# Movies without actors?



## Slater (Aug 17, 2001)

As advanced as computer animation is getting these days, how soon before we see a movie (not a cartoon) with computer-generated actors? No salary/contract disputes and they're always the same age.


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## Highlander II (Aug 17, 2001)

somehow i don't see SAG (the Screen Actors' Guild) giving in too easily to this one ---

remember Napster and all the debate that spurned?? (and someone else mentioned this correlation, i'm just borrowing it) -- movies w/o actors --- nah - i don't think i would want to watch that - it would never have the same effect -- there's just something about computer generated 'emotional reaction' that just isn't quite the same as actually watching the actor have that same reaction ---


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## little star (Aug 18, 2001)

'Final Fantasy' has sparked a lot of debate along these lines recently...

I haven't seen the movie, but I have seen trailers and it's pretty amazing what they can do.  (computer animation must be a great job..it looks like it would be a lot of fun,though I understand it requires a great deal of patience.)

I would guess that we'll be seeing a lot more of it, but I don't think it'll take away from 'real' actors & actresses---there will always be a need for them simply because people like to feel there's a real 'personality' behind the characters.  Also, computer generated characters will never satisfy our society's interest in gossip about stars' private lives, etc. 


little star :star:


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## Dave (Aug 19, 2001)

> _Originally posted by little star _
> *I would guess that we'll be seeing a lot more of it, but I don't think it'll take away from 'real' actors & actresses---there will always be a need for them simply because people like to feel there's a real 'personality' behind the characters.  Also, computer generated characters will never satisfy our society's interest in gossip about stars' private lives, etc. *



We will always still have that. They still need a body and a face to start off the animation with. They also still need a voice to bring life to it (at least they do at present.) So these 'real' actors and actresses will be paid just as much to do less.


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## Chilly (Sep 5, 2001)

*i*

u cant do that!!! how will i drool over eople like david beron or michael biehn..........or ..........or someone else..........


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## ZachWZ (Nov 30, 2002)

I think that the go by their looks stars are the only one that fear this.  They get $30million roles by looking pretty with a mediocre at best ability (sometimes they get an oscar).  Mostly actresses that plead ageism later.  I am on topoc.  what a mean is that a CGI will never age and keep up with style within a week of a movies release just with a few keystroke.  (Talking Future here)  I do however beleive that not even in a billion years a CGI could compete with actual good acting.

ZachWZ


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## Tabitha (Dec 4, 2002)

Have any of you seen "Simone"?  It has some interesting things to say about artificial actors, but it all seemed far too fantastic that something that realistic was anywhere near our reach.


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## Krystal (Dec 17, 2002)

> _Originally posted by little star _
> *'Final Fantasy' has sparked a lot of debate along these lines recently...
> 
> I haven't seen the movie, but I have seen trailers and it's pretty amazing what they can do.  (computer animation must be a great job..it looks like it would be a lot of fun,though I understand it requires a great deal of patience.)
> *



Well, I think probably we could see more like Final Fantasy coming to life. But I don't think it would replace the other movies with real actors/actresses. Don't doubt that it can make a new category of movies, you know like there are movies of action, etc. A category of movies of computer animation.  I totally love Final Fantasy, find it very cool. With a great story and most of all I was really surprise how much the animations looks like persons. In some scenes they move like persons and with the background you could think they were actors/actresses. Really neat.   Of course in others it was obvious it was an animation.  

But definitely a great movie, and don't mind to see more like this.  

Krystal


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## Metryq (Apr 26, 2011)

It's been a long while since I saw _Final Fantasy_, but I remember the "uncanny valley" was thick on it. "Uncanny valley" is a term that originated in psychology and was later adapted to robotics and then computer animation. Specifically, there is a growing sense of unease as a simulation of a human grows more realistic, yet falls just short of total realism. It's the same "creep factor" one gets from the walking dead; zombies. There is more to it than mere appearance. We have a remarkably fine-tuned sense for the subtleties of life.

Sure, the technology has improved since _Final Fantasy_, although I judged some of the failings in that movie to be aesthetic. Computer animation software features a function called automatic "betweening." With old fashioned, hand-drawn cel animation there are "key" animators who set up the primary poses and movement of a scene. Then a secondary army of "betweeners" draw all the intermediate frames. In computer animation the artist sets up the same sort of "key" poses. The computer then 'tweens the movement between the key frames. 'Tweening can look very unnatural if the movement is linear—in other words, an arm moving at exactly the same speed between points A and B. So most 'tweening has an automatic "ease in/ease out" curve that speeds up and slows down the movement. However, that can look "wrong" as well. To me, most of the animation in _Final Fantasy_ looked 'tweened, thus making the figures look like puppets. The lighting was also too diffused and low contrast. Think of the difference between real outdoor lighting (even when moderated by diffusers and reflectors) and "outdoors" scenes shot on a soundstage. 

Animator Max Fleischer invented rotoscope early in the 20th century as a means to trace the performance of a real actor into the movement of a cartoon figure. Today, the modern variation on that idea is called motion capture, or "mocap." There are a variety of mocap systems, and the most elaborate to date was used in James Cameron's _Avatar_. Actors wore a variety of tracking markers, reflectors, and even "Waldo" masks to capture facial expressions. Three-dimensional models of the real actors' faces, modified to look like the blue aliens, were then controlled by the actors—right down to the subtle expressions and "acting."

That's still not actor-free filmmaking. Another wrinkle in the digital technology, if you'll pardon the pun, was seen in _The Curious Case of Benjamin Button_ and _Tron Legacy_ where—again—a real actor's face was modeled and "corrected" for a different age. As with _Avatar_, the original actor then performed through their...avatar.

During the 1990s there was a flash-in-the-pan pop star in Japan known as _Kyoko Date_. This decidedly unrealistic figure appeared only in music videos (much like the satirical figure Max Headroom) and was voiced by a real singer. (By the way, Max Headroom was not even computer generated. He is an exceedingly rare example of a real person pretending to be computer generated through the use of plastic prosthetics and _analog_ video enhancement.)

Fast forward to 2007 and the new synthetic idol *Hatsune Miku*, now featuring a voice synthesizer called Vocaloid that can _sing_. If I understand it correctly, the voice is still sampled from real human voices. But to really amp things up, Miku makes "live" stage performances via a high-tech variation on Pepper's ghost. (Some journalists will incorrectly call it a "hologram.")

Tabitha mentioned the movie _S1m0ne_, which I thought was brilliant and highly relevant to this subject. There are two solutions to the uncanny valley: actually leap that technological and aesthetic gap to achieve a CGI figure that can pass as human, or (the easier method) caricature. _The Polar Express_ fell all the way to the bottom of the uncanny valley, and I wouldn't be surprised if it gave kids nightmares. _The Incredibles_, on the other hand, still made use of highly realistic photo-rendering and textures, but the figures were all very stylized and cartoony. 

Which brings us back to Simone. Al Pacino's character argues the point in the movie—even real actors are a synthetic composite of stunt people, controlled lighting, camera shots and editing, and even digital retouching. The pretty people on the big screen are larger-than-life _caricatures_. Simone was "realistic" enough to leap the uncanny valley, but she was still a caricature. Even after the hoax had been admitted, the "crop circles" were too big for the public to give up.

At the moment, humans are still involved with CGI figures, whether it be an animator "acting" through the keyboard, a real actor being motion captured, or even a voice sampled for a singing synthesizer. Perhaps one day there will be completely computer generated movies: computer written script, CGI actors and voices, etc. Even before that point, the pendulum may swing the other way and people will "rediscover" each other and the pleasure of face-to-face interaction.


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