James Cameron On How Avatar Technology Could Keep Actors Young 404
Suki I writes "An article at EW discusses another use for Avatar's sophisticated motion-capture technology: 'Sure, it's terrific for turning human actors into big blue alien Na'vis. But the photorealistic CGI technology James Cameron perfected for Avatar could easily be used for other, even more mind-blowing purposes — like, say, bringing Humphrey Bogart back to life, or making Clint Eastwood look 35 again. "How about another Dirty Harry movie where Clint looks the way he looked in 1975?" Cameron suggests. "Or a James Bond movie where Sean Connery looks the way he did in Doctor No? How cool would that be?"' The article goes on to quote Cameron as saying you would still need actors to play the roles, and that an ethical line needs to be drawn somewhere."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH no (Score:5, Insightful)
NO
Avatar did not address the uncanny valley (Score:5, Insightful)
Those weren't humans, they were blue skinned aliens with very different facial features. The uncanny valley was not addressed, so we have no idea how this "photoreal" technology stands up to that close inspection.
I'm far far FAR from unbiased on this, but if you wanted to speculate on making actors look younger, you'd still be better served looking at Benjamin Button.
"How cool would that be?" (Score:5, Insightful)
"How cool would that be?"
I don't know. Depends on how good the movie is.
Re:Avatar did not address the uncanny valley (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ethical? (Score:4, Insightful)
What ethical line? It's all business, actors are very expensive and often behave like divas so removing the actors and replacing them with rendered models can increase the profit margins for the movie studios.
Using rendered models not only saves you the millions that big name actors typically demand, but you no longer need to hire filming locations, stage stunts etc... Actors face becoming obsolete sooner or later.
Movie production of the future will be done in third world countries, where hundreds of poorly paid workers beaver away in a callcenter like environment constructing and animating digital models.
The fact that it's profitable does not automatically sidestep any ethical considerations. Case in point: It would be very profitable to chain your workers to the factory floor and have them work 18 hours a day for no money, and consumers would be able to buy the wares much cheaper, yet it would not be ethical.
In this case, one can question whether the studios have the (moral and legal) right to the actors' image beyond what they've filmed.
Using existing actors is only the first step (Score:2, Insightful)
Schwarzenegger inTerminator Salvation (Score:5, Insightful)
Video clip (may spoil the movie): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY57vJOQIlE [youtube.com]
Re:Oh my dream will come true! (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/zombie_reagan_raised_from_grave [theonion.com] ?
All bow to the Great Cameron (Score:5, Insightful)
Who single handedly invented, revolutionized and perfected 3D animation. This is the message I'm getting, what did he really do? He told some engineers he wanted a motion capture camera smacked on the forehead of the actors to capture their facial expressions better, he co-developed some camera system for 7 years (I doubt he did any coding).
For crying out loud, he's a 'director' with lots of cash and a name with huge momentum. I don't flame him for making CG flicks, but taking glory for the whole franchise like some demigod, please, don't start calling motion-capture 'Avatar-technology'.
why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'd go the opposite. (Score:3, Insightful)
*Shrug* You can have whoever you want in any act role. Depends if you're going for historical accuracy, or put anyone into the role.
By the same token, you could redo the stories of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and have them cast as a white skinhead with swastikas on his arm. I'm guessing that it'll detract from the canon of the story.
Hey, much better idea. Why bother with rehashing the old stories, which have a vast amount of accepted roles behind them, and create NEW stories, where the hero is a particular person from a particular background? That's what art is supposed to be, creating new. There are a goodly many 'updates' to the Shakespearean plays, with all kinds of people playing the roles. And that works nicely..
Personally, I've seen Shakespearean plays with black leads, and they were good.. Have you watched any movies at all? There are a goodly many that spring to mind with white slaves (contemporary Human Trafficking stories, or older ones circa Roman Empire, and there were plenty).. Greedy white kings? Watch the news! There are still stories on that in real life, not to mention god alone knows how many movies.. No idea where you're getting this concept that all this can't happen in stories, movies and shows when it already does.. To be honest, I think people just need to get over this absolute obsession with race, and wondering why people of a colour skin can't do something (when they blatantly do), and just get on with putting the good people in the right places.
That little rant aside, the mixing of various artforms is absolutely alive and vibrant out there.. Not for everyone, but it's good to see people experimenting with it.. Long may it continue!
James Cameron perfected... what? (Score:2, Insightful)
the photorealistic CGI technology James Cameron perfected [...]
James Cameron is a mediocre film director and a terrible writer, but I'm willing to bet he's even worse at coding, 3D modelling or animation.
James Cameron did not "perfect" anything. He paid some people to put something together so he could make more money from it. Most of the technology used to streamline the CGI production in Avatar was in fact developed for other films (ex., "Benjamin Button").
And, in any case, the "new" part about Avatar is the (nearly automatic) "performance capture", not the "photorealistic" rendering, which has been around for ages (how realistic you want it depends on how much time or render nodes you can afford to throw at it).
Re:Input-Output... (Score:5, Insightful)
At most it may need some tweaking.
That's what my boss usually says right before I pull a week of all-nighters
Re:James Cameron perfected... what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who gets remembered is not who uses pieces of a technology, but who puts the pieces together into a gestalt. We can look to Apple for that. Before the iPod and iPhone, the pieces were around, touchscreen UI, multitouch, app stores, and smartphones. However, who got the mindshare to Joe Sixpack wasn't RIM, it was Apple who spun existing technologies together to make something cool.
Cameron is the same way. The CG aliens are not new, but the way they were done as a main part of the film is, making sure the uncanny vally is bypassed by having different facial features (ears way high on the head, larger irises, flattened nose, the facial shading). 3D is not new either, but Avatar is the first widespread movie that used 3D technology without having to force theaters to upgrade their projection equipment.
These days, it is not who invents something that gets the cash (else Xerox would be in the Fortune 10 with their PARC inventions.) It is who manages to package existing stuff and sell it who takes home the prize.
Re:James Cameron perfected... what? (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, jealous much? Like him or not, but given how successful he is, Cameron must be doing SOMETHING right.
Put another way: if he can't direct, can't write, can't code, can't model and can't animate, and if the only thing he did is to get certain people (Fox) give money to other people so that those other people would then do all the things necessary to make a movie... why aren't you doing the same thing? Obviously, if it takes no effort, no skill and no talents, then every random Joe should be able to do it.
Go on, try it. I'm waiting.
Re:Ethical line ? In movies ? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see anything unethical there. Let's take that Hitler+Stalin having sex, for example. Why exactly is it unethical? Does it hurt Hitler's feelings? Hell, I am a communist (not only on internet forums but am actually active in a political party, etc.) and still don't find that so offensive.
You gave examples of people who have all passed away. I think that the potential ethical problems would be when models are made of people who are alive and haven't given a consent. Can I watch a porn movie and choose someone I know as a "skin" for one of the characters? Can a political party make videos where a politician from another party appears? Is a small "This isn't really Barack Obama" disclaimer enough? It will be a pain in the ass to create laws for this stuff.
As for this being used to child porn... The idea appeals to me. While there is some debate about the subject, I believe that if pedophiles have more access to porn, that will cause them to have less desire to go and molest a child. The problem is that we can't make child porn without harming children... Except that this technique might change that.
Perfected (Score:4, Insightful)
But the photorealistic CGI technology James Cameron perfected...
Whoa. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was damn impressive, but it most certainly wasn't perfect. It was always clear that what I was looking at was CG. It is not yet at a point where the computer is going to fool the viewer into thinking that what they are seeing is real. It's come a hell of a long way but we're not yet at "perfected." Not by a long shot.
Re:What's next? (Score:3, Insightful)
depressing for the big stars who can no longer demand a jetplane or two as part of their fee...
I don't know about that. Right now, we're still talking about motion capture, which means you still need an actor. Great actors aren't just good looking, but they know how to improvise, use their bodies and voice, and bring life to the part. As advanced as Avatar was, there were still times that I was aware of it being CGI because the movements of the characters were too smooth. Even with motion capture and voice acting, there still wasn't enough... I don't know what. Imperfection.
So while this may be fine for altering someone's appearance (assuming we can get past the uncanny valley), but it won't be a straight-up replacement yet. I guess it could open the door for a new class of actor. Like right now they have voice actors, but maybe they'll have body actors or something. I guess we're already seeing that with actors like Andy Serkis, Doug Jones, and Ray Park (who hasn't done motion capture, but has had multiple parts that seem to boil down to "mute or nearly mute acrobatic fighter").
Re: Mix The Best (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of human actors are that they're good at their job - acting (and marketing themselves, in some cases). They are not hired for their face or body as much as their acting ability. There are a lot of people out there who have great faces and bodies but do not end up as superstar actors. If the goal in casting was to have a perfect-looking human, many of our top actors today would not be where they are.
The whole point of avatar was that there were good human actors driving the CG effects.
Re:Ethical line ? In movies ? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a reason that many cultures have a tradition of respecting the dead.
While you're alive, you strive to do the best you can, because once you're gone, the only legacy you pass on is memories of you, in the people who knew you, and anything you've written or produced.
If it's all of a sudden allowable in the name of entertainment to say complete lies about you and pass it off as fact (well, apart from the fact that historians have been doing this for as long as history has been recorded), it adds in one more thing to worry about, and life's full enough of those as it is. How would your descendants would feel if, for example, someone wrote a movie, in which you were explicitly identified, and represented as a hard right wing mass murderer responsible for ethnic cleansing initiatives?
Yeah, I know, it's not a hard argument. There again, very little in ethics is a cut and dried matter. To be ethical, you should present the truth as closely as you can, in the spirit with which the person lived their life once they're gone. Your proposal blatantly doesn't do this, and most likely goes in direct opposition to what their wishes were. This is unethical.
Definitely agreed that skinning will be a far greater problem (unenforceable, but unethical against illegal, as celebrities own the rights to their own image).
On the Child Porn thing.. Hmm.. Very contentious.. I don't know enough about the effects on the active libido, and how that in turn affects the desire for real world satisfaction. I don't trust the politicians' voices on this, and the psychologists have to tread very very carefully while researching this.. I'll leave that one for scientific debate with people who get more of an idea of the real implications, backed up by hard data..
Re:Avatar did not address the uncanny valley (Score:3, Insightful)
"and that an ethical line needs to be drawn somewhere"
I'm pretty sure any ethical line the movie industry comes up with will be drawn by money.
these kinds of comments always make me laugh (Score:3, Insightful)
where the random internet troll heavily bashes some of the most successful politicians/ directors/ writers/ musicians/ businessmen/ programmers/ etc
based on his vast reserves of authority, based on his obvious advanced knowledge of a given genre
you don't have to like cameron, but he's obviously extremely successful and knowledgeable. and you are...?
and then it gets modded 5, Insightful! LOL
hilarious
its the great useless ignorant mass of human drek, moved to its great unifying passion: tearing other people down in howling unison
moronic mindless internet hate is the great dependable resource of our generation. lets put it to political work, harness it for power! oh wait, the tea baggers beat me to it... ;-P
some of you loud negative losers: why don't you try for once in your life actually making a small positive effort on your own? and redeem your sorry pathetic asses
this is your chance to bash this comment. you do it SO well. its all you know how to do, mindless negative feedback, to everything vaguely positive in your empty pointless lives