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James Cameron On How Avatar Technology Could Keep Actors Young
Suki I writes "An article at EW discusses another use for Avatar's sophisticated motion-capture technology: 'Sure, it's terrific for turning human actors into big blue alien Na'vis. But the photorealistic CGI technology James Cameron perfected for Avatar could easily be used for other, even more mind-blowing purposes — like, say, bringing Humphrey Bogart back to life, or making Clint Eastwood look 35 again. "How about another Dirty Harry movie where Clint looks the way he looked in 1975?" Cameron suggests. "Or a James Bond movie where Sean Connery looks the way he did in Doctor No? How cool would that be?"' The article goes on to quote Cameron as saying you would still need actors to play the roles, and that an ethical line needs to be drawn somewhere."
"and that an ethical line needs to be drawn somewhere."
Eh. No.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
depressing for the big stars who can no longer demand a jetplane or two as part of their fee...
We might get a few new talented actors working instead, Joe Wannabe as Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca 2.
That's got to be better than remaking a modern version of Casablanca with, say, Brad Pitt.
Yeah, if it's one thing that George Lucas has proven, it's that good special effects don't make a good movie.
Just like amazing graphics don't make a good game.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Input part - the facial-capture tech is obviously ready. At most it may need some tweaking.
The output part... Like you said. Uncanny valley effect may still be present with humans. BUT..
Considering that Battle Angel*, which Cameron plans to do as (one of) his next project(s) is based around exactly that kind of implementation of the technology - I'd say that he is more than "just talking".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Video clip (may spoil the movie)
Don't worry. The plot, screenplay, direction and acting take care of that nicely.
Are you sure Stallone at any point in time played a British reggae musician? To be honest, I can't see that film being any good. Not that Judge Dredd was a masterpiece, but at least it was fairly entertaining.
Chinese alternative history movies where well known US actors find themselves on the losing side of World War 2.
How about US alternative history movies where the US takes credit for the capture of an Enigma machine even though in reality the British did it? Oh, wait...
Chinese alternative history movies where well known US actors find themselves on the losing side of World War 2.
That would be rather odd given that China and the US were on the same side in World War 2.
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What Cameron and his colleagues pioneered for Avatar goes well beyond "motion-capture". The camera-helmets that gathered performance data from the actors faces are somewhat new (but the data from them was supplemented by numerous witness cameras and plenty of key-framing). The real innovation was the virtual camera that Cameron used. The headline is that he could walk around the capture stage, look through the "viewfinder" (monitor) on his virtual camera, and see a *real-time preview of the CG world*. E.g., see Sigourney Weaver as her Na'vi character, from the perspective of the camera, with CGI scenery elements (trees, rocks, etc.) included. This is unprecedented, and is likely to be a major efficiency boost to the filming of CGI heavy movies.
In Shrek 1, they actually made Fiona look more "cartoonish", because she was almost photo-realistic. But the slight differences made her look like an animated manikin, rather than a real human. Freaky - thus the uncanny valley.
IIRC, Final Fantasy (the movie) tried to beat the uncanny valley by matching the actors lips very well. But then they re-dubbed it from Japanese to English, and made it even worse.