Don't Believe What You See at the Movies

MattSparkes writes "Many images you see in a magazine are Photoshopped, and it's getting less and less likely that what you see at the cinema is any more genuine. In the film 'Blood Diamond', tears were added to Jennifer Connolly's face after a scene was shot. According to The Times, digital effects artists can even change actors' expressions. 'Opening or closing eyes; making a limp more convincing; removing breathing signs; eradicating blinking eyelids from a lingering gaze; or splicing together different takes of an unsuccessful love scene to produce one in which both parties look like they are enjoying themselves.' The article mentions the moral qualms digital effects people have over performing these manipulations, and the steps actors are taking to protect their digital assets."

Comments

Go rent LOOKER

[SirLanse]

Looker is an old movie about digitizing actors and then killing them.
It is finally becoming technically possible.

not just movies

[minus_273]

even "news" photographs from are photoshopped by news outlets to present a one sided story. A good example is the Reuters photoshopped photos from the israel-lebanon war.

Once they got caught the photos were killed, but hundreds of doctored photos made it on the front pages of news papers around the word anyway.

Re:not just movies

[jmac1492]

Actuallly, the Reuters photoshop thing was a BAD example. Reuters bought the picture from a photographer and sold it to newspapers. That's what Reuters does. The photographer, before selling it to Reuters, edited the picture. Reuters eventually found out about it, issued a retraction, and refused to buy any more photographs from that photographer. There was a mistake, but the system fixed it.
If this is a widespread phenomenom, as opposed to a one shot mistake that Reuters owned up to as soon as they found out about it, can you provide any other examples?

No Post-Edit Clause

[ashitaka]

I have more respect for an actors that insists on a "No-post editing" clause and can proudly let everyone know that is the case.

I re-watched Castaway the other day.

Yes, Tom Hanks wasn't on an island when he goes to the top of the hill and looks around at an endless expanse of ocean (he was in a hollywood backlot) but the expression on his face made you believe he was.

S1m0ne?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

iirc they made a movie on this subject, it was called S1m0ne

sure

[Mr 44]

http://www.frankwbaker.com/war_photo_challenges.ht m

Re:Don't believe Live TV either!

[RSCruiser]

An X-Y-Z co-ordinate system is used in the cameras along side the zoom state to figure out the positioning of the magic yellow line. It's been part of a few stadium stories on the History and Discovery channels.

Re:not sure I get the controversy

[Thagg]

On the other hand, there is a certain well-known actress, somewhat getting on in years it's true, who has her own personal digital retouch artist. Any movie she is in, she hires this guy to retouch all of her scenes. He knows her face intimately, knows just what to highlight, what the diminish, what to blur, what to sharpen.

I do visual effects for a living, I've never met anybody with any qualms whatsoever about making a shot better. It's what we do!

Do cinematographers object to putting softening filters in front of camera lenses when shooting the female talent, because it's "not real?" No.

My friend Lance Williams said it best when accepting his Sci-Tech award -- "It doesn't matter if it's real, it matters if it's true."

Thad

Re:Don't believe Live TV either!

[ryry]

Ars Technica explains the "yellow line" technology (and other related football tech) in this article: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/firstandte n.ars

Re:Even Baby Jesus cried...

[VJ42]

I don't know who modded the parent up, but the link is to consumptionjunction, so don't click.

Re:Performances-where to draw the line?

[LaminatorX]

What about make-up? Is a performance a lesser achievement because makeup was used to make a character's face look older, rather than relying solely on body language and vocal cues?

There are so many emotional cues on a person's voice and face, that I'm inclined to think that if they composited a tear onto a poor actor's face, it would still be a poor performance. A bad actor faking tears with glycerin in an eye-dropper isn't any better than a bad actor getting a digital tear.

OTOH, if a great actor has all the other pieces in place, but simply didn't muster a whole tear-drop in what was an otherwise outstanding performance, I don't see how adding a bit more water in post is any different from making effective use of make-up or lighting.

I imagine it's rather grueling in film where one might do a dozen takes of a scene to get all the angles and what-not. Could anyone get just-the-right-tear each time? What if the take with the best delivery and chemistry didn't have a well formed tear-drop, but the shot from two takes earlier did? Would it be more authentic for the director/editor to cut the two takes together or to composite the tear digitally?

We already have films in which significant portions of dialog are re-dubbed in post. The authenticity of those performances aren't questioned. I don't see how this is qualitatively different from that.

Now, I will agree, that this is a factor that those who make nominations and cast votes for such awards should take into account in their deliberations. This is one of the reasons someone needs a certain number of professional credits under the belt before being allowed to vote for the more prestigious awards like the SAG awards or the Oscars. A veteran of the craft should (in theory, anyway) be able to differentiate a bravura performance from mere artifice. If the nominees peers chose to give more weight to a performance that was captured and packaged in a lower tech, more "true to life" manner, over a performance that has been more "produced;" it is certainly within their purview to do so.

Re:not sure I get the controversy

[swillden]

I do a lot of photography, and I can radically change the image by changing the position of the camera, the lighting, the composition of my shot, the lens I use, F-stop(aperture), exposure, ISO settings(sensitivity),

I just want to amplify a little on what you've said here, because I'm sure a lot of people read it and thought "Yeah, but it's still a picture of what was in front of the camera".

A good photographer (I am not one, but I'm learning) can dramatically alter a scene by the way he chooses to capture it -- so much so that two different photographs of the same scene can seem completely different.

Some examples:

Camera view. The obvious way that camera angle changes the shot is by altering what is in front of the camera. From one angle, you may see a stern, impassive face, while from another you may catch the tearing eye. Sometimes, you can choose an angle that completely excludes key parts of the background or subject -- a scruffy teen violently grabbing an old woman's purse-holding hand might look very different if you can see the out-of-control truck bearing down on her.

Camera angle. More subtly, camera angle can significantly alter the emotion of a shot. Shooting portraits from an angle a little below the subject's line of sight makes the subject look larger, stronger, more confident. Shooting at a downward angle does the opposite. Profile shots can make the subject look pensive, or serene. Shooting from one side and behind, adjusting the camera angle can change the apparent set of a shoulder, changing the subject's apparent attitude. With landscapes, shooting from low on the ground emphasizes foreground space, while shooting from above emphasizes the background.

Lighting. Lighting is what photography is all about. The color, intensity, direction, tone, diffusion/flatness change everything. Shadows can obscure or emphasize elements, or even create them out of thin air. Light direction, intensity and color can do the same, hiding or applying emphasis to elements (one trick is that powerful, very diffuse lighting fills in shadows, hiding wrinkles, pimples and other blemishes), and even more importantly can dramatically alter the emotional content of the image.

Composition. Composition is about directing the viewer's eye and about creating balance or the lack thereof. The viewer's eye tends to naturally fall first on the left or right of the image, and shapes and edges in the image can then lead the eye on the path the photographer wants it to take, highlighting details the photographer wants to emphasize and completely passing by elements the photographer wants to obscure. They're there, and if you take time to study the image you'll see them, but a more casual view won't generally spot them.

Beyond directing the eye, composition has a lot to do with the overall beauty or ugliness of the image. A nicely composed image that has balance, beautiful shape and form, laid out where the eye wants to find it, appropriate use and location of open space, comfortable grounding, etc., can be beautiful independent of what is actually in the image. A photo that deliberately violates these rules can be ugly or disconcerting. Images with beautiful composition tend therefore to highlight the positive aspects of an image, while bad composition highlights the negative aspects of an image -- making an ugly scene uglier, for example.

I'll stop here, but sharpness, depth of field, adjusting filters, lens choice, film choice, camera choice, etc., etc., etc., all can have an effect on highlighting or obscuring details and on changing the emotional tone of the image. Don't underestimate the importance of the tone, either. A smoothly textured shot of a horrific war scene, carefully soft-focused to obscure gory details and artfully composed with a beautiful balance that guides the eye away from the horror can leave the viewer with the impression that the horrors of war have their redeeming