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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."
Isn't a director's responsibility to convey exactly what he (she) wants to say? Isn't movie-making mostly about suspending belief? Isn't this all make believe (not including documentaries, etc.)?
It seems to me (and IANAD) directors have the ulimate creative say so in movie creation. I find the manipulation in magazines offensive, because ostensibly a picture of a model represents reasonable facsimiles of that model, often in some context of cause and effect of some beauty products. Distortions and manipulations there are dishonest, and brush up against fraud.
But movies are supposed to be about make believe. Heck, most movies these days are rife with computer graphics and openly so. What is the nuance and difference with doctoring an actors performance?
Most actors are what (famous, popular) they are because they were at the right place at the right time. Directors have a tougher case to prove... they are ultimately responsible for the entire package and the effects, emotions, stories, etc., their movies bring. Their palette is more complex. I don't begrudge them their creative license.
Actors who think otherwise, as stated in the article, can stipulate contractually their work be preserved, but there are few actors who warrant that honor. (I have to laugh that Tom Cruise would stipulate that "manipulation" to make him look better is okay, but else it's not... especially ironic from coming from a Scientologist who interprets a world of "datagrams".)
Do I feel deceived Jennifer C.'s tears were fake? Hmmmmm.... had she "acted" them, what would have made them any more real?
Now he will finally be able to show some expression of emotion on his face again.
Looker is an old movie about digitizing actors and then killing them.
It is finally becoming technically possible.
....that this is somehow new and at all suprising?
Chris Knight is my hero.
Watch a sporting event such as football or especially baseball. You will see the ads placed around the stadium change. I'm not talking about those "scrolling" signs, those are real, but computer generated signs that are not really at the stadium.
Also, how do they move that yellow line so fast in football?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Or if you're Faux News, that's called "news" <zing \>
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Hmm, does this all mean that soon actors may be mere meat sacks on which to draw/animate? I suppose it is easier to use a real person as a canvas for the visual bits and then bring in good voice actors for the rest than a completely CG character. Is SAG's days numbered? Who cares? The real question is will this manipulation result in better film making? If not, it's really all irrelevant to the movie going public.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Do you know how devistated I was when I found out that Lieutenant Dan really did have both of his legs???
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Maybe now when Lucas re-remakes the Star Wars movies, we'll see some good acting!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
They do this in movies? Actually take different 'clips' and put them together to convey some sort of story? Bastards! I have played the fool for the last time.
From now on I will only view movies shot in one take.
Sweet informative mod.
You mean... the movies aren't real???
This always makes me wonder about the courtroom. How do they prove that pictures and video are genuine?
--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
Anyone that has deep moral qualms over digital movie effects has absolutely no sense of perspective.
Remember how cheesy the CGI Jabba the Hutt looked compared to the original puppet? Remember how convincingly real the original Star Wars spaceship models looked compared to more modern computer animations? Remember how the makers of Forrest Gump tried and failed to Photoshop words into the mouths of George Wallace and JFK, finally opting instead to exhume their bodies and stuff them with animatronics?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
What do you mean, "Movies might not be real". But, I believe everything I see in the movies. I find it funny that Indiana Jones' twin is really Han Solo, I think Indiana would have shot first too.
So at what point do the actor's/actress' talents become obsolete? Could the break point be when it's less expensive to pay someone to clean up bad acting versus shelling out uber-bucks for a good actor? Maybe Pixar (et al) are the pioneers on what is to come, in which everything is essentially generated virtually.
The bright side that I can see is that perhaps not having to put up with so many dumb, uneducated actors as public role models and political activists.
I don't think anyone needs to worry too much about the lack of truth in movie scenes. Movies are supposed to be entertainment, and thus, most of them are fiction. We're PRESENTED with an untruth and asked to set aside what we may know or think to be true and enjoy it. As such, digitally manipulating movies to be more potent or seem more realistic (like removing breathing from a supposedly dead body) isn't really any different then watching a movie where movie special effects have made Yoda battle.
Having said that, I think the real problem is that the craft of acting will suffer immensely for it. No more will you have directors screaming at actors "GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME!! Take 312! Action!", you'll get instead "That's good enough Tina. Digital will fix it up for us."
Before long, will be getting digital accent manipulation. Digital... well, all the examples I can think of are already beginning to be done like digital teeth whitening, digital smiles, digital crying.
When you can't even believe anymore that the actors on the screen are even PRETENDING to feel emotional about something, movies will lose much of their entertainment value and their emotional appeal. If the actors aren't willing to pretend, why should you? Suspension of disbelief will end. Most movies are crap, but there are gems out there. To protect this artform, there needs to be limits and rules set about what can and can't be digitally manipulated or crafted.
This strikes me as very silly.
Is it 'not real' when a painter adds an object to his painting that isn't in the scene? Should we also object to the use of lighting on movie sets, because it modifies the natural lighting of the scene? Maybe makeup as well?
Yeah, that's why they're called special effects. Next comes replacing the actors with CGI and synthesized voices. In many cases it will be obvious because the quality of the acting will improve.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I can tolerate fake tears more than phone numbers that start with 555, comic-book format computer interfaces with security that can be cracked in a couple of keystrokes, noisy explosions in space, ...
I, too, photoshopped liquid onto Jennifer Connely's face.
Best Windows Freeware
It is all acting anyway, so what difference does it make if it is enhanced by music, sound effects, lighting effects, CGI, or Photoshop? Who cares? Do we complain when we hear those fake fight sounds? You do know that a fist hitting a face in real life doesn't make a loud "crack" sound, right? It is usually more of a dull thud. But that just doesn't go over very well on film. Hell, why not complain that the actors aren't really hitting each other!?
Now, if it were a documentary or something where I might expect to get something resembling reality, then I might be worried, but movies are all about fooling my mind into feeling (for the duration of the film) that they are real. Blood Diamond was a pretty good movie if you ask me. I love Jennifer Connelly, digital tears an all.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Are you telling me Dave Jones was manipulated with CGI? Damn you, Gore Verbinski !!!!
... film producers conspire to create illusions of reality! What's next, writers producing fictional accounts? Can it happen here?
// This is not a sig.
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.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Is this for real? It's ENTERTAINMENT. I could care less if they replaced all actors with CGI. How does 'morality' factor into any of this??? If anything, top tier actors and actresses getting $20-$40 million for starring in a film is the immoral bit here.
and they're adding extra inches in porn movies, right?
No, but I thought I recommended that you keep quiet about your problem? We will discuss this at our next appointment.
Dr. Longjohn
Penile Shortage Specialist
Short Short Men Plaza, Lake Flaccid
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
I applaud the use of these techniques in the movie industry, they are a great medium in telling a story on the big screen.
... There they offer a great medium to falsify stories, and mislead the public. In the future we will have to become ever more vigilant when looking at images of important events!
What scares me is that these techniques are finding there way into the news, documentaries,
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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.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
The award for Best Actress goes too... Jennifer_Connelly_Face_4 + Jennifer_Connelly_Body_3 + Emotions_Tears_Female_2.
I'm willing to bet the author of that post has no idea why naming yourself after the "world's worst science fiction writer" isn't the most credible way to distribute a conspiracy rant.
Clear, Dark Skies
.. that maybe Chewbacca wasn't a real Wookie?
There are already thousands of good and affordable actors out there. I think what the studios are willing to pay so much for is not acting skill, but cultural recognizability. The next step is for someone to create, popularize, and license not just CGI actors, but CGI celebrities - an idea already explored by William Gibson.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
<!JOKETYPE humor PUBIC "-//W3C//DTD YOURMOTHERML 1.0 Sarcastic//EN" "http://www.wtf.org/TR/yourmotherml1/DTD/yourmothe rml1-sarcastic.dtd">
<attitude>
<zinger>Learn to terminate a tag, jackass!</zinger>
<ps>j/k</ps>
</attitude>
Wait a minute, movies are fake? That stuff isn't real? I guess that's why my neighbor's body didn't turn to dust after I stabbed that sharpened stake through his heart.
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
Those weren't real dinos? My world is slowly melting...
iirc they made a movie on this subject, it was called S1m0ne
This is all just FUD, next you'll try to tell me that Jar Jar Binks had digitally added ears? Please.
"I'll see you next time." - LeVar Burton
is fake
Acting is a craft. For example, a dock worker (at least traditionally) was someone who had more worked out muscles and were able to control them well, knew the little tricks how to lift very heavy weights in such a way that he can do it all day. Actors are people who either learn by one way or another how to control their face muscles or sometimes, are actually mutants that have their nerve system wired in such a way that they can control face muscles since birth. Really, it's not much more than that. Where is honesty in that? These days, a dock worker drives a forklift. In the future, 'actors' will drive a -- mouse.
moral qualms digital effects people have over performing these manipulations
Movies aren't real? We can't do warp speed and squirrels can't fly?
Cinema, like theatre, involves teh willing suspension of disbelief; and directors use the tools available to create the illusion they desire - wether it's via camera angles, mats, blue screens, computer graphics or what have you. That's why we have special effects artists, foley artists, makeup artists, etc - to create a mood and help tell a story.
Unless a scene is being presented as a fact, there should be no moral qualms about using available technology to create whatever you want on screen.
and the steps actors are taking to protect their digital assets
Wherever you stick your digit it should be protected.
Seriously, no doubt digital rights will be a negotiation point; I can see it prevent release of movies that have been enhanced on teh grounds thsoe rights were not paid for initially. While we may not agree with that position it is consistant with the move to create and sell (or license) seperately every possible permutation of digital creations.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
http://www.frankwbaker.com/war_photo_challenges.ht m
They make their careers by lying to the audience, and have no problems putting on a crapload of make-up so they look good for the camera and makes them look younger, but now they have problems when their performance is digitally altered to make the film better? I think they're just clinging on to the little sense of reality they have left. Cause when you take away the acting, what else do actors bring to the table?
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I saw the movie, but never realized until now that Reed was even in it, let alone died...
Anyway, interesting explanation here of how Reed's role was completed after he died in real life.
http://www.thebigpicturedvd.com/bigreport8.shtml
... Jar Jar? Please don't tell me *his* tears were Photoshopped too?!!!
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
The director's job is to put together collaboratively the best performances (music, acting, special effects, etc.) that they have the time and ability and financing in order to tell "the story". Not to exercise God-like control over every film pixel that appears on the screen. Which means ultimately that there will have to be legal elements added that re-balance the scales so that an actor's contribution is either designated as modifiable or not-modifiable based on the contract when it is is signed.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I regularly make movies. I am a part of the filming, sometimes the acting, often the editing processes. Being able to select the emotions we want to convey in a scene is a huge part of the film making. Dear sirs who think staying true to the original footage is a necessary part of film making, please stop pushing your ideas on the rest of us.
With this news it appears that Hayden Christiansen might NOT have had three limbs cut off and his body burned to a crisp on a lava planet during that one-in-a-billion take for the end of Star Wars III Revenge of the Sith. I feel betrayed.
I remember when X-Men 3 came out, there was an article showing the "anti-aging" effects applied to Professor X and Magneto (A quick googling shows this: http://www.fxguide.com/article357.html). I'm not sure why this should make headlines. Yes, special effects can alter what you see on the screen. That's the point of special effects. Computers are powerful things, and they can make the old young, the nervous calm, and the fat skinny. As long as it's not being passed off as a non-fiction documentary, the movie's director can do as he sees fit to actualize his vision.
Governments are not necessary.
Do you mean to tell me that Paris Hilton did not blow me in a motel room?!!!?!
Why was I left out?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Any chance we can get some of this action to fix his head tilting?
The images are not "photoshopped" they are enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® software.
http://www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html#photoshop
</bitching>
Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
Next you'll be telling me superman can't really fly, either!
Certainly, I've known that images have been doctored in various media for a looong time. We've shown many such photo retouching samples to our 11-year-old daughter, as she's now starting to be aware of her perceived beauty.
It's no surprise that such digital manipulation is being used on the big screen.
While I don't have problems with such retouching, I do think that it makes it tough to consider films and photographs that have been doctored genuine art forms anymore. Certainly, much of anything that comes out of Hollywood cannot be taken at face value, but it's become even less genuine over the past 20 years. Before the 80's, if you saw a buxom, beautiful woman (or man, for you ladies out there), you could be much more certain that her hair color, bust size, and other features tied to "beauty" were more or less genuine. Sure, some makeup and soft lighting/focus made the ladies of that era slightly more attractive than they'd appear on the street, but damn, of most of them weren't drop-dead beautiful to begin with.
These days, with hair dyes and wigs, plastic surguery, and now digital manipulation, you can take the cannonical 300-lb fugly plumber, and whip him into a G.Q. model in under an hour with Photoshop. There's a fine line (in my mind, anyway) between the art of making people look good with some makeup, lights, and *good* photography/cinematography and just simply taking any old person, filming them by any old schmuck w/ a camera and then *converting* them to an entirely new person via post-production.
I don't know. It's hard to argue with the industry being at fault for these things, but I feel that imperfections (say, Jewel's crooked tooth) lend personality and uniqueness to a person. Erasing them from the record robs us of the *person* that's behind the image.
Wholesale digital creations, on the other hand, are slightly different than digital effects or enhancements. The Final Fantasy movie a few years back (or that first film from the Matrix shorts collection) was digital art. The T-Rex in Jurassic Park, while cool, was a special effect.
Another example. While I appreciate the digital eye candy of Star Wars: 1-3, I don't think they hold a candle to the *artwork* of Episodes 4-6. One example I always trot out is the asteroid flight/fight scenes in Empire vs Clones. The flight of the Millennium Falcon through the asteroids in Empire made me sway in my seat when I watched it on the big screen as a kid. The scene with Obi-Wan and Fett in Clones had nowhere near the same impact, though it may have been visually more "clean".
Surely there must be others out there who have make the same distinction as I do, and who are bothered by a cheapening of cinema?
Method of processing duck feet
As others have already commented, movies are art. Art is the selective recreation of reality -- so it darn well ought to take advantage of new technologies that allow the director to achieve his or her exact aims. The world already has enough reality -- enough mistakes and errors and malevolence and pimples -- as it is.
Nevertheless, this line from the summary is notable:
Har.
Those who have actual moral qualms, will refrain.
Those who think they ought to have moral qualms, will talk about having moral qualms but do it anyway.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
That's why they don't all it "news".
Yeeesh.
So at what point do the actor's/actress' talents become obsolete?
Actors are still artists - a good actor can bring a lot to a performance even if they're just voice acting or mo-capped. Golum had a live actor bringing him to life, as did Sonny in I, Robot. The CGI folks drew heavily on the actor's portrayals. A lot of directors see their relationship with their actors as a collaboration and some tend to choose the same folks over and over because they work well together. From what I've seen in the special features sections of some animated movies, the voice actors are filmed while they're reading and some of that performance gets incorporated into the film. So I think there will be less room for mediocre actors, and the "extra" may become obsolete, but I think there will always be room for the person with a talent for acting or performance.
The bright side that I can see is that perhaps not having to put up with so many dumb, uneducated actors as public role models and political activists.
Well professors should lecture and artists should speak through their art. It's really annoying to get lectured when you're expecting art. People should stand for what they believe in because it's the right thing to do, not because all of the cool kids are doing it or because it helps their image.There are two major trends in CGI and computers: 1. Realism of CGI is steadily going up, including physics models and photo-realism, to the point where eventually, as in s1m0ne, there will be digitally-created "actors" indistinguishable from Jar-Jar Binks with realistic appearances, movements and behavior. 2. Cost of hardware keeps going down even as speed keeps going up. What right now takes a renderfarm the size of a small building to generate the CGI will eventually come down to a small box the size of an NAS device.
Take these two together, and you're going to see the ability to make a full-length feature film, including sound and music, be producible by individuals or, at most, small 5-10 person teams.
The result will be that lots of good movies will be made that aren't coming out of Hollywood's zombie marketdroids and costing, at most, a few tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars to make. Bye bye big studios.
S1m0ne (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/) stands out as one film which deals with digital actors, people keep saying how actors will be replaced soon but I don't think that's the case.
Computers are crap at emulating people's movements and voices, take for instance the recent Spiderman films where you see spidey crawling up a wall, it's some of the most unconvincing 'human' movement I've seen in a blockbuster movie which relies on CGI for additional effects.
When a person walks, almost their entire body rearranges itself slightly to move it's center of gravity, a CGI still of person can look extremely real but that's because they've managed to emulate skin and ultimately muscles so the skin moves as on a real person, but they've forgotten about the mass of the muscles, bones, organs etc. and how it affects the entire frame of the person when in movement.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
This is the same reason I don't trust those prime-time magicians like David Blane and Chris Angel. I'm not a straight-up unbeliever, but I don't get how some people can watch their TV shows and start believing it's 100% real. With today's technology, there are too many signal hops between the camera in Florida and my TV in Canada. There are so many things that people can do before that signal reaches my TV, especially when the footage is not live.
Blerg.
It's a little known fact that Neo in the latter 2 Matrix wasn't played by Keaneau Reeves, but a tickle-me elmo doll. And the all the ring wraiths in Lord of the Rings was actually played by that little kid from Jerry McGuire.
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
You can always watch Dogme movies.
I find it very disturbing that a lot of people think it's alright for the director and studio to have complete control over the vision and final product of a movie. The actors have a lot to do with the quality of the movie, and have every right to approve changes to their performance. They aren't saying there should be no alterations, just that they should have a say in the decision.
Consider music: when a record label (studio) and music producer (director) have complete control over the vision and final product of a song/album, and change the final product without the artist's consent, would you consider that acceptable? Why is the situation different with movies?
A large part of what we remember as memorable characters and roles is coming not from some brainless actor dutifully reciting lines, but from improvisation and other random, unexpected things that neither the writer nor the director had in mind. Do you recall Hannibal Lector's slurpy-gross noise when he was trying to intimidate Starling? Unscripted. Spur of the moment from Anthony Hopkins.
For that matter, I think we are a long, long way off from replacing truly gifted actors. CGI is far from being able to reproduce the nuances of Hopkin's performance that brought Hannibal to life and made him such a convincingly real character, or the particular cadence of Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith that made him seem so calculating and machinelike. Some of us still go to the movies to appreciate the artistry of the work, and that artistry includes the actors and how they interpret and modify the role.
Even if (when) CGI can reproduce the human likeness with absolute perfection, notice that today, people still go to plays and musicals where there are few special effects, no multiple takes and retries, relatively simple backdrops, and no whiz-bang computer graphics: Just stage, a solid script, a good crew, and talented actors. There's something to be said for the art of performance.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
> Clearly Jar-Jar Binks is the example to prove your point.
Actually it does prove the original poster's point. Jar Jar looked real enough in most of his screen time to not notice he was CG. And his 'acting' was exactly the performance Mr. Lucas wanted. Just because the director was insane is no reason to slight the work of the skilled artisans who created and animated Jar Jar or to ignore what it portends as the cost of doing 100% CG characters continues to drop.
Democrat delenda est
the steps actors are taking to protect their digital assets
Are you sure that last word is supposed to have a "t" in it?
1) Her name is Jennifer Connelly. She's too hot to spell her name wrong. Here's her page on IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000124/
= 6909
2) Until they can make CG characters as hot as Ms Connelly, I don't think actors and actresses will be going away.
3) Ever heard of stunt doubles? OMGWTFBBQFAKE!!1111eleven Well, now we have "tear doubles".
4) Perhaps if the movie industry starts putting out hyper-realistic shit with people who have no flaws and don't ever blink or breathe, it will become apparent to everyone that the media's view of beauty is distorted to a degree that cannot be achieved by real humans. And then, maybe, it will be okay for models to be of a healthy weight, because everyone knows they lost the pounds digitally.
I mean, they already put out hyper-realistic shit...I just hope it gets so excessive that there's no way everyone can't know. Did you ever see what makeup artists do to someone? Check out this Dove commercial. http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat4.asp?id
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wasn't real!? How can that be? Everything on the movie screen must be true. The camera never lies...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"Acting is all about honesty, but something like this makes what you see on screen a dishonest moment," said a leading technician. "Everyone feels a bit dirty about it."
Actually acting is all about trying to convince people that you are someone that you aren't.
I can't wait until an actor (actress) wins a Best Peformance Oscar for a "touched up" performance, and it then comes out...
Would that be the Motion Picture Industries' "Milli Vanilli" moment?
But then, this is all staged anyway, you know, to get our minds off of the National ID cards. (where did I put my 'foil hat?)
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
...Photoshop deletes you!
Have gnu, will travel.
Give or take a lie or two.
(james garner). B)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Are you trying to tell me that the stuff in the movies isn't real? King Kong didn't really climb the Empire State Building and Captain Jack Sparrow didn't really fight with guys with squid-heads?
Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't really a robot.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You could just as easily establish the brand value with a (hypothetical) CGI actor, as you could with a real person. Heck, they do it with cartoon characters and puppets right now. Why have they bothered to make three Toy Story pictures, instead of just stopping after #1 and making two different movies? It's because those characters -- even though they're nothing but some ray-traced computer models and voice-overs -- have established the same type of brand value that flesh-and-blood actors have. Maybe not Tom Cruise levels of brand value, but hey, at least Buzz Lightyear isn't ever going to freak out and join the Scientologists on you.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I'm fond of this movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95
100% natural filmmaking, no foley, no lights, no makeup, no sets, no post-production. Just a camera and acting.
Dogme#6 "Juline Donkey Boy" was amazing, a little tough to get used to for the first 5 minutes, but amazing.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
BMW is the ultimate driving machine ;)
Why does it matter?
... everyone all the way down to the gaffers and lighting people. It's silly to try and pick out what's a product of the actor him- or herself; the important thing is the quality and enjoyability of the finished product. If it looks good, it is good. Nothing else matters.
People seem to have this obsession over "authenticity," as if it matters apart from the quality of the output that they actually witness. I've seen it a lot in music, too, where it's even more ridiculous.
The mantra of an old sound engineer I used to know seem appropriate: "If it sounds good, it is good."
The 'process' is only important to other people engaged in the Art, and to yourself if you're the artist, so you know what you did right (if the output is good), or wrong (if it's crap). The audience doesn't, and shouldn't, really care. Does it matter what kind of microphone the engineer used on the kick drum, if what's on the tape sounds good? Of course not. Hell, it doesn't matter if there was a kick drum. Maybe it was just a drum machine, or a sampled sound. The only important thing is the finished composition. If it sounds good, then the process worked; if it sounds like crap, then it doesn't matter how much effort went into it, it's still crap. Likewise, it shouldn't matter whether the vocalist really hit that note, or whether they were pushed with an auto-tuner. Does the ultimate effect work? That's the real question.
Likewise, I don't particularly care whether Jennifer Connelly's tears were real or not, because I don't care whether she can actually act or not. I only care whether it appears that she can act, insofar as she does a good job in the role, and the movie is good. If the movie is good, then the process was good; if the movie sucked, I don't care whether she was a good actress or not, I still will have wasted $9.50 and two hours of my life.
The only reason why we ought to care, or pay any attention at all, to where the "quality" comes from, is so we can award credit and compensation correctly. When I listen to a song, I don't give a damn whether the musicians "can actually play," so long as what's coming out of my speakers sounds pleasant. It's completely academic to me whether that 'pleasantness' was produced by the musician on the guitar, or by the guy at the mastering house in postproduction. However, I'd prefer, if the actual artistry and skill that makes the music nice to listen to, occurs at the mixing board rather than at the guitar, that the guy at the mixing console get his name listed at the top of the CD's label (if only so I can see what else he did and find it easily).
Modern entertainment-art is not a product of any one person; it's almost always collaborative. A movie is made not just by the actors, but by the actors, writers, director, editors
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
In this video you can see how some advanced techniques for doing these special effects work. Facial expressions can be changed with a parameter and entire faces can be replaced and made to follow the movements and expressions of the original face.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
One of the other benefits of replacing actors completely, body-wise, is that action can be literally lethal in intensity. Ripping up a few CGI effects is perfectly safe and avoids having to hire stuntmen (who aren't cheap) or literal body-doubles (who are cheap, but aren't necessarily any good at acting).
Some day, it may be possible to use a 7-tesla or 9-tesla fMRI to record the neural activity of an actor and skip the body-suits completely. Just directly run the neural activity directly to the virtual system and vice versa. Then the actors become part of the CGI, not merely giving inputs to it. Of course, you'll get a new type of actor. One who has quite literally been pulverized, blown up, shot up, mutilated, drowned, incinerated and crushed, as far as their senses and memory are concerned. Scenes will become more realistic, as there is no physical risk to the actor, no matter how dangerous the scene. Sure, a few actors will likely suicide from the PTSD, but actors suicide for all kinds of reasons anyway, and Hollywood just uses it as an excuse to re-release their movies. Hollywood will like this a lot, as aging will be less of a problem. So long as the voice is still good, the physical ability of the actor becomes immaterial. A spinal injury, like that of Christopher Reed would have made no difference, as the brain doesn't need the spine in order to to produce the correct signals. You could have seen three or four more Superman movies with him as the star, and provided the graphics were good enough, it would have been impossible to tell the difference.
Is that possible? Sure. It just takes a LOT more computing power than is normally put into CGI. Pixar, et al, use simple shading techniques to produce the illusion of rendering. It's cheap, quick and produces perfectly adequate graphics for animations. For producing high-quality photorealistic CGI, you need a lot more power. You're looking at bell-distribution cone-tracing along with high-quality radiosity, and you need to treat the skin as a seven-layer non-uniform object. You also need to over-render, blur and shrink, in order to get rid of the inevitable artifacts produced by CGI.
Sound isn't much easier. You can't just record the voice and keep it like that. You have to wave-trace it through the scene file to get the acoustics right. Make it sound like the actor is really there, that this is a real live scene. Wave-tracing is computationally expensive stuff.
Computing-wise, all this is possible today. Elephants Dream was rendered on something like 240 G5 processors. I would imagine that a cluster of 72,000 G5 processors could render a feature-length movie with near-perfect photorealism and audiorealism. 1,152,000 if you want it rendered in real-time. AFAIK, there are no clusters today at a million-plus nodes, but that's because of expense, not technology. The technological capability to replace the physical bodies of actors exists today, but only a handful of the world's richest men even come close to being capable of afford such a system - and I seriously doubt any of them would be interested in doing so.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Was it just me, or did everyone get the little advertisement movie proclaiming that the London Stock Exchange got improved reliability by switching to Windows from Linux?
I understand the controversy quite well, at least from the actors' and actresses' points of view. Oddly enough, this comes from my first professional writing sale.
My first pro writing sale was an assignment to write a review of Myth II: Soulblighter for Computer Gaming World. I had been hired partly because of my writing talent, and partly because of my background as a Medievalist. And, just being allowed to write a feature review like that was one hell of a step for somebody who hadn't published anything more spectacular than Doctor Who fanfiction and some forum posts.
So, I wrote a review of Myth II. Personally, I thought it felt a bit too much like an expansion pack, and I said so. I wrote a sidebar about actual Medieval combat and how it compared (this was before the Total War series). And, having edited the review two or three times, I sent it in.
Thing was, it had to go before an editorial review board first. And, since it was work for hire, they could modify it however they liked. And they did - they turned my positive but not glowing review of the game and turned it into a glowing review. I figure somewhere between 30-50% of what I had written actually was in what was published. The writing style was modified to the point that I barely recognized it. The sidebar was shortened in such a way as to be historically inaccurate. And it had my name on it.
To say the least, it felt fraudulent. I certainly felt embarrassed using it as part of my portfolio for other pitches - it was a coup just to get that contract, but what was published wasn't mine. To this day a large part of me wishes they had removed my name from the final product.
So I can see why there is a controversy here. Actors are paid to act, to give a performance. When the basic performance is digitally changed (beyond, say, adding visible breath to simulate cold weather), it's no longer their performance.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
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.
The unfortunate image you refer to was, exactly like Adnan Hajj the photographer said, the result of dust removal and other image correction.
It was a bad image, but completely comparable to darkroom problems of bygone days. It should never have run, and a lot of the blame belongs to Reuters'eses (a little Gollum lingo there) photo editor.
To dispense with this urban bombing legend:
The artifacts are on 1/16th of the image width boundaries, a(n) = n/16 * width.
Even the duplicated building is moved in such increments.
I don't have to explain to this audience the significance, but for those reading over shoulders, computers move in powers-of-two, and the only things people do that way is fold stuff and most people are not very good at it. Origamists are experts.
The duplicated building is a DSP-created "echo" (unsure of aptness of metaphor). In the "corrected" image, we can see that region is very much middle-of-the-spectrum gray. There is even inadvertent "hinting" because of the regular grids of roads and building faces. And we do not know what the defect channel was, some software lets the user go nuts.
In some (many? most?) implementations, pixels flagged in the defect channel are ignored, and is replaced with data interpolated from other pixels. Simple interpolations are usually inadequate, and much better results are achieved with more sophisticated DSP, such as DCT, FFT, and even Laplace transform-based implementations.
Combining hinting, middle of spectrum, and a botched attempt at identifying defects produced the catastrophic image, comlete with an "echoed" building.
I strongly suspect the other goofiness in Hajj's pictures have similar technical problems.
Reuters has a policy against misleading photographs. And since many naive viewers were misled into thinking Adnan Hajj intentionally duplicated parts of the image, they at least temporarily quit using his services.
And even if the weirdnesses are all unintentional, their sheer number creates doubt as to Hajj's technical competency as a photographer. "You can have a heart of gold but if your pictures suck I can't use you." -a lambda character I just invented for the quote
Claimers: I've done a lot of DSP programming for a long time and got paid for a lot of it, including some DCT-based dust removal software, and I think I know the theory up to but not including Laplace transform yoga; I've done a lot of photography for a long time, all kinds except portrait, and never been paid for any of it.
Adnan Hajj's disastrous image reminded me of test runs of the dust removal software, when I would intentionally screw with the input in all (physical and programmatic) sorts of ways, use random defect channels, "Mondrian" defect channels and input, I even (ab)used screen caps of Babylon 5.
The wrecked image caught my eye as something familiar. I measured the defects, and suggest that those who impugn Hajj's motives are committing psychology in public.
Indeed they were, and in the early 20th century, a combination of photography and a host of other mechanical, mass-productive technologies, prompted a critical rethinking of what "art" was.
The seminal work in this line of thinking, IMO, was by a guy named Walter Benjamin, and it's called The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction . It's not exactly a light read, but I think anyone with an interest in modern digital media or art ought to try to muddle through it (or an analysis of it), because some of the points he makes are still quite salient. (Actually, I'd go further, and say that Benjamin's words are more important now, with digital reproduction, than they were in the 1930s when he wrote them, when the only reproductive methods available were analog and inherently lossy, more akin to making a new but very similar work, than to actually duplicating the existing one, so that there are two absolutely identical new artworks in existence.)
Basically, he argues that mechanical reproduction allows you to remove art from its real-world context. (Benjamin calls the context, and other stuff that is lost when a piece of art is reproduced, its "aura.")Benjamin's point, in my uneducated opinion, seems to be that although modern forms of art get further and further away from objective "reality" (by separating the art from its context and breaking the aura), it allows for new possibilities that older art wasn't as conducive to. Films allowed for the shared experience by many people of the same thing, at virtually the same time, in a way that theater couldn't do (if I go to a play, even if you go to the 'same' play the next night, you will not have seen the same thing that I saw; your experience will be subtly different; furthermore, it's possible to do things in a film that cannot be done on stage) -- this is an opportunity that skilled artists have been able to take advantage of. Similarly, 21st century post-digital art, which is entirely reproducible, will allow even more.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This really seems to be about movies simply being promotions for actors. If the actors' performances have been edited badly, it might put them in a bad light and hurt their career. But such "editing" has been going on all the time, where an actor's unusable performances are edited out, or a scene is shortened.
That was Adam Savage's quote. Gah!!
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Don't think that means that only five slashdotters are having sex. Oh no. It's five girls in rotation.
They've seen things... terrible things...
Thanks for the spoiler, you BASTARD! I thought everything would turn out fine!
http://imdb.com/title/tt0040746/ (almost)
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Isn't a director's responsibility to convey exactly what he (she) wants to say?
In a "studio project" with million dollar budgets, the only objective is revenue recovery. What the "Director wants to say" does not matter. But look at any acclaimed non-mainstream film - much lesser budgets and more chances for the "project" to become a film, not a movie.
Isn't movie-making mostly about suspending belief?
For movies, yes. For films, no. The best fiction is always real.
Isn't this all make believe (not including documentaries, etc.)?
Yes.
Tat Tvam Asi
Fake everything is used in movies all the time, and always has been. Have you seen Psycho? In the shower scene, that's not blood -- it's not even red. It's chocolate syrup. And in the original, unadulterated Star Wars, Luke's landspeeder is actually mounted on the arm of a centrifuge, with the camera at the pivot, so the desert in back really just goes around and around. Also, it was shot on Earth rather than a desert planet called Tatooine.
These tricks have been around for decades. The only thing even vaguely interesting this article says is that the faking that used to be done during a scene is now done afterwards. We don't need the old tricks anymore: They can be hacked in afterwards. All you need to do is make sure your actor has a tennis ball on a green stick to stare at, and you can chroma-key in whatever alien doohickey you care to. Think your alien needs fur instead of scales? No worries, no retakes -- you just drag and drop the right texture and you're done.
From the audiences point of view, it matters not one bit whether Ms. Connelly actually cried, or used glycerine, or had the tears added later. What matters is that we look at the screen and see sadness.
This is not my sandwich.
I tend to not believe anything I see in the movies. Except when they are having sex of course (as opposed to when they are pretending to have sex).
Next you're going to tell me that the music I listen to _isn't_ all unretouched live performances.
Who can you trust these days?
Somehow I'd think the folks from South Park would have some experience in that department. Nothing better than having an episode that brings CoS right on over.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There is an ongoing attempt to fight back against the over production of movies.
Called Dogma. Featuring natural lighting, hand held cameras, and strict limitations on post production.
One example I enjoyed is called "Italian for Beginners" (disclaimer I'm Danish Canadian so this may not be one of the better films).
Like most of the comments here, I really don't care if the movie has gone through a bit of a digital touchup as long as it's not obvious. But the deeper question many studios will soon be asking is why should I pay for a Cruise or a Connelly? If I can get someone off the street that does a 'pretty good job' and touch it up in post, that's a potential cost savings of millions of dollars. As actors demand more money, studios may have the ultimate rebuff. It may take a decade or two, but the day of the big name actor may be on the way out. Also, what impact does this have on awards? Should an actor that's gone through this digital touchup be allowed to compete against those that haven't? Is this the movie version of steroids?
"You're not balancing your internal energy with the environment." -Gary Busey
... and the steps actors are taking to protect their digital assets.
What that really means is that actors are taking steps to protect their real-world asses, because CGI will, at some point, make actual physical actors unnecessary to the production of a movie. There still may be a need for people that look like popular computer-generated characters, I suppose, so that someone can show up at the various award ceremonies. But those individuals won't command multi-million-dollar salaries.
Like every other group of professionals that has been supplanted by advancing technology, don't be surprised to see them head off to Congress at some point to try and make CGI illegal for replacing live actors in feature films. These people actually have the money to buy such law, and I fully expect they will try. They have some time to spare, because the technology isn't ready for prime time, but give it ten years.
In the long run, it won't make any difference. They're screwed.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
People go to the movies to see the latest Bruce Willis or Meryl Streep flick. Stars aren't stars because they're great actors necessarily, but because people will pay to see their movies. I don't really understand it, just as I don't really understand why people pay to read the celebrity magazines, but from what I read the phenomenon is as old as movies themselves. Maybe bit players could be simulated (extras, people in the background, etc) but the main feature will be the stars. I don't think that Hollywood (or Bollywood) could or would get away from using real live humans. Even when the simulations get so real that you can't really tell, people will still want to watch people.
I'm sure women have a similar list of complaints about the ways that men deceive them. My point is that we have lousy, horrible, undependable emotional BS detectors, but we're very skilled at conning ourselves into thinking that we're more perceptive than we actually are. Tears, as in droplets of salt water streaming down the face, have absolutely nothing to do with sincerity or authenticity. Your ability to accurately "read" people is probably 1/10 of what you think it is, and it's even worse if you have a high opinion of your own insight into people.
I don't object to it per se, but I'd bet it has much to do with the high divorce rate/breakup rate we have today. I think the pictures of physical perfection we see on TV and in the movies skews our expectations of the real people we meet every day. I really doubt that Scarlet Johanson or Angelina Jolie look in real life, sitting in their living room, like they do in those perfect breath-stopping scenes in the movies. You guys are artists, yes, and I respect that, but I think your art is the source of much unhappiness in the world. I need to go back and read me some Plato, because I think he touched on this somewhere...
So who gets the best actor Oscar? The actor or the CGI staff?
If I were the one running the awards show, there wouldn't be a "Best Actor" Oscar. There would just be a "Best Picture" (and "Best [Fill in Category Here] Picture" e.g., "Best Drama"). Let the Screen Actors Guild make up awards for particular actors, if they really want to, based on whatever technical criteria they want to use to define "good acting." Likewise, the Sound Engineers' professional association can give out awards for best recording and editing. Hell, the food service people can give out awards for best catering or craft services table.
But the really big awards would be based on the overall quality of the finished product -- the movie -- and not attempt to break it down into particular components. Obviously, the notability of particular people is going to make the movie's award more of a personal honor than others: the lead actor who was in a Best Picture nominated movie is going to benefit more than the 2nd Electrician's Assistant. But they'd both be able to put it on their resume, for whatever it's worth.
Movies themselves are inherently all in competition, and trying to do the same thing -- capture mindshare (and thus revenue, fame, and fortune) by being compelling or otherwise interesting. That's the criteria they should be judged by. The technical aspects of how they achieve this (good writing, acting, publicity, music, karma, whatever) are secondary, and would be better if left to specific groups who are actually interested in the gritty details as a process in themselves (presumably so they can improve it). To the rest of us, the process doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether the next blockbuster is made on a billion-dollar soundstage, or is spat out of the belly of a giant magic machine; either it's a good film or it's not. That's what the Oscars should be all about.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
People on slashdot are generally smart... I think it's going to be a while before the average movie-goer realizes tricks like these are being used.
I work in the industry and according to a recent survery the average American still thinks the actors write the lines.
About these emails you keep sending me ...
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
So Han "not" shooting first is acceptable to most people on this board? According to Lucas, that was his original vision, right?