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...in other words, boring
A few thoughts:
Shoot, Marvel / Disney paid for Vin Diesel to say "I am Groot" several times!
I think that the characters and animations in some episodes of Love, Death & Robots are amazing.
What Hollywood will think they will save will be instead charged extra by voice actors.
Just look at anime industry. The biggest cost of production is not the animation but seiyuu charing an arm and a leg for their voice.
I like all the back and forth, but I wish we'd stay in context.
The bar for CGI is when we choose CGI over a real thing that is available.
In other words, we'd choose the FAKE version of something over the REAL and I don't mean 'fooled' I mean choose.
Every example of CGI use so far - has been for a 'fake' non-existing thing (acceptable) or Real thing doing 'fake stuff' (also acceptable).
The bar isn't "how real it looks" - it never was. It's about access to the real thing. And if you had access to the real thing, you'd NEVER use CGI...never.
And CGI would (actually in reality, does) work like digital, it's what you turn to - to get something you DO NOT have access to or to make the thing you have access to- do things that are difficult or impractical, unsafe...impossible.
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On a philosophical level, replacing humans with machines, turns ART into CRAFT and a human endeavor or spirited accomplishment into a factoid.
We've already seen CGI used in place of background characters / extras. Those huge battle scenes in the LOTR series wouldn't have been feasible without CGI since you can't realistically get that many extra actors involved in a live shot. As that sort of "filler" becomes easier, I could see that being the place where CGI replaces live people first. As others have already said, main character actors have a skill and a financial draw to the box office. But do we really care if the "person" standing at a bus stop is real or not as long as they serve the purpose to be "real enough"?
Extras can be unreliable. They may not be professional actors and so may not do exactly what the director wanted. They usually don't have any lines to speak so you don't care about their ability to "act" per-se. And it's a pain for casting, costuming, and makeup to have to be hiring and dressing them. This seems to be the most likely path for CGI actors to start replacing warm bodies.
Good point JonnyRay. Extras are a great example. Especially since they typically never have any closeups; so the quality/realism can suffer a bit with none the wiser.
Regarding LOTR, I found certain scenes where riders on horseback that plowed through enemies on the ground looked quite fake though. It's as if the ground characters had no mass.
To the original question, I can eventually see some point where the vast majority won't be able to distinguish between real and CGI. Definitely easier with stills since we humans can definitely more easily experience a "something is off" feeling with many animations.
What's a bit ironic, is that for say product photography (e.g. makeup), many retouchers will resize model's ears, etc. to strive to make them symmetrical. Which looks fake. And one trick to adding realism to 3D is adding in some asymmetry.
This just reminded me of a time a couple of years ago when I was thumbing through a magazine and noticed that two seperate ads for a jeweler were using the exact same photograph of a model and just photoshopping different jewelry (necklace and earrings) onto them.
Today's CGI characters can easily be made realistic enough in a static image to be used as a base for something like that. And then you don't have to pay a model and photographer. And it's only a short step from there to doing the same for clothing. Although consumers might have a harder time there if they know the advertisement isn't showing a real person wearing real clothes.
This is why I don't act/model anymore. Virtual models are easier to work with than moody wenches like me.
By Allah,I dont understand why people still believe/repeat this.
Studies conducted on the factors that determine human physical attractiveness have proven that people with the highest amount of facial symmetry tend to be considered more attractive than those with noticable asymmetry,
One the example given was the actor Denzel Washington
He ,Like many "leading men" actor types has good left/ right facial symmetry
I have yet to see one,of his many female fans, complain that his facial symmetry is making him look "fake"
so why would they care about a really handsome CG Character with perfect facial symmetry??
Sure people accuse women/models with heavy makeup of looking fake but that has nothing to do with facial symmetry.
Also consider that when women get replacement implants after a single breast masectomy from cancer,
I doubt that they implore the surgeon to make the implant a slightly different size& shape to avoid looking "fake"
Which does NOTHING for "realism" if the lighting,texturing Facial animation and HAIR&cloth simulation is not uber realistic as well.
You diva you!
One of the high commands of animation that I learned, is to break symmetry.
Because it look unnatural.
Because it looks artificial.
No human has a completely symmetrical face - and that is what makes a face look natural.
One of the mein problams with 3D CGI animation has always been that it is too symmetrical that you really need to take care to break the symmetry.
Never mirror the two halves of the face. Raise one eyebrow higher than the other. Make an assymetrical mouth. One of the golden rules of posing. Cause anything else is uncanny valley. In 2D animation, symmetry is known as a capital sin.
You can often tell rookies because they don't know that, and make these stiff symmetrical poses...
Cheap $9 million or PBS shows likely wont go this route, true. There will always be a place for real people, but they will be sharing their place with 3D.
The Lion King is by Disney. There is your answer as to why they got Hollywood stars for the cast.
How about a question for you, why didn't Disney use real animals for the Lion King with how realistic they took the art direction? Wouldn't that have been quite an interesting movie? No, they used CG for a reason, and one day that same reason is why they will work to replace real actors. They may not replace everybody, but a good many.
Actors are a major part of marketing...for now because Hollywood is very slow to change its guard. But I believe that Hollywood is also dying a slow death. All you need to do is look at the "Golden Age" of Hollywood and just how much the big stars were worshiped back in the day. As big as some stars are today, they are NOTHING compared to how Hollywood stars were in the past. That is because back then, Hollywood did not have the competition it does now from other forms of entertainment. Also, and this is important, the 24 hour news cycle along with constant social media have torn down the stars themselves. Back in the day, many stars were able to keep secrets in their lives. Today these secrets are spilled on Twitter in seconds and broadcasted thousands of times.
And what about gaming? Tomb Raider? Did anybody have a problem that Lara Croft in the games is not actually a real actor? Or Gordon Freeman? Many gaming characters are designed, and are not based on real people.
Gamers have been over Hollywood for years. And though some Hollywood types wind up in some big games, a lot of gamers just roll their eyes at the star postering. The best example of this was Metal Gear 5. David Hayter had been the voice of Snake ever since the first MGS, and fans were not so keen on having him replaced by a Hollywood actor. BTW, that Hollywood actor also cost a lot more than Hayter ever did, fully demonstrating the stark contrast between a Hollywood star and a voice actor. A video game can make millions, even billions without a single recognizable actor involved.
Voice actors are in the most profitable form of entertainment on the planet, video games. Not Hollywood. Grand Theft Auto 5 is the most profitable piece of media of all time. Not a Star Wars movie, not any of the Lord of the Rings movies or even The Avengers. Nope, GTA5 tops them all, and by a lot. Going by the this mountain of cash, did the voice actors in GTA5 make more than the cast of the Avengers? Nope, not by a long shot. I would bet that most of the Avengers by themselves cost more than the entire GTA5 cast put together.
This proves that voice actors will not necessarily cost more if movies go to them more often as 3D actors become more normalized. They might get more money as time goes on, but never, ever will they be paid like Tom Cruise.
People have already accepted CG in many ways. Entire shows and movies are filmed in front of a green screen instead of on location. Even when it is totally possible to go to that location here on Earth. Green screens have already replaced locations. Crowds are often CG like has been mentioned. Deceased actors are getting revised with CG to continue their roles. CG is used to recreate youthful versions of actors in some cases. It is growing and growing every year, as CG continues to replace more and more of what you see on a screen at any given time. So of course the actors are next.
I think we will start to see contracts that involve using an actor's likeness after death, just to cover that possibility in case something bad happens like Heath Ledger, or the studios wish to keep using the likeness in the future. But that will eventually give way to 3D actors totally designed from scratch for their roles. This would be huge for super hero movies, where stars can get tired of their roles, and the hero is the draw in the first place.
Nothing to do with 'attractiveness'. My point is that if one post-processes an image of a real person to make everything symmetrical (and not to mention, even out every single pore) it looks fake. You may as well use a 3D model. The beauty in humans is actually asymmetry.
I would also prefer video game characters to stay CGI characters in their movie appearances. As much as I liked Jolie's performance in the Tomb Raider films I prefer a CGI Lara Croft any day. If there were a film featuring Commander Shepard with Mark Meer or Jennifer Hale as voice-actor I would happily watch it whereas I'd pass on a space opera starring Tom Cruise.
Most people I guess would prefer the other way. Which is entirely ok. And honestly I don't believe Hollywood actors will be completely replaced by digital stars ... I just really hope that we will see more films and shows with CGI characters. Especially those not targeted at children and not highly stylized.
This is, at best, very tangentially related to your point, but did you see Tomb Raider 2018? It was a passable action movie, but a terrible Tomb Raider movie because it fundamentally misunderstood why someone would want to watch a movie based on Tomb Raider.
If we're talking about some actors being replaced by CG, I have no problem with the statement.
You did not address the issue of market value though. Why should a big name actor, when faced with the reality of cheaper CG characters and (hypothetically) same range of acting ability and (again hypothetically) no backlash by consumers, not conclude that the value of his work has been lessened and work for less money? At that point there is no advantage to the studio choosing CG over a real actor anymore. Illness and stuff like that or attitude can be an issue with voice actors too. Hell, why would the studio not first go through all the known actors and find one who fits the budget? Do you honestly think they will completely forego that and go CG instead for reasons of costs when the movie is just a regular old character drama? There are still a lot of those you know. Way more than fancy special effects blockbusters.
I think people may have a wrong image about how actors are hired. These are highly sought after people. Those at the top of their game will be flooded with scripts and get to choose the roles they want. A price will be negotiated based on budget and how much the actor actually wants the role. Not all of these actors are unreasonable greedy capitalists, they may pick out roles that don't make nearly as much money as starring in the next Marvel movie but they may find the role intriguing and go with it. I doubt we'll ever see Leonardo DiCaprio in a Marvel movie. Jennifer Lawrence chose to be in a highly controversial arthouse production with "Mother" no doubt because she just wanted to play the role when she could have been in a thousand other more profitable movies. These people are artists and usually interested in the craft, not looking for the biggest paycheck. Oscar nominations also usually come with those more grounded productions, so that's another alluring prospect.
Games are an entirely different ball game. With the gamer being at the center of the interaction, there has never been a need for real actors that people know from the movies. Of course more and more games started to become so realistic that they did need motion capture and real voice actors instead of just a few pixels and text bubbles. Some games did opt for well known actors however. Beyond Two Souls for example or the upcoming Death Stranding. Personally I feel this is more offputting than helpful as it removes some of the "this is me" feeling. No it's not me, it's Ellen Page for christ's sake
No one should animate with perfect symmetry that is a given.
I have never seen or heard a layperson watch a movie , live or CG, and complain that the realism is being "ruined" buy the default face of the Characters having ears or eyes the exact same height on both sides when at rest.
Look at these forums here you will find more people complaining about the HD& Dforce hair tools being restricted to the PAs or the lack of male clothing than ever complained about Alexa's or Vicky 7's perfect facial symmetry .
Try telling that to every failed aspiring real life actress,model
or the poser users who languished for the last decade with the largely reviled default figures from poser 6 to poser 11
while clingling desperately V4 with her default symmetrical face and many Character morphs.
No amount of "natural" asymmetry helped any of them IIRC
Quoted for agreement.
the gaming industry eclipses both Hollywood and music combined in revenues.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/30/newzoo-global-games-expected-to-hit-180-1-billion-in-revenues-2021/
Also voice actors do not have to be fit or even margnally attractive thus thier numbers will alway be greater which will avoid the overpaid budget busting "A lister" phenomenon
The point with games here is that gamers are already unconcerned about who stars in their games. They are used to the concept and as such will not care about big actors in movies, either. And while player agency is what makes a game a "game", that really has been less and less of a thing really. Most games only give the player the feeling of agency when the outcome is still often the same. There is no sense of "this is me" as you are often going down a predetermined path. Even if that was not Ellen Page, you are still playing that character, and ultimately her actions are all predetermined for you in any cut scene. That is what many games are these days, people play until the next cut scene, and repeat. The type of game might determine how much of a cut scene you get. A full blown action title might offer short and sweet cut scenes. Or they may go Hideo Kojima and run off with long short movies between the action. In the end, what agency do you really have in a Metal Gear game? You get the same cut scenes regardless of how you fought, whether you went 100% stealth with non lethal tranq darts or guns blazing and murdering all who get in your way. MGS5 is less linear, but still has the same cut scenes triggered by what the player does. The same goes for the Tomb Raider and many other games, the same cut scenes happen regardless of how the player gets to the end of the level. You are simply performing in somebody else's story.
Both of the examples you give of games with lots of real actors are from Kojima and David Page. These two are often tied up in Hollywood, it is no secret that they see themselves as Hollywood directors as much as game directors. But go beyond these two souls (sorry I couldn't help myself) and you will find many game directors don't embrace Hollywood so much.
Some games are called "walking simulators", where the player simply goes around and the story unfolds as they go. Some games are just slightly interactive movies or comics. Visual novels are pretty popular, and sometimes you have what are called "kinetic visual novels" where the player has no agency at all, the player simply presses the screen prompts to continue the story, like a reader would turn pages of a book. Some video games have difficulty modes designed just to enjoy the story, where the game is made super easy to allow the player to experience the story. And some games even allow the player to skip difficult parts.
What I am getting at is that games are another medium, they can be just as passive and story driven as film if they wish to be. Sometimes they simply want to tell a story in a different way from a book or movie.
Sometimes Hollywood actors really do get in the way. I really do not want to see Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers. I do not see Mr Rogers, all I can see is Tom Hanks wearing a sweater, and that is terribly unfortunate and a disservice to Fred Rogers. No offense to Tom Hanks, but it makes no sense to me why he was cast. He does not look him, and he does not sound anything like him. Its just weird and freaky. This is a case where I would much prefer an unknown actor who at least looks the part.
Maybe actors would accept less money as Hollywood dies down, but that still does not cover the other issues often present from using a "star." You get baggage and issues with stars who clash with directors all the time. Directors want CONTROL. Having 3D actors gives them that. The 3D actor will not care about stunt work. A 3D actor will not care to do something embarrassing. You will not have to worry about a 3D actor joining a cult or getting arrested for something boneheaded or doing something horrible. And with a 3D actor, you will never have to worry about recasting or finding replacements for any reason. They can stay forever young, like the cast of the Simpsons has. You can have a 3D actor play a vampire that never ages, and well...they would never age, LOL.
I am sure some directors will still want people, and Hollywood actors will be able to find work with them. But I am also sure some directors will not want people at all, for a variety of reasons as outlined above. Those days are coming.
And Hollywood actors still get paid better than voice actors, even when doing small time indie projects with low budgets. Many times actors will take large royalties or other favors in place of a big paycheck. And lets be honest, sometimes actors take these roles simply because they want to win some kind of award, that is a powerful motivation for some. Voice actors do not often get such royalties.
Yeah that was badly put. I guess what I really meant is just plain immersion. Somehow I'd rather have a fresh new character including unique looks in games. It feels like I'm getting to meet this people more when not seeing a face of an actor I already know.
Games do come from an entirely different place though. The tolerance for fake is immensely high as everything is fake, there is no way around it. It's the nature of video games. They started as ridiculously bland representations of reality and became more and more realistic, but even today we are far away from true photorealism, especially when it comes to characters. You cannot compare this to movies which started at the other end of spectrum with cameras filming the real world.
I have to agree with Griffin Avid. If you have access to the real thing and all you wanna do is show that real thing straight up, there is no need to go for the fake alternative. Certainly not for cost reasons and even less for artistic reasons.
I could see one exception if VR ever takes off and it turns out the only way to truely create movies for it is to have everything completely CG, we may see a shift away from real actors. It'd be a bit like the holodeck on Star Trek, where the consumer could be thrown into a more or less active role into the movie much like Data became Sherlock Holmes or Picard became Dixon Hill. That'd be a bit more like a game than a movie again though. If if we have that kind of technology, why not just generate actors on the fly for a unique experience every time. Then indeed real actors wouldn't be needed, the computer will just simulate everything.
I get you. But I also don't care (as a viewer/consumer, I mean). Characterization and Story are #1. Purism is not even in the top 10, unless you're playing to niche audiences.
There will always be artists. And actors. Technology will hopefully pull in some of the craziness of the last ... 20? years or so.
Yep!
I feel that much of Hollywood has positioned itself as an elite class. I like unknowns. I especially like unknowns who do a few projects, then go buy a farm in Montana or Wisconsin and leave Hollywood for a real life. I love RETIRED actors who find useful work, like running a factory, or building keyboards. I do not need to see Chris Pine in Star Trek 56. I like Scarlet Johansen, but I don't need to see her as an 85 year old Black Widow. I don't know if she likes alpacas, but I hear Texas is great for raising them.
I hate it when my 3D actors run off and join the "Mesh Cult". And then there's the UV cult, operating outside of a mountain range in Colorado.
One of my favorite voice actors is Dee Bradley Baker. He's a sound-effects and animal voice genius and you can tell he's always having fun.
The beauty in humans is actually asymmetry.
I think you and Wolf are mixing symmetry and 'balanced' a balanced face is seen as more attractive. Same as body shapes.
Balanced proportions. Anything else triggers anomalies-connections. We see anything off and it triggers our genetic-based worry/avoid those genes feelings.
A made-up face usually hides blemishes and the fact that our faces have 2 sides, thus the phrase 'my good side' lol.
When face halves look identical and have zero unique features, variation in skin texture, blemishes, moles, warts, acne scars, etc.....
we see the polished look of heavy make up and begin to approach fake-perfection.
In the Daz store, the more imperfections the skin has, the more people say it looks real.
We seem to be getting the end result of make up, but not the texture or look of a face with heavy make up applied.
Stretch marks and wrinkles are a big deal and go a long way.
Only to a point. There is one Hollywood actress (I won't mention her name), who has a VERY asymmetrical. One side of her face is noticably shorter from top of head to the bottom of her jawline. To the point that her face appears "bent", due to the vertical centerline of her face appearing to be a CURVE and not a line.
I will not make fun of anybody's physical attributes, and that is not the intent here. But at the same time, I must be completely honest. Every time I see her on screen, I am completely distracted and I get "pulled out" of the story. Severe asymmetry can be just as distracting as severe symmetry.
Some actors and actresses even go so far as to cover up moles and other birthmarks to achieve symmetry. You don't notice this until you see the "goes without makup" beach pictures on the DailyMail site. Again, not making fun. Just acknowledging that the pros (and who is more "pro" than Hollywood?) know that too much asymmetry is not a good thing either.
In the DAZ store, I actually see some skin imperfections as being distracting.
Hollywood is caking it on. Real life people don't do that nearly as often, and they do look more natural. Not worse, but not necessarily "better" either. It's all subjective of course, but the "distraction factor" (on either side) is real, especially when seen on our high resolution monitors.
...I've heard that digital vocalisation overlay which many singers use today and it sounds terrible.
...umm, many famous actors from Patrick Stewart to Leonard Nimoy, to Elizabeth Taylor were tickled to do voices for the Simpsons.
...Famous stars including members of the Sopranos cast and even Arnold Schwarzenegger lent their voices to pinball games. The cost to play those games didn't go up
...yeah, but real actors can perform their roles with emotion.
...
...I think it was either Genesis or G2 which had had controls to adjust facial symmetry, like individual eye, cheek and ear height & size controls. That disappeared with G3 and G8 even with the merchant resource content. The only thing you can make asymmetrical now are boobs and buttocks.
Odd one of the first things I noticed when Genesis 3 came out was the separate left and right facial adjustments in the basic packages, maybe PA ones since lack them?