Is the future of film, animation?

[roxics]

For the last couple decades we've seen people talk about the encroachment of CGI in movies. With comments like "it looks fake" or "it's too much cgi." You had movies like the Star Wars prequels where people complained that most of the movies were animation. Avatar might be another example but with less complaining as times had changed between those movies. But I wonder how much of this is valid and how much is just resistance to change. Is the future of cinema going to be mostly animation with live elements thrown in for good measure or balance if at all?

Already a good majority of our tent pole blockbusters every year are very animation heavy. We can also look at Japan that has a film industry based largely on anime. And now there is this:

The idea of creating virtual reality movies which I can't imagine are as easily done with a camera as they are with a bunch of computer generated 3D objects.

I am by no means proclaiming the death of cameras as storytelling devices, but what percentage of the story will they be responsible for telling in the future? In the past it was nearly 100% when everything was done with practical effects. Today it's less than that, although it varies film to film.

I'm wondering if maybe we should spend as much time honing our 3D modeling and animation skills as we do our cinematography stills.

 

[David Jimerson]

I dunno. People tire of goggles pretty quickly.

 

[Batutta]

I dunno. People tire of goggles pretty quickly.

The goggles will only get lighter and more streamlined with time until they're just a pair of glasses. I think it's inevitable. I don't see this supplanting traditional filmed entertainment as much as creating a new form. They will probably co-exist for a long time and this might become the more dominant form, much as film and tv had dominated books for narrative entertainment. But books are still around, wether in print or e-form. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of VR, especially for travel documentary stuff. For storytelling, it might be too limiting, somewhere between a game and a movie and not satisfying the demands of either. We'll see.

 

[roxics]

The goggles will only get lighter and more streamlined with time until they're just a pair of glasses.

I agree. I foresee that within the next 15-20 years we'll be replacing our smartphones with AR/VR glasses. Largely dependent on advances in battery technology unless they can get them to be powered off body heat alone. Which would probably be the safer route anyway. But if you can have a pair of these that weigh the same as plastic sunglasses but allow you to have a screen in front of you the size of the sky if you desire, then there is no point in carrying around a little 5" screen in your pocket. People will see the benefit over the drawback. Especially if it does other things as well like improve night vision while driving or have the equivalent of bifocial/trifocals that can be turned on and off like a digital zoom function on a camera.

I've often thought that the complaints about having to wear 3D glasses will shift eventually (with the introduction of AR/VR glasses) to a bias toward these glasses and away from having a large 60+ inch screen taking space in your living room. If two people within proximity of each other in the same room can link up and watch the same content in the same room but then spit off and watch different content in the same room, then that's something a flat panel TV can't compete with, no matter how good it is. 3D and VR will just be a natural state of these systems without any extra gear needed. It will no longer be a niche thing, it will be the norm.

 

[mcbob]

Ultimately film will be replaced by a capsule that, when swallowed, gives you a quick shot of endorphins and adrenaline, implants half a dozen clever one-liners into your memory, and leaves you with the vague feeling you've lost two hours of your life.

 

[David Jimerson]

The goggles will only get lighter and more streamlined with time until they're just a pair of glasses.

By "goggles," I meant anything they have to wear on their faces. People don't like to wear glasses for 3D, which I suspect is one of the major reasons it fails every single time TPTB try to push it again.

But I agree with you; it will be a new art form, alongside traditional filmmaking, but not in place of it.

 

[roxics]

People don't like to wear glasses for 3D,

See I was more under the assumption that many people don't like the headache they get from current 3D, mostly due to (I believe) the darker image and the way the image is rendered through the glasses.

I don't know if I buy the argument that the wearing of glasses alone is the main reason. Many people wear corrective eye glasses, sunglasses or safety glasses all day long.

As for whether or not it replaces film, that depends on our definition of a movie. Is a talkie still a movie? Is a color motion picture still a movie, is a 3D motion picture still a movie? What about an animated motion picture with no real people in it, is that still a movie? If all we do is add the ability to look around a 360 degree scene, I would think we would still define that as a movie if a series of scenes that create a story are playing out in front of us (or even behind us lol).

 

[Batutta]

As for whether or not it replaces film, that depends on our definition of a movie. Is a talkie still a movie? Is a color motion picture still a movie, is a 3D motion picture still a movie? What about an animated motion picture with no real people in it, is that still a movie? If all we do is add the ability to look around a 360 degree scene, I would think we would still define that as a movie if a series of scenes that create a story are playing out in front of us (or even behind us lol).

Yeah, but I think once people get a little bit of control of a scene, even if its just the POV of the camera, they want total control of what happens, and then it becomes a game. I'm not sure there's something in between you having total control and the filmmakers having total control, at least as far as narrative content goes.

 

[David Jimerson]

See I was more under the assumption that many people don't like the headache they get from current 3D, mostly due to (I believe) the darker image and the way the image is rendered through the glasses.

I don't know if I buy the argument that the wearing of glasses alone is the main reason. Many people wear corrective eye glasses, sunglasses or safety glasses all day long.

Well, I didn't say that wearing glasses alone was the only reason it failed. I said I suspected it was one of the major reasons, and I do suspect that.

 

[adkimery]

I don't know if I buy the argument that the wearing of glasses alone is the main reason. Many people wear corrective eye glasses, sunglasses or safety glasses all day long.

When nearsighted people who were corrective eyeglasses go to see a 3D movie they have to put the 3D glass on over their corrective eyeglasses which sucks because apparently people that design 3D glasses (at least the ones commonly used by theaters) assume that no one in the audience will be wearing corrective eyeglasses. For me, that's the primary reason I don't like seeing 3D movies. Wearing 3D glasses on top of my regular glasses is uncomfortable and I can never get the 3D glasses close enough to my face so I always have a feeling of 'looking through' the 3D glasses since they never encompass my entire field of view. Right now I'll go out of my way to *not* see a movie in 3D because I hate wearing the glasses. If I didn't have to wear glasses I'd see a lot more movies in 3D.

For home use, besides wearing the glasses, you also have to buy enough glasses so everyone has a pair which adds to the cost and inconvenience of the 3D experience. The glasses is certainly a one of the big hurdles 3D could never get around.


-Andrew

 

[roxics]

I understand that aspect. I'm sure it sucks. I'm not a corrective lens wearer so I can only take your worked for it, but if the AR/VR glasses replaced both your corrective lenses and 3D glasses, would you be more inclined to use them?

 

[adkimery]

For something like Oculus, where you wear the screen on your face, I assume there are diopter adjustments (like on a camera's view finder) to compensate for the users eyesight so people wouldn't need to wear their glasses and the headset. Certainly an improvement. A downside though is that everyone still needs their own Oculus as opposed to the group all watching the same screen.

 

[roxics]

A downside though is that everyone still needs their own Oculus as opposed to the group all watching the same screen.

While true, I think that perspective is very "today" rather than "tomorrow." The same could have been said about telephone lines 30 years ago when everyone shared a single home phone line. Yet today in most homes, everyone has their own personal phone and many don't even have a home phone line. If we think of this as a future replacement for a smartphone, it only makes sense that most people would have them. They would be inexpensive enough.

Consider what this technology is for a moment everyone. We're talking about a smartphone you wear on your face in the form of glasses with stereo cameras and displays. You're no longer limited to a tiny screen in your pocket or a fixed size screen of a TV in your family room. You can switch from augmented reality to virtual reality depending on the application. Most apps would probably be augmented reality. They would layer themselves over real world environments as a series of virtual 3D objects floating in thin air. You would place them where you want and they would stay there even if you walk away. You would open up an instance of a TV, size it to your liking and place it on a wall and then move around it as if it were a real object on your wall. Place one in every room and a couple on your otherwise empty-in-real-life desk. Go driving at night and watch the glasses switch to an insane ISO as if you're driving with a couple Sony A7S cameras strapped to your face. Look at a tree and watch an app figure out the wind velocity based just on how much the tree is moving. Walk through the woods and watch certain berries light up red (as in danger) to warn you they are poisonous while others light up green to show you they're safe to eat. All based on object recognition and an internet search happening in the background. Lose your car keys and have the glasses replay where they last saw them. Paint the wall of your house a different color without touching a paintbrush and watch them return to normal as your slide the glasses off. Remember peoples names when you see them again because they'll pop up as you approach them. Click on real life objects to learn more about them as you walk around a place. Watch billboards come to life with ads based on searches you've done in the past. Play a first person shooter in the woods with your friends and watch what looks like real gunfire and explosions happen around you, even real life objects becoming manipulated by the game, such as damage to the trees and ground. Walk around a construction site and see the building before it's even built, where every piece of conduit and tile needs to go. Now take the real life object and put it there.

This kind of technology can go far beyond what our smartphones can do today because it has several advantages. Unlike your smartphone that sits in your pocket most of the time and then requires the use of your hands when you take it out, these ride on your face seeing the world around you at all times. Seeing what you see. You don't just put these on to watch a virtual reality movie every so often, you wear them all day. They are your corrective lenses, your safety glasses, your sunglasses, your smart phone, your desktop computer, your TV and your headphones all in one. It may take twenty years before it becomes what I've described here, but at that point you're going to feel naked not wearing your glasses the way you do now leaving your house without your phone. An idea people would have laughed at 30 years ago when payphones were everywhere and only the rich had mobile phones that they couldn't put in their pocket.

So If I've convinced you this won't just be a gimick like cheap disposable 3D glasses in a movie theater, the next question puts us back on track with the original point of this topic, what happens to movies. Obviously I do beleive tradition 2D/3D movies will still be made and viewed. Just played on those virtual screens in the glasses. But when you suddenly take those movies outside those screens, it seems harder to do that with traditional cinematography. It seems like at that point you need to have 3D virtual objects where all sides are possible to be seen if you change your angel of view.

I do believe in the laziness of humans though. I think that for the most part when people watch a movie they want it to be a passive experience. I don't know if the idea of movies that you walk around in will take off. But I do think there might be something to the idea of watching what seems like an epic theatrical play take place before you where you may shift your head or get up and walk to another part of the room to get something and expect as you would in real life, the angle to change as a result.

 

[Gillvane]

In the real world, if you move your head around say a door frame with an open door, you get a different perspective and see something else in the room. That's "real" 3d. In the 3d movie, no matter where you stand, or how you move, the image is the same, you can't change the perspective. This sort of "fake" 3d is what I think causes a lot of people to dislike 3d movies on a subconscious level. It's jarring and IMO doesn't add anything to the experience, except for some people like me a headache and a sense of dislocation.

Occulus is different. It's "real" 3d. When you move your head around a door frame, you actually do change your perspective and see something else in the room, just like in the real world. That's a VERY different experience than the fake picture window 3d of something like Avatar.

I've completely given up on 3d movies at the theater. I never go see them and I always go to the 2d movie instead because I enjoy the experience much more than the picture window style of 3d that makes it seem like you are looking at the world out of a window. But I'd be willing to give occulus a try. It looks a lot more interesting.

I think another problem with current 3d movies is that there is a trade off. If you move the camera in 3d shooting, you get a lot of Judder, more than a regular 2d image. You can smooth out the motion with a higher frame rate, like Peter Jackson's HFR. BUT, the higher frame rate removes motion blur, and suddenly the image is smoother with the motion, BUT looks like a plastic soap opera video. So the trade off is excessive judder with a moving camera in 3d, OR less judder but lose the dreamy motion blur of 24 fps/p.

 

[adkimery]

While true, I think that perspective is very "today" rather than "tomorrow." The same could have been said about telephone lines 30 years ago when everyone shared a single home phone line. Yet today in most homes, everyone has their own personal phone and many don't even have a home phone line. If we think of this as a future replacement for a smartphone, it only makes sense that most people would have them. They would be inexpensive enough.

Aside from business conference calls telephoning isn't a communal experience like watching a movie or something on TV is. Radio/music might be a better example of something that was communal (everyone sharing a single radio in the house) but has become much more private/personalized (from Walkmans to iPods allowing people to listen to what they want w/o others hearing it). Even now though if you are in a group setting (a party, a car, a concert, etc.,) there is still generally a single source of music that everyone listens. People at a party, for example, don't synchronize their phones and listen to the same tracks at the same time through their earbuds. There's a single stereo that everyone listens to.

AR and VR, to me, serve two different purposes. AR provides overlays related to what you are actually seeing in the real world through your glasses (prescription or not) where as VR puts tiny monitors in front of your eyes and puts you into a new environment. Eye glasses come in all shapes and sizes (big, small, round, square, etc.,) which would pose a problem for VR (which really needs to encapsulate the users entire field of view) but not so much for AR as the overlays could be tweaked to fit within the dimensions of the glasses regardless of their size/shape.

So If I've convinced you this won't just be a gimick like cheap disposable 3D glasses in a movie theater, the next question puts us back on track with the original point of this topic, what happens to movies. Obviously I do beleive tradition 2D/3D movies will still be made and viewed. Just played on those virtual screens in the glasses. But when you suddenly take those movies outside those screens, it seems harder to do that with traditional cinematography. It seems like at that point you need to have 3D virtual objects where all sides are possible to be seen if you change your angel of view.

IMO nothing earth shattering. People watch movies and read books because they want to sit back and be told a story (hey Mr. Scorsese, tell me the one about the mob in Las Vegas). Being able to peer around corners in a movie/tv show invites an almost chose-your-own-adventure, interactive element and those types of non-linear books really haven't done anything to revolutionize. There is certainly a desire fore interactive entertainment, like video games, but even then the story is typically linear and the user is limited to how much they can roam about the environment (sandbox games and RPGs being genres that are exceptions). I think VR and AR certainly open up new areas for interactive entertainment (especially educational entertainment) but for passive entertainment I don't think it'll do much.

 

[Jimmy Pierce]

The issue and future with interactive cinema like this is the more real it becomes, the more likely the viewer is going to want to explore beyond what's in front of them, how the subjects of the Oculus video say they want to tell one story. Imagine being able to walk through Middle Earth and not have to follow Frodo or the Orcs or really anybody. Sort of like the GTA games (I'm sure there are others), where you don't have to go on the missions and follow the story, you can spend time just being lost in the world like you're wandering through NYC where there are millions of stories being told and you could potentially walk into any one of them. If at some point we could create a safe way to plug our nerve system into virtual reality, we'll be able to touch and smell the things we see in front of us. Then we're going to want to touch and smell everything just as we got to see everything at the beginning of VR. Mankind is curious about everything and you can't settle on telling them one story because they're going to always want more.

 

[Postmaster]

Yeah, it's not gonna be some sort of story telling device, but like a first person game experience.
I remember when I played MafiaII where you can drive around all day in this town.
I did that for a while, and it was cool to explore everything, but after a few hours I got bored,
and never did it again.
So no, it will not replace film.

 

[adkimery]

Mankind is curious about everything and you can't settle on telling them one story because they're going to always want more.

Mankind has been telling linear stories for centuries though and many stories we tell today have changed very little over time (the Iliad, the stories in the Bible, the Canterbury Tales, etc.,).

Imagine being able to walk through Middle Earth and not have to follow Frodo or the Orcs or really anybody.</quote]

It gets boring.

If you give the user the ability to do crazy things (like in GTA) it takes longer to get boring but it always gets boring eventually because you aren't doing anything that advances a plot, gets you closer to some sort of end goal, etc.,. Sure you can pickup side missions (small stories) here and there but without a main story arc that can be progressed what's the point? The user is just pointlessly roaming around a virtual world doing inconsequential things.

Linear stories and non-linear/make your own adventure interactive experiences satisfy different parts of the brain and both will co-exist w/o one making the other obsolete.