Slashdot Mirror
And Now, the Animated News
theodp writes "'You have a lot of missing images, in the TV, in the news reporting,' explains billionaire Jimmy Lai. It's a gap that Lai's Next Media intends to fill with its animated news service. Artists lift details from news photos while actors in motion sensor suits re-create action sequences of stories making headlines. Animators graft cartoon avatars to the live-motion action, and the stories hit the Web. When news agencies didn't have footage of scenes from the Tiger Woods car crash, Lai's team raced to put together animation dramatizing the incident that became a YouTube sensation. Thus far, Lai has been denied a television license, but with or without his own station, he thinks his animations are headed for televisions worldwide. His company is currently in talks with media organizations to churn out news animations on demand using Next Media's graphic artists and software tools."
Can't you just see Elin as Miss Piggy? Haaaaayyyyaaaahhhh!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
My first thought was that this is totally unnecessary and sensationalist use of technology. My second thought was that CNN is going to love this.
I can't wait to see what my favorite cartoon characters are doing day to day, when they're not starring in films/television.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Enactors learn that the report couldn't be true. Slow news day makes up news. Enactors actually commit acts which they re-enact as news. Political assassinations, for example. Private company fakes moon landing... the works...
And that's just the problem. People have enough trouble differentiating "news" from "opinion pieces" as it is. This may be fine under the banner of 'entertainment', but 'news' it is not, nor should it ever be.
Although from a technological point of view it is very interesting, a lot of details missing from the regular videos need to be 'made up' for the reconstruction. I think that's a dangerous move, as the viewer may base its opinion on video footage.
Number 10. Carmack and Romero fist fight
Number 9. Woz sex with Kathy Griffin
Number 8. A series of tubes, not a big truck
Number 7. Wesley Crusher sucked into a warp drive
Number 6. Ballmer doing Dancing with the Stars to the 'Developers Developers Developers Developers' remix
Number 5. Darl McBride being force fed into a wood chipper by the guys from Fargo
Number 4. Stallman and Schneier as banjo dueling Santas
Number 3. Cowboy Neal
Number 2. 10,000 Anonymous Cowards hacked to bits by the 300 Spartans yelling "This is Slashdot!"
And the Number one re-enactment wish for Slashdot: Duke Nukem Forever
I remember when this guy's magazine, Next Magazine, was introduced in Taiwan. It was basically a sensationalist tabloid style rag. The magazine's big thing was shock. They ran stories which graphic photos of dramatic accidents, high-profile murders and sex scandals. Or at least they went as far as they could get away with, which was pretty far. They were also notorious for running stories which turned out to be untrue. If I remember correctly they were one of the originals to run the story of people in China supposedly eating unborn fetuses. It turned out it was all staged as a statement by some artist.
This new concept seems designed to skirt the sensors. However, I'm curious to know if this guy has been inspired by others. A couple of years ago I found Taiwanese magazines publishing illustrations of crimes to depict what had happened. Except that they get comically gratuitous with what they depict. It was so absurd I had to clip a few of these to show some friends in the states. In one case a girl was about to get raped and instead offers to perform fellatio on the rapist instead. When he's done his business and leaves, she takes the "evidence", spits it out in a napkin, and takes it to the police. This was all conveniently illustrated in detail, the girl on her knees with the guy standing in front her, and the girl spitting out the stuff. While this technique has been applied to many kinds of stories, predictably, the majority involve sex crimes of one sort or another.
I think news networks have already been running similar cartoons and the Taiwanese government has gotten involved to deal with this. It's pretty much a blatant violation of broadcast rules, but it's pretty easy to dance around the rules there. I'm sure many will argue free speech, but the think here is that this is not driven by desire to inform the public. It's driven by a desire to shock and titillate to boost ratings. People will definitely complain about how indecent it is, but they're all going to happily tune in anyway. It wont be long, however, until this guy no longer has a monopoly on this sort of thing. Everyone will be quick to copy this, at least until the government puts a final stop to this.
After the Cunard ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed by the German U-Boat U-20 in May, 1915, the great Winsor McCay was asked to animate the disaster. This was not a minor film; McCay was not only the best animator alive, he had invented the medium himself. It was released in 1918 and used as part of the ongoing anti-German propaganda effort.
Curiously, even this 92-year-old pioneering classic demonstrates the dangers of using animation based on incomplete, mistaken or biased reportage and presenting it as fact. The film depicts the liner being hit by two torpedoes, when in fact the second explosion was internal. The Lusitania was described as an innocent passenger liner, but the Germans contend to this day that she was transporting far more munitions than were recorded in her manifest, and was thus a legitimate target. The English have not helped their cause any in the intervening years: they did their best to destroy the wreck with depth charges in the 1950s. More recently, millions of rounds of unrecorded ammunition have been found by divers at the site, lending credence to the German claims.
On a mildly related note, around this time the Hearst papers (and others, but Hearst was notorious for it) routinely used artists and retouched photos to "reenact" extremely lurid depictions of crimes, with helpful arrows and labels presenting their suppositions as fact. This practice was continued for several decades, and Lord knows how many innocent people were sent to prison or executed because of the bias these "reconstructions" introduced into society.
It was bad then. It's bad now. This is a dangerous path to tread.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg