Actor's beware!
- Thread starter EP2005
- Start date
rogar-BigGrin(DBG) ). Try and get that from a CGI character...can anyone say, Jar Jar Binks?
MojoTrancer
Well-known member
The only way CGI actors can replace human actors is if they develop sentience and grow a soul. Otherwise there will always be some intangible thing that CGI can't match.
HorseFilms
Look ma no hands
Plus, you'll still have to deal with a real actor to do the voice. What's the point?
I don't think cgi Characters will replace real actors anytime soon ( though I'm secretly wishing for it so I can get an uneployed Ben kingsley Cheap
) but I do see a time when for technical reasons they will be used as stunt doubles and even complete characters in films, again for technical reasons that is the character is going to morph, explode and melt so many times in the film it may be more efficient to build him from scratch digitally than to have an actor represent the total of ten minutes the character will appear in realtime. I also think way more films will be made with cgi characters only as the science developes as in Final Fantasy etc. Once you have a character designed in all aspects and you've used it a few times, then it becomes a database so as to be not a redesign every time you want to use said character but more a tweaking of the database you already have on file. Twenty years ago films like FF were not possible in any way shape or form...Twenty years down the road with the knowledge gained from this artform exponetially who's to say what will or will not be possible let alone how cheap and easy to achieve this science will become. I mean if youd stopped a man on a horse a hundred years ago and told him tales of todays methods of transportation he would have thought you were nuts and or have you locked away depending on his social status at the time.
) but I do see a time when for technical reasons they will be used as stunt doubles and even complete characters in films, again for technical reasons that is the character is going to morph, explode and melt so many times in the film it may be more efficient to build him from scratch digitally than to have an actor represent the total of ten minutes the character will appear in realtime. I also think way more films will be made with cgi characters only as the science developes as in Final Fantasy etc. Once you have a character designed in all aspects and you've used it a few times, then it becomes a database so as to be not a redesign every time you want to use said character but more a tweaking of the database you already have on file. Twenty years ago films like FF were not possible in any way shape or form...Twenty years down the road with the knowledge gained from this artform exponetially who's to say what will or will not be possible let alone how cheap and easy to achieve this science will become. I mean if youd stopped a man on a horse a hundred years ago and told him tales of todays methods of transportation he would have thought you were nuts and or have you locked away depending on his social status at the time.ChrisForbes
Well-known member
khmuse said:
"Tomb Raider" Lara Croft was a digital goddess before Ms. Jolie played her on the big screen.
khmuse
Tech Guru
It would seem to me that the appeal outside of the dweeb community for even a "digital goddess" has to be minuscule compared to the drawing power of a real celebrity; particularly one with the across the board appeal of Angelina Jolie. She seems to generate just as much lust factor in females as she does in males. I have heard so many women say that they would go lesbian for her in a heartbeat! I doubt the same could be said of a digital knockoff.
Yeah being a movie star consists of alot more than just being in the movie. Making appearances places and whatnot is just as important...and without tabloids and paparazzi chasing people around they wouldnt be movie stars. We want to see these people that we know and read about and idolize. A digital character can't do any of that.....unless they start digitally adding them on the red carpet Gorillaz style.....which would be disgusting.
I can just imagine someday having a famous CG person that doesn't even exist being famous....it would even grow older ...eventually there would be a celebrity roast for it........cripes....thats the day I shoot myself.
I can just imagine someday having a famous CG person that doesn't even exist being famous....it would even grow older ...eventually there would be a celebrity roast for it........cripes....thats the day I shoot myself.
Therein lies a cool script idea perhaps. A cgi character is developed until it is flawless and can't be separated from a real person at which point it is carefully slid into a film as a supporting role where it wins an oscar, but the secret is guarded so closely that no one knows the real actor doesn't exist Cleverly designed excuses for no show at oscars and other events while fake public (cgi) appearances are released sparodically throughout mainstream media. The character becomes a major star, maybe they even come up with a live double to help support the illusion...There's a cool story in there somewhere!
this is happening
this is happening
It was a sci-fi short so each one had a sort of elaborate costume that probably costed $100-$300. It looked like a unique location. So they would've needed to pay for shuttling them to this place and feeding them (another $200-$400?) And I'm not sure how proficient they were at animating, so I don't know how much time it took, but it looked from their 'making of' video that they were using off-the-shelf software and were pretty good at it. $200 x 7 plus other costs is well over a thousand bucks. So you can see, even on something small, it's already becoming more cost-efficient to use digital actors. This is happening.
p.s. Simone is maybe the worst film I have ever seen.
this is happening
Kholi said:
It was a sci-fi short so each one had a sort of elaborate costume that probably costed $100-$300. It looked like a unique location. So they would've needed to pay for shuttling them to this place and feeding them (another $200-$400?) And I'm not sure how proficient they were at animating, so I don't know how much time it took, but it looked from their 'making of' video that they were using off-the-shelf software and were pretty good at it. $200 x 7 plus other costs is well over a thousand bucks. So you can see, even on something small, it's already becoming more cost-efficient to use digital actors. This is happening.
p.s. Simone is maybe the worst film I have ever seen.
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EP2005
Well-known member
Couple things...
This process of filmmaking would be eliminated because it would be rendered exactly as the director or voice over actor portrays it. Voice over's in animation are recorded before they animate i believe.
Money wise to make a complete CGI- feature of this quality would be very
expensive, but nothing more than a big budget feature would cost. Remember, a team of 20-40 for 3-5 years to make a cgi feature compaired to hundreds of workers for 3-8 months for a film feature. Only difference would be the time it would take to make each and the amount of people hired, which equals out the cost.
The only reason it takes so long to make a cgi of realistic quality is because our computers aren't fast enough to render them in a short about of time.
Thus, 20-30 years from now they will be fast enough to do so. Look back 20-30 years from now and where computers were. Now look back 5 years from now. Now look back last year. They just get faster and faster in shorter amounts of time.
Which leads us to believeable performances. Could we believe a computer to give us a real performance like an actor could? I think that comes down to time also. It's a pain to animate the human body and its facial features because there's so many and such little detail in all of the movements. But in time it'll be close enough to fool the average eye. It's all trial and error, and eventually the artist will turn from the one in front of the camera to the one behind a computer.
khmuse said:
This process of filmmaking would be eliminated because it would be rendered exactly as the director or voice over actor portrays it. Voice over's in animation are recorded before they animate i believe.
Kholi said:
Money wise to make a complete CGI- feature of this quality would be very
expensive, but nothing more than a big budget feature would cost. Remember, a team of 20-40 for 3-5 years to make a cgi feature compaired to hundreds of workers for 3-8 months for a film feature. Only difference would be the time it would take to make each and the amount of people hired, which equals out the cost.
The only reason it takes so long to make a cgi of realistic quality is because our computers aren't fast enough to render them in a short about of time.
Thus, 20-30 years from now they will be fast enough to do so. Look back 20-30 years from now and where computers were. Now look back 5 years from now. Now look back last year. They just get faster and faster in shorter amounts of time.
Which leads us to believeable performances. Could we believe a computer to give us a real performance like an actor could? I think that comes down to time also. It's a pain to animate the human body and its facial features because there's so many and such little detail in all of the movements. But in time it'll be close enough to fool the average eye. It's all trial and error, and eventually the artist will turn from the one in front of the camera to the one behind a computer.
khmuse
Tech Guru
EP2005 said:
Regardless of the processing power that comes to bear on the problem, I still don't see this being a viable way of telling a story. The end product, at least in the case of a good film, is frequently so much more than just the directors vision for it. It takes actors to breath life into a character. Until the actors do their thing, the characters come closer to resembling moving cardboard cutouts than something that the audience has any emotional investment in.
About the only aspect of the acting community that has much to worry about are the background players and even then, with the very small amount that they are paid, CGI solutions don't seem economical.