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Actors Are Digitally Preserving Themselves To Continue Their Careers Beyond the Grave (technologyreview.com)
Improvements in CGI mean neither age nor death need stop some performers from working. From a report: From Carrie Fisher in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to Paul Walker in the Fast & Furious movies, dead and magically "de-aged" actors are appearing more frequently on movie screens. Sometimes they even appear on stage: next year, an Amy Winehouse hologram will be going on tour to raise money for a charity established in the late singer's memory. Some actors and movie studios are buckling down and preparing for an inevitable future when using scanning technology to preserve 3-D digital replicas of performers is routine. Just because your star is inconveniently dead doesn't mean your generation-spanning blockbuster franchise can't continue to rake in the dough. Get the tech right and you can cash in on superstars and iconic characters forever.
[...] For celebrities, these scans are a chance to make money for their families post mortem, extend their legacy -- and even, in some strange way, preserve their youth. Visual-effects company Digital Domain -- which has worked on major pictures like Avengers: Infinity War and Ready Player One -- has also taken on individual celebrities as clients, though it hasn't publicized the service. "We haven't, you know, taken out any ads in newspapers to 'Save your likeness,'" says Darren Hendler, director of the firm's Digital Humans Group. The suite of services that the company offers actors includes a range of different scans to capture their famous faces from every conceivable angle -- making it simpler to re-create them in the future. Using hundreds of custom LED lights arranged in a sphere, numerous images can be recorded in seconds capturing what the person's face looks like lit from every angle -- and right down to the pores.
[...] For celebrities, these scans are a chance to make money for their families post mortem, extend their legacy -- and even, in some strange way, preserve their youth. Visual-effects company Digital Domain -- which has worked on major pictures like Avengers: Infinity War and Ready Player One -- has also taken on individual celebrities as clients, though it hasn't publicized the service. "We haven't, you know, taken out any ads in newspapers to 'Save your likeness,'" says Darren Hendler, director of the firm's Digital Humans Group. The suite of services that the company offers actors includes a range of different scans to capture their famous faces from every conceivable angle -- making it simpler to re-create them in the future. Using hundreds of custom LED lights arranged in a sphere, numerous images can be recorded in seconds capturing what the person's face looks like lit from every angle -- and right down to the pores.
Most of the CGI, at least character CGI, with today's technology is still pretty obvious to me
It is only obvious when it is obvious. There is plenty of CGI in movies that you don't even notice because it is done so well.
Character CGI is improving rapidly. Fully fake actors are already a thing in Japan. They even have fan clubs. They will be common in American films as well within a few years.
This came up before when the studio replaced Crispin Glover in Back To The Future 2, and he sued them for using his likeness.
From the wikipedia article:
Dissatisfied with these plans, Glover filed a lawsuit against the producers, including Steven Spielberg, on the grounds that they neither owned his likeness nor had permission to use it. Due to Glover's lawsuit, there are now clauses in the Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreements which state that producers and actors are not allowed to use such methods to reproduce the likeness of other actors.[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
The film industry continues to tighten its grip on its assets, refusing to ever let them go. Trademarks will never expire. Actors will never expire. Nothing will slip from the industry's fingers into the public domain, or off this mortal coil. The long-deceased continue to act in films for all eternity. Their descendants ask when they'll be allowed to rest in peace. They demand the spirit of their long-buried grandfather be allowed to stop being paraded in sequel after inferior sequel, layering shame on their once respected career. Every film is now its own weekend at Bernie's, every summer comedy a macabre sideshow of all the actors whose likeness the studio has purchased. The family begs an end. Stop putting their dead Oscar and Emmy winning father in American Pie sequels. The industry executive laugh. The family has no claim. The actor is intellectual property. They belong to the industry. Forever.