...To Make a Long Story Short...

The big blockbuster movies of tomorrow staring the likenesses of yesterday?  It's not as farfetched as it used to be.  It's almost becoming common these days.

It started with those commercials a while back (strangely completely absent from the internet) starring Fred Astaire pimping out Dirt Devils after his death. Horrible, nobody wants that. Clearly that's... disrespectful....?

But when a promising young actor passes away before finishing filming a movie?  Tribute!

What about bringing a recently passed on actor back for a sequel?  Why not! (Hint, hint, Christopher Nolan... don't pretend it hasn't crossed your mind.)

The process has now evolved considerably, best demonstrated in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

An excellent slideshow of the process can be found here.

A computer can not simulate emotions on a face, the human face is way to complicated and we are way to good at picking up on facial changes to be fooled by one (at least for now).  But in this cases that's not what was done.  In this case the actor (Pitt) was brought in and filmed making faces for the various emotional range they would need for the scenes. A double was then filmed actually acting the scenes out and then Pitt's likeness was digitally added in on top the double's faces.  Finally Pitt was brought in at the tail end to voice over the work. tada!  Nomination for an Academy Award.  

A feat of technical and artistic genius that will probably be common place within 5 years. 

If at some point that which is special becomes the norm, what becomes special next?

Why pay Brad Pitt $20M to act in your movie over the course of 6 months, when you can give him $1M for 2 days work in a studio, $1M worth of special effects and $20,000 to have some body double on set all day. Would he mind?  Would you?  At some level its acceptable, even applauded. 

When the Fred Astaire thing hit the airways the condemnation was immediate.  Now a days?  Not so much. If the actor is ok with it why shouldn't we? 

If it comes to the point that someone spends most of their life doing it this way, would we object as much if it was continued on after their death?   We buy products emblazoned with the likenesses of dead actors, musicians and others all the time.  We're clearly ok with the controllers of their estates and foundations profiting off the dead.  Would it be that different to have their digital representation continue acting after their death? Have some technicians cobble through an archive of old footage to digitally piece together enough for a new performance and there you go.  It's not like that's never been done.

If you think actors and actresses portray a unattainable level of beauty now with their makeup artists, hair stylists, wardrobes and creative camera work, wait until they've been completely digitally enhanced for a movie.  An entire movie filled with people that look like they've just stepped off an airbrushed cover of Vanity Fair? No problem.   Need a quality young actress for your romantic comedy but you're finding the "acting" a little difficult hard to come by?  Get Dame Judi Dench to act it out, have her face is digitally altered to make her look about 20 and then superimposed onto a body double? Brilliant! 

That up your alley?

Ok that may be a bit extreme (and a little harsh) but 10 - 20 years from now will we feel the same?  The technological limits of what we can achieve with computers increases every year and will continue to do so indefinitely.  At some point presumably (not anytime soon granted, but eventually) even the human element may be able to be removed from the equation entirely. We simple won’t be able to tell.

Is a great movie not a great movie because the actors are digital? 

At what point to we draw the line?  

Do we mind? 

Should we?