Both a long-standing dream and hot topic issue, CGI, and Motion Capture technologies have begun to catch up to the collective imagination of filmmakers and film-lovers alike with the ability to resurrect deceased actors, entertainers, and musicians. A major enthusiast of this concept, I’ve had my ear to the ground for nearly 20 years, wondering what could and would be if beloved, deceased stars were once again headlining films. As I’m not particularly technical-minded, I’ve looked at it from the scope of a filmmaker and screenwriter, and the possibilities are so vast, it’s overwhelming.
So with these limitless possibilities for the living and the dead, what does virtual acting really mean, and how does it influence the future of cinema? Answer: in just about all facets of modern filmmaking. The term its self is broad, covering everything from placing a live actor on a digital background, to creating photo-realistic animation of characters, as with the N’avi of Avatar, or the incredible aging process displayed in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In terms of how it’s going to effect the course of film, it means we are now on the horizon of the next big paradigm shift of human consciousness. The timeline of film and it’s stars no longer traveling in a strait line, but a circle, the past meeting the present and the future.
There have been several attempts over the years to find the best way of making this notion a reality, the most notably being the work of living actors, including Tom Hanks filling of nearly every role in The Polar Express, Bill Nighy’s tentacle-faced Davy Jones in Disney’s Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and Johnny Depp’s Rango, where the actors movements are tracked, and correspond with the digital analogue. As expected however, the situation becomes much stickier when applying these processes to actors who have already passed on to that great production studio in the sky.
One of the first, and most stand-out uses of image manipulation of dead celebrities was in the film Forest Gump (1995), where
existing film was altered to fit the scenes as Forest passed through them. Now the alterations are archaic and obvious, but at the time, it was exciting and cutting-edge, and made for a movie that other movies should aspire to be. Fast-forward a few years to the almost entirely digital Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow (2004), where master thespian Lawrence Olivier was actually billed in the credits. For anyone unlike myself who rented the movie solely for this brief and unimpressive cameo, said brief and unimpressive cameo was nonetheless an important milestone in the world of virtual acting. Daring to go where few other films or filmmakers had, the combination of archival footage and digital animation of Olivier’s face brought the argument back into focus, reminding audiences what it would be like to see an actor return to the screen 15 years after his death. And this brings us up to the present, where we’ve recently seen a race of life-like alien creatures, an aged Brad Pitt and a young Jeff Bridges light up our imaginations, yet this is only scratching the surface of what really lies ahead for the future of film.
Even with all of these developments and plans on the horizon, it’s still light years away in terms of theatrical releases. You will still have to wait to see any of these faces in a theater near you anytime soon. What you can expect however, is a rise of new chapters of classic films and series, putting John McClain, Indiana Jones, The Terminator, and James Dalton back into action once more. The days of replacements having to be found to play the classic characters, where no one is ever satisfied, are coming to a fortunate end. The technology can allow our cherished living
celebs who are past their prime to reanimate the characters they played when they were 30, giving fans and new recruits the opportunity to experience spirited new adventures at the hands of trusted filmmakers like James Cameron and Stephen Spielberg. People will even be able to star in their own biopics, all stages of their lives digitally remastered. It’s true that the technology is not perfect, and could never be, in the end, no matter how visually-realistic the performance is, it still comes down to a rendering, created by a body double model, and a team of artists and writers, interpreting who that person was, and how they would have handled the role. With enough time, experience, and the right attention paid to the detail of the person, that interpretation could still turn out indisputably close to real life, which is the ultimate goal. As an added bonus, when this idea really catches fire and celebrity images are put into regular use, the appalling trend of remakes and reboots, will actually become acceptable and encouraged, as stories can get cast again and again in different settings. The concept of using CGI characters and sets will just be another way films are made, another way to push the boundaries of consciousness and imagination.
If this all sounds too speculative for your tastes, consider 
that as you’re reading my projections, meanwhile, back at the ranch, George Lucas and company have been quietly acquiring the rights to these silver-gilded legends with no outlined purposes, or official announcements on how the images are intended to be used. Although the claim has been met with much static, this is by no means a bad thing, but something all film-lovers should get behind.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely, come-what-may, gung-ho that this technology being implemented, there are far too many ways for it to fall into the wrong hands, and the images of cherished celebs become forever tarnished by carelessness. Obviously, no one wants to see Humphrey Bogart in a pornography, the Cartwrights starting a mob war, or Charlie Chaplin selling tampons, so it’s incredibly important that laws and regulations about image usage be written and enacted now. Like it or not, we live in the future, and are making discoveries, inventions, and developments at a more rapid rate than ever before, and actors and actresses of today need to consider making provisions on how or if their image is to be used after their death, even if ownership of that image changes hands.
A major opponent of virtual acting is the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), looking not just at the potential misuse of the deceased’s images, but the movement towards virtual acting taking away jobs from living actors. Problem is, this argument doesn’t actually hold up to scrutiny. What SAG and other opponents fail to realize, is that the use of virtual acting is expanding what can be done with the medium, and could in no way replace organic filmmaking with actors, writers, technicians and a director. As with all major shifts in technological acceptance, it’s simply another way to implement the impossible, and reinvigorate an industry that has long abandoned fanship and quality. With audience support, this trend can take flight, and create an entire new way to experience the movies.
Let it be known that I miss the days of giant handmade sets, and thousands of extras in front of and behind the camera just like everyone else, but at some point, we as an audience have to acknowledge that some things are meant to be appreciated for what they were, and others meant to be resurrected like zombies from the grave, and ogled by future generations.
No comments:
Post a Comment