OT - article on reviving Peter Cushing for Rogue One
Diomede
Posts: 15,401
in The Commons
Thought some folks here would be interested in using FX to revive long dead actors in current films.
RIP, Mr. Cushing. One of the greats.
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it's not new actually but done a lot better now they did a bunch of commercials way back featuring dead celebs like John Wayne and of course in other movies and such with presidents like JFK. It's great to see the greats still live on so to speak so many greats gone and not many if any can really fill the gap they left
So we should expect a release of Atuk with John Candy, Sam Kennison and John Belushi in 2017.
It's a shame Chris Nolan is done with Batman, we could bring Heath Leger back while we're at it.
Does anyone know what legal procedures hollywood or anyone else has to follow in order to portray a dead actor? Im assuming that the family has to be involved in some form of contract negotiation? What if there is no family? I wouldnt want to think that a dead person could be declared public domain for the purpose of advertising/entertainment...
Presumably the estate, whoever is administering that.
I dont know how I feel about the idea of using dead actors/personalities. It dosent quite sit right with me. Although, I have to admit that the Willem Dafoe as Marilyn Monroe commercial is one of my all time favorites.
Remember that car commercial from a while back that utilized Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain, or the other commercial with Bruce Lee playing Ping Pong with Nunchunks that people are still sharing on the internet because they think it's real?
In a case like Rogue One, I can see it, because story-wise it makes sense, and is completely different than say making a new film from scratch with the "likeness of Peter Cushing" in which the actual Peter Cushing never had any involvement whatsoever. The technology is remarkable now. For those that have seen it, there is a scene in Captain America Civil war with a young Robert Downey Jr which for my money is one of the most intriguing scenes in the film simply for the technology needed to pull it off.
Sure, for continuity it makes total sense. I just cant help but think that the "business" side of the motion picture industry will eventually develop the tech to a point to where they will no longer pay actors (living or dead) to act (not that alot of them can). They will simply pay people for there likeness and then do what they want with them.
I suppose its not really any different from what we do with daz. My alarm always goes off these days whenever the potential for abuse arises.
Have to admit I'd enjoy seeing a Frankenstein movie that had Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Colin Clive, and Peter Cushing together. On the other hand, some really great points made about the families and the rights to use someone's likeness. Did they have to get permission to use the likenesses of dead celebrities for Forrest Gump and Zelig? Or, were these people so public that their likenesses were considered in the public domain? The technology is going to make these issues thornier, but in the meantime, I am going to enjoy seeing Cushing again.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 2004. With Lawrence Olivier as the (sort-of) villian.
Virtuoso bit of greenscreening.
I noticed Peter Cushing's Estate being mentioned at least twice in the credits. (Once in actor's, once in thanks) and I think the was credit for whichever special effects workshop did the actual work.
Just saw the movie. Won't discuss the plot here (I have a 1 week No Spoiler policy, followed by a 2 week Spoiler Warning policy. After that, I won't go out of my way, but I'm not going to censor myself without request.)
Tarkin came off as an excellent Video Game Cut Scene performance for me. Partially, that was because I knew he had to be CGI'd, and partially because of my playing with DAZ so much over the last 10 years. And parially because the voice actor, of all things, kept tripping into the Uncaney Valley by not quite getting the voice right.
Other tools and things done to maintain continuity that I would love to discuss unfortunately invovle spoilers of varying degrees (although most of them are logical)
Read this for more - it touches on "post-mortem right of publicity": http://variety.com/2016/film/news/rogue-one-peter-cushing-digital-resurrection-cgi-1201943759/
Hmmm, interesting.
The technology is impressive, no doubt about it. Its the humans behind the tech developement that you have to wonder about.