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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?
Looker is an old movie about digitizing actors and then killing them.
It is finally becoming technically possible.
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.
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.
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.
To be honest, this might be preferred to the overpaid, pampered meat sacks we have now. Maybe movies would become an artform again.
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, too, photoshopped liquid onto Jennifer Connely's face.
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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
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 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.
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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
http://www.frankwbaker.com/war_photo_challenges.ht m
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.
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
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
does this all mean that soon actors may be mere meat sacks on which to draw/animate?
if that's true, then Keenau Reeves will get yet more undeserved credit for pioneering this movement. What an unfair world.
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Unbelievable. No, you moron, it was fake real blood. Oh, wait, maybe...
Nevermind.
What was once true, is no longer so
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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
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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.
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...
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.
That could be a great plotline for Toy Story 4.
== Jez ==
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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.
Sir, I drive a 1985 Bronco II, and let me inform you that you are sadly mistaken.
Trying to stay on the highway at 100 with A 1985 Ford Bronco II is the ultimate driving adventure. Thus, a 1985 Ford Bronco II is the ultimate driving machine.
It's been a long time.
... 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.