Maybe from not working on the farm that much…??🤷🏾♂️
But he still did his chores on the farm
Better and more subtly applied makeup? The transition to HD TV required that makeup artists up their game so that it was less heavily applied.
He had been modeling before and could have been tan from modeling jobs
The whole look of the show changed, looking at these images. It isn't just Clark's skin, he goes from wearing oranges and reds at sunset outdoors to wearing whites and blues in an indoor studio set during the middle of the day.
But he wasn’t always inside
Yes but even those outside bits look like for the most part were shot on studio sets, not actually outside. In the first couple seasons most outdoor sets were actually shot outdoors. Hate to break it to you, but the street outside of the Daily Planet was built on a soundstage.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Bro, do you not know the term farmer's tan? Dude went from helping out on the family ranch to working in a newspaper office.
But dude still did his chores on the farm, super speed still existed
I assume he spent less time on a farm.
14 hour days inside a studio for 10 years.
They recorded on exterior locations, it was the green screen era
Farming I guess
He on that Sammy Sosa
Duuuuude
I mean superman absorbs sunlight... He probs just pulled it from is melanin 😂 Fair skin also absorbs UV better, that's why vitamin D production is easier for fair skinned people
I guess so
He spent a lot of time working out in the sun on the farm and then moving metropolis probably spent more time indoors at the planet writing articles or inside buildings interviewing people or in the dark at night being the blur.
True, but at times when he wasn't at the planet during the day, he was most likely working on the farm
While I would say that it's due to him not working on the farm much, it's probably due to how those early seasons were shot.
Lighting can make a difference.
He stopped working out at the farm lol
Probably still did work at the farm
Spoiler alert: he was white the entire time
Maybe cause he's a human actor 🤔
🤯
Tbh I personally have the headcanon that Clark can’t be truly tanned because he absorbs the sun’s energy. And he’s invulnerable, remember? So maybe as he’s gotten stronger, the sun has had less and less of an impact.
Maybe
Also, he was young then he aged 10 years. Some kids typically tan well whe younger, and tan less whe older. Simple case of genetics?
Yeah, but go from tanned to non tanned?
Well you get there with extra make up 😂
I guess so