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."
uncanny valley (Score:3, Interesting)
Bad Idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Yeah. The line is, 'Don't do it'.
Hollywood has plenty of new, undiscovered, actors. This only allows for the studio executives to cash in on famous titles, by developing terrible sequels that should never be made. i.e. Terminator 3, or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.
..Or maybe this great power could be used for the forces of good. Ooh! I know! They could finally make Rocky X.
Ethical? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Terminator Salvation (Score:4, Interesting)
*SPOILER*
As mediocre as the movie was, I couldn't help but smile when Arnold shows up as a fresh T-800, looking like he just stepped off the set of the original film. Granted while there are only brief shots of his face - the rest of the scenes using typical hide-a-stunt-double camera angles - it was still a really cool scene in my opinion.
But as far as doing something more elaborate like a new Bond film starring a 'young' Sean Connery? I don't think the tech is there yet. The uncanny valley is really hard to get out of. Sure a still shot can be rendered to look flawless, but as soon as they start talking it just feels terribly uncomfortable.
I'd go the opposite. (Score:5, Interesting)
I like classic actors and classic films as much as anyone, but, if the United States is to continue, we need to have the arts be alive and stories be retold through new actors, directors and minds. Like, I'm glad Trek got a new crew, but I think we could go even beyond that. We need to break out of racial typecasting. Like, why can't a black or asian guy play the lead in MacBeth? Are greedy kings somehow relevant only to white people? Or why couldn't a white guy play a role as a slave? Acting is -acting-. Screw computers bringing back dead people. Let's use computers to make it possible for anyone to be Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, let every high school play have great special effects. Let's mix high art and low, TV and theater, toss it all into the pot, mix things up, and do something new.
Here comes the bootleg porn (Score:4, Interesting)
Something tells me that being able to take virtually any actor and use them virtually in a film is going to open up two rather annoying types of movies:
Porn movies with well known actors
Chinese alternative history movies where well known US actors find themselves on the losing side of World War 2.
Doing to movies what Microsoft did to Programming. (Score:4, Interesting)
Could this be the start of the "Quick button click movie maker"? Something akin to a rather more advanced version of the game "The Movies", where you can set a scene from a variety of landscapes (similar to Vue D'Esprit, or some other landscape renderer), add actors (taken from stock modifiable ones, as per Poser, or similar), add in movements and pathing.. Voices taken from a modifiable bank.. Add in stock effects and so on.. And have the bulk of it in a nice GUI development tool..
I get the suspicion that it'll draw a lot of derision from the real movie makers, but as something that'll be the Visual Basic of the movie world.. Hmm.. This could dispense with a lot of the actors in low prices movies, and if it grows, even in big budget ones.. Though the quality will likely still be missing that 'human touch'.. Still in mass market, like with VB, mostly the only people who'll care will be the ones that really understand the skill and craftmanship behind it.. Your average guy on the street wouldn't care two hoots..
Re:I'd go the opposite. (Score:3, Interesting)
Like, why can't a black or asian guy play the lead in MacBeth?
It's been done. It's been done more than once, and not just as "modern" reinterpretations. For example, there was a 1937 U.S. theater production of Macbeth in which the whole cast was black, and the setting was Haiti rather than Scotland. Orson Welles did the adaptation which employs bullwhips and muskets as well as swordplay, but kept the spoken words unchanged from Shakespeare's version. It was apparently quite successful, and toured widely. There's a video excerpt of one performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PiZYGfRDgo [youtube.com] and the Orson Welles script is available at http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/60695/Macbethdisplay.pdf [wrlc.org] Note that the PDF is a scanned version of the typewritten original, and hence rather large.
Re:Schwarzenegger inTerminator Salvation (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget Judge Dread. I'm probably wrong but that may be the first. They couldn't get the CGI bike to align with Silvester Stallone's body so instead they made a 3D Stallone and put that on the CGI bike.
Avatar's CGI (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: uncanny valley (Score:2, Interesting)
What you are describing is OCD and not just being hyper observant.
Hyper observant would be noticing that the revolver in the original saw was empty ( no spent shells ) so that the "dead" body on the floor at the end could not have killed itself.
OCD is noticing that there are 17 flowers in the vase and not 16.
"ethical line" schmethical line (Score:4, Interesting)
This is HOLLYWOOD we're talking about, where they f*ck their best friend over 2x before breakfast.
I'm pretty certain that this technology will be used to REPLACE extras by the 000's within 10 years, and prima donna actors within 25 years.
Once you've mo-capped 10,000 people walking in a straight line in your database, how hard would it be for a director to tell his cgi guy 'yeah, I want the actor to cross the room', and the cgi can pull up a menu and reply 'you want a sashay, swagger, jaunty gait, stalk, slide, stomp, amble, limp,or other sort of walk; also, do you want John Wayne, Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, or Carrot Top as the main feel?'
Sure, you might need/want mo-cap for some sort of core framework, but any doofus off the street could do that for 0.0001% of what Tom Cruise would want for it.
Re: uncanny valley (Score:1, Interesting)
They're getting really close: http://gl.ict.usc.edu/Research/DigitalEmily/
And the winner is... (Score:2, Interesting)