Will CGI Collapse the Hollywood Economy? 524
Some Slashdot Reader writes "Computer animation is getting so cheap that it is practical for use in some TV shows. s1m0ne is an upcoming movie those story is about a guy who secretly creates a real-looking digital character who become famous overnight.
Eventually, it will become more cost-effective to produce whole movies on computer as a standard. And when the technology and costs permits, non-scifi TV shows with an all-digital cast(fully copyrighted of course) will come forth. But the real main issue is: If this takes off, what will happen to all the people like the background characters, costume makers, construction, caterers, cameramen, model makers, casting companies, etc."
A Boon to Ugly People! (Score:2, Funny)
Thanks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Thanks (Score:4, Funny)
Agreed. I think we're still a long way from making 'digital' actors and actresses that are indistinguishable from the real thing. The technology isn't there yet, and may never be.
This is like the people in the 50s who thought that within the decade they'd have robots that were indistinguishable from real people. I'm sorry, there's just something more to a real human being.
It's the same idea when it comes to actors; a half-decent professional actor can easily put to shame an animator and a vocalist.
Oh wait, we're talking about Hollywood actors . . . nevermind, the industry's toast.
Acting is in the VOICE (Score:5, Insightful)
on the whole I kind of like actors who are ALIVE! I just don't think computers make good actors...
Acting isn't in appearance but rather in the voice. Have you ever watched a well-voiced anime?
As CG characters become more common, and "voice actor" begins to come close to "screen actor" in the American public's ranking of professions, it's not Hollywood that'll collapse but rather the cosmetic companies, as they won't be able to sell their wares with li(n)es such as "This actress uses this expensive makeup, so you should too!"
Re:Willing To Pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. He deserves high pay because he's directly responsible for the ridiculous amounts of money his play brings in. He wouldn't be demanding 5 mill if they were raking in only 1/10th of what they are now.
It's kinda like the ridiculous amount of money big name actors get. The movie studio's not paying $20 million dollars for extreme high quality acting, they're paying that much because they're betting more people will go see the movie if Harrison Ford is in it. It's about audience draw.
Re:Thanks (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone would just get a real job (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah really, i don't see this happening any time soon. If these "laid off" support crews do anything, they will just learn computers.
We aren't ridding society of these jobs, just morphing them into different areas. We will need graphics artists, developers, computer technicians and people who can script, do voices and come up with the "soul" of these CGI shows/movies.
Times are changing, not dissapearing!
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:5, Interesting)
Most computer jobs aren't real jobs, either, unless one defines realness by how much salary the employee makes. Most of it is basically just modernizing paper-shuffling. Whoop-de-doo. That's hardly more meaningful than the support staff for movie-making, let alone the artists involved.
I mean, sure, I enjoy working with computers and it pays okay, but I don't kid myself that it has a big positive impact on the world. In ten years no one will care much what I did last week. In a hundred years, "Casablanca" will still be worth watching.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:3, Insightful)
Could I tell you who filmed Casablanca? No. I am sure there where more than a couple actors, camera man and a director.
I really hate when people dont give credit to an entire team. Same thing happens at my job, Marketing and Engineering will get the credit, and the people in implementation and operations are left out. We put the servers/software into production, fixed all the bugs, redesigned it to work, and we dont get credit.
Just because a persons job isnt important to you, doesnt make it less important. Alot of snobbish, elitism going on lately in posts.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because a persons job isnt important to you, doesnt make it less important.
Usually the people who don't get credit are replaceable. Not expendable, mind you, since the main job wouldn't be possible without thier part, but certainly replaceable, in that their job could be performed just as well by someone else. Is it cold hearted or dehumanizing for me to say so? I don't think so at all. Humans should be celebrated for their uniqueness and creativity. A person doing purely algorithmic tasks does not deserve as much credit. I don't know the details of your "implementation and operations" scenario, so I won't comment on your creativity specifically.
Alot of snobbish, elitism going on lately in posts.
A lot of knee-jerk pseudoegalitarianism going on, too, but that's nothing new. By the way, my sig, "Any repetitive process can be automated. Remember that fact every morning when you wake up," is supposed to be a call to do something unique with your life and not live under the threat of being obsoleted through automation. Again, not intended to be dehumanizing, quite the opposite.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:4, Interesting)
Corruption has never been so blatantly corrupt since the the 1920s. While there are many good corporations out there, the large monopolistic companies have crippled a large section of our tech industry. The ripples have touched many companies I work with, and will cost everyone MILLIONS.
Hmm... yes. You are aware that the Ferengi were written as fictional characters to embody an absurdly extreme stereotype, right? Assigning the "Ferengi Rules of Acquisition" as capitalist values on their face is either disingenuous or ignorant.
You never sat in a board room during a merger, this is evident.
I have never been in a multi-billion dollar merger, but the few dot.bombs I've seen made me sick. I was asked to leave the meetings when I asked about the employees, stocks and profits are the only value. The company I am at now actually wants employees to do community service, they even pay us for those days away from work... I've seen the extremes on both sides. The ferengi would fit right in.
Now STFU.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:4, Insightful)
Just think about the positive impact compuer jobs hae the next time, on a friday night when the banks are shut and your low on money, you walk up to the hole-in-the-wall, check you balance and draw some money out to go and enjoy yourself with. How often have you done this? And how often have you watched Casablanca?
This isn't advocacy against the movie industry - entertainment needs a constant influx of new material for it to stay fresh, and it is true that there are some just-as-insubstantial jobs in the computer industry (such as the games market).
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:2, Insightful)
The path of mankind has always been to replace human work and effort with automated work and effort as soon as possible, thus allowing the humans to move on to other endeavors. Look, we don't go out and gather wheat by hand - we have a couple guys in massive combines do in one day what would take dozens of people a week to do. We have computers do in three seconds what would take a letter carrier many days to do.
Mankind needs to stop being so paranoid and stuck with the old way of doing things. Guess what, someday we won't need gass pumpers. They'll find other jobs (who really spends all their life pumping gas anyway? nobody I suspect). This is what allows mankind to evolve. We let the machines do what we have mastered and persue new things in the world. This is the way it should be.
Besides, who really cares about actors? They're usually a bunch of highschool dropouts with overinflated egos who couldn't a dollars worth of change on a fifty cent candybar.
On the flip side, the MPAA and SAG could just convince the government to outlaw CG.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:3, Interesting)
The system already has a way. Namely, if things ultimately cost less to produce (like movies), then people will have more money left to spend on other things. Those other things will create jobs. The short run pain of dislocation needs to be dealt with, but in the long run, cheaper production is a good thing.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:4, Insightful)
More important than genetic evolution is our cultural evolution. Remember the industrial revolution? It didn't have any noticable effect on our gene pool, but it did improve living conditions for a lot of people.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:2, Interesting)
So an economy can exist on computers alone? I think not.
For many, times are in fact disappearing. Computers are replacing vast tracks of the labor market. It is by this market, and the movement of money it represents, that drives economics.
Computers employ a few for a very short period of time, then continue to earn income for the wealthy owner "forever". Unfortunately an economy, indeed a nation, cannot survive with a few wealthy and huddled masses.
In my area the electric company just eliminated meter readers. N mouths that have to compete to find other ways of feeding themselves with the X, Y, and Z mouths that were consumed by the massive gains in "productivity" the Fed's all lathered up about.
Fact is, our economic system is not configured to exist as a "post scarcity" environment. How do yo propose the world should work when, in fact, only about 10% of the people really need to "work" in order that everyone be supported?
Right now, we're already grasping at the straws of economic maintenance. We call it Corporate Welfare, Workfare, legally mandated 3rd party contracts, and the massive movement to eliminate "purchase" as an option vs. "rental".
Over the last 10 years we, in the US, have undergone a massive increase in "produtivity". Yet, oddly, we sit in the brink of the biggest outbreak of Corporate debt since, forever. Why is that? Underlying deflation. People are getting paid less, on average, and corporations have been using borrowed money to make up for their inability to raise prices in the face of an ever lower paid consumer base.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:3, Insightful)
Marx said the same thing at the dawn of the industrial age.
Imagin making cars using forges to make the steel, rather than doing it by hand? Thousands of people were "put out of work" by steel forges and metal forming machines.
We saw the suspension of unreality that this resulted in-- communism, centrally planned governments and misery for those who tried to "fight the rich" rather than "become rich themselves".
Whereas the US which mostly was "become rich ourselves" (despite oppressive unions - friend recently got fired from his job because he wasn't a union member) has done much better.
In fact, the computer ate has greately increased productivity-- and debt has not gone up-- debt has gone down. Sure there are companies that went way into debt, but taking a few high profile companies and claiming they are the norm is typical for marxists-- cause reality just don't fit the theory.
AS with the industrial age, people have benefited greatly from the computer age--individual productivity has gone up, individual power has gone up with the increased access to information, etc. etc. And individual standards of living have gone up, not down.
Jobs change. Some jobs will be obsolete in a few years-- just as the guy who was an expert at making pet rocks can no longer market his proficiency in it. That's life, and more often than not, this is a GOOD thing. These increased in productivity create more jobs by providing economic opportunities that weren't feasible before... and you need people to staff those economic opportunities.
Marxism (and liberalism et al.) tries to talk people into being slaves with the idea that "life isn't fair- eat the rich". But life isn't fair-- the only thing you can do about it is give everyone equality of rights, not equality of position. Because if you go down the road of making everyone equal in stature, they are all poor. But if you insure everyone equality of rights, some will be rich, some will be poorer. Some will prefer to collect money, others will prefer to spend time with their children. NEITHER of these activities is wrong.
The "equality of position" people say that everyone should be forced to live as they do-- as slaves of the state, equally poor.
I say, if children are important to you, then play with them. If you don't want to have them, fine. If you want to invest your money and become rich, great. If you'd rather buy new cars and replace them every five years, then, hell, thats' your right.
Just don't tell me that you want to "protect my job" when we all know the score.
Re:Everyone would just get a real job (Score:2)
1st. If you have spent much time on a movie set you know that there is a lot of time in which any given creative or technical person does absolutely nothing except wait for the time when their particular skill or perspective is needed.
It is easy for me to imagine that those people might spend more time working in a CGI production. Taken in agregate, this would probably mean fewer people would be required over all to create the same number of hours of entertainment.
2nd. Some technical professions would probably be entirely eliminated. For example, who needs electricians on a virtual set? Similarly, some creative jobs might be eliminated as software empowers top creative people to accomplish more without relying on an army of assistants.
Yes, the distruction of some positions will result in the creation of new ones, but I don't think it will be 1:1.
CGI Won't collapse Hollywood (Score:3, Funny)
oh.... er, nevermind.
Its a mute point (Score:2, Informative)
Now a independent can put together a movie for under $100,000 and often do..
Once the distrubtion old economy falls and you can get digital movies via internet like through dtv and itv Hollywood will be no more as far as a monoplistic controlling dyke
It is possible in the future, but not now. (Score:2)
Also we can look at the public's approval of Final Fantasy to see that people aren't really ready to accept CG as a replacement to real people.
Re:It is possible in the future, but not now. (Score:2)
Re:It is possible in the future, but not now. (Score:5, Interesting)
Everybody I've talked to about FF was completely appreciative of the CG. They didn't like the story, and I can hardly blame them.
I'd look at Shrek, Toy Story and others as proof that if a story is good, people is more than redy to give CG a shot. If the story sucks, tough, there's nothing to do.
Re:It is possible in the future, but not now. (Score:2)
Maybe you should ask more people. I found FF almost impossible to watch, because of the animation. It had portions where the animation was unbelievably good (probably due to the use of motion capture), and then the character's next movement would be stiff and unnatural, only to go back to being very life like the next second. The transitions were obvious, and very distracting.
The rendering quality was just as spotty - the hair was as close to perfect as you can get, but the clothes looked like rubber sheets. Hmmm... Rubber...
All in all, I found it to be a tour de force of technology, but it failed to present a coherent artistic vision. Movies like Shrek and Toy Story did much better in that respect.
The only real change that will happen (Score:2)
You know that Hollywood will make a cool mint off of the royalties, and will likely come out richer through the changing of personel than ever.
Re:The only real change that will happen (Score:3, Informative)
Why? I can't imagine it being cheaper to model and animate a croud, complete with the appropriate clothes and reactions to the scene, than it is to just get a bunch of otherwise unemployed actors to stand in front of a green screen in costumes.
A lot of the CGI work in movies consists of compositing life footage, rather than modeling everything from scratch. Also, there's still a surprising amount of work that's done with practical props, in front of the camera.
The big innovation in The Fast And The Furious was their trailer mounted car, that allowed the camera to be level with a real car, at normal street level, which saved them a lot of blue/green screen work, and get great footage of the races, complete with a reallistic looking view out the windows. It looked great, because it was real. (Source: Cinefex [cinefex.com] - the article is in the print version, and not available online)
Oh geez... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people who come up with questions like these always think in the most ridiculous extremes? "One day, there'll be no need for actors!"
Well, I'll tell you something: I'm a CG animator. There'll ALWAYS be a need for actors. We don't just make stuff up out of thin air, we need REFERENCE to know how to make a character do something. We'll always need costume designers, afterall, CG characters are not naked. (Not to mention that cloth simulation is a bitch.) We'll always need construction people to build practical models. If anything, it helps with the texture generation and lighting rig.
Face it, we can't simulate reality without something real to base it on. Don't believe me? Look at all the miniature work that went into Episode 2. They could have done that all in CG, but they didn't. Think about it.
Trust me dudes, nothing is going to disappear. Despite the mass market appeal of movies, we still have opera, we still have plays, we still have circuses, and we still have a very diverse market. There is no 'one genre to rule them all', so don't worry about it.
All that's happening with the new technology coming out is we're getting better tools to let our imaginations make it to the screen. It's an accessory, not a replacement.
Re:Oh geez... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people who come up with questions like these always think in the most ridiculous extremes? "One day, there'll be no need for actors!"
Indeed, not to mention the laws of economics. The day that CG gets cheaper than actors is the day that actor's cut their rates. Human actors will ALWAYS be cheaper than CG.
And yes, you don't have ego when you do CG, but the same rules about ego-reduction apply, too. :)
Re:Oh geez... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh geez... (Score:4, Interesting)
And also, real actors will always be more interesting than CG ones. There is a reason that the industry for covering celebrities is so huge. The gossip columns, the awards shows, the parties, autographs, etc. People don't want some made up star to follow, they want a real person. And the personalities of the real people are more interesting than writers could ever come up with for fake ones. Think of Cameron Diaz's personality, or Robert Downy Jr's problems. You could make it up I guess, but it wouldn't be as intersting as a real person.
Re:Oh geez... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the personalities of the real people are more interesting than writers could ever come up with for fake ones.
I hate to break it to you, but the actors in movies are acting out some writer's made-up personality, not their own. :)
As for "Robert Downy Jr's problems", the lack of gossip about CG actors would be a feature, not a bug.
Re:Oh geez... (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it? I have it on my Linux box. (What do you think /dev/null is made of?)
I've never understood celebrity. "Look, it's a guy pretending to be a big-azz robot, and he blows shit up!" is all I need to know about Arnold. Once the credits roll, I don't need to know what Arnold's up to until the sequel.
But you're correct *sigh* in that there's a whole industry built around people who do care what the "stars" are doing off-screen. That industry is effectively a marketing arm of the movie industry -- if the proles don't see Arnold's name in the headlines every day and aren't motivated to see every film in which he stars, they won't see the three other movies that he's contracted for between now and the next blockbuster.
> You could make it up I guess, but it wouldn't be as intersting as a real person.
Don't be so sure. Have you read William Gibson's Idoru? :-) [Plot summary: A real-life rock star falls in love with a celebrity who exists solely as a piece of software.]
Re:Oh geez... (Score:2)
Re:Oh geez... (Score:2, Insightful)
There'll ALWAYS be a need for actors.
Why does this sound a bit like a cavalry officer of the 1930s? "Sure tanks can do great things, but their range is limited, and they just can't go into certain terrain. There'll ALWAYS be a need for horses in a modern army."
We don't just make stuff up out of thin air, we need REFERENCE to know how to make a character do something.
That's more a reflection of the state of the art than inherent limitations of CGI. Given the tools and techniques in use today, it's easy to see that you'd need a "reference". But it's not so difficult to imagine a time when you would have available a repertoire of stock characters which you could customize without reference to live actors. Sure, all the movies made with stock characters, stock lighting effects, and stock sets would look pretty, well, stock and undifferentiated. But there seems to be a huge market for undifferentiated, cookie-cutter TV shows and movies.
"Real" filmmaking with actual actors will no doubt alway be around, just as black-and-white film is still around, and just as stage theatre is still around. It's not a stretch to think of it as being reduced to niches like those though, just because of reduced production costs and the mass market's tolerance for sameness.
Re:Oh geez... (Score:3)
Bad analogy - we're not talking about props, but people
Now, if you take your analogy, and say "There'll ALWAYS be a need for soldiers in a modern army", your argument falls down.
Yes, horses have gone away, but the soldiers who rode them didn't. They just use tanks now, instead.
This is the same argument he's making: hollywood will always need people.
Re:Oh geez... (Score:3, Interesting)
An analog (Score:4, Insightful)
What synths have done is make it possible for new kinds of music to exist, and make it possible for people who previously couldn't to make music [like me].
Note to article submitter: please disembark the hypetrain
What I hope to see.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm picturing something like Shrek but where I can move the camera around pretty much anywhere I want. This could start some pretty interesting dual (or more) storylines, where you may put the camera on the lead actor to hear part, but drive over to a villan to hear a subplot, autofollow your favorite actors, etc.
Plus the opportunities for easter eggs would be tremendous!
SuperID
Re:What I hope to see.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, the main use of your technology would probably be geeks "autofollowing" their favorite actresses' busts...
Re:What I hope to see.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another way to look at this is that the original creator/director just has to work in more dimensions but they might limit the number or degree of customization. It might require an even greater level of creativity to establish a series of compatible threads and perspectives that are still able to convey the intended narrative, artistic themes, and impact. For instance, if you were watching a mystery and you thought a piece of paper was a clue, you could zoom into to see that detail, while you miss another detail in the broader frame. One might be a red herring or perhaps you needed both to figure things out. If the movie was constructed right, two people could watch it from different vantage points but still be surpised at the ending. Like any movie that use special effects, that could be cool, entertaining, and artistically impressive, but it could also suck. And it would appeal to some, but no to others.
Re:What I hope to see.... (Score:3, Funny)
Cool idea. Even Voyager would have been a hit (after being renamed to "Autofollow 7 of 9").
s1m0ne? (Score:2)
Re:s1m0ne? (Score:2)
It wont work (Score:5, Insightful)
-
American adults don't think cartoons and cgi is for adults (in general)
- You still have to employ quite a few people like voice acters etc.
- It will always take a ton of time to design all the graphics
- I think real (and good) actors will always be able to play a part more realistically better than some animation.
And ther're are probably many other reasons as well.Re:It wont work (Score:2)
This is really a strange thing, it's not clear to me how it happened. Back before TV, cartoons were obviously pitched to adults in theaters, as one can easily tell from watching old public domain cartoons. The comedy was obviously geared toward adults. One factor might be that most of it was indeed comedy, and I don't recall much serious adult cartoons that I saw from that era.
Non-humanoid characters (Score:2)
American adults don't think cartoons and cgi is for adults (in general)
AOL Pictures' The Matrix was half CG, it was rated R® (no kids allowed without mommy) in the USA, and it won at the box office.
You still have to employ quite a few people like voice acters etc.
A good actor will be able to transition gracefully from acting in front of a camera to voice acting, as Michael J. Fox did from Back to the Future to Stuart Little, or as the lead voices in Shrek did.
It will always take a ton of time to design all the graphics
Any more time than it currently takes to do set, costume, and makeup design?
I think real (and good) actors will always be able to play a part more realistically better than some animation.
So how are you going to get a human actor to play a character from a race that looks nothing like Homo? Currently, the limitations of human bodies and puppets restrict the body shapes that science fiction character designers can implement in movies without using CG.
Re:It wont work (Score:3, Insightful)
American adults don't think cartoons and cgi is for adults (in general)
Well, just wait 20 years.
Historical inevitability (Score:2)
To boldly split infinitives ... (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, oh...
Star Trek, The X Generation
"Bones, this latte is too cold"
"Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a Starbucks"
Re:To boldly split infinitives ... (Score:2)
Isn't Shatner's acting artificial enough?
ba dum dum - ching!
Re:To boldly split infinitives ... (Score:2)
They did is was called Star Trek the Animated Series [danhausertrek.com]
General Nedd Ludd retorts (Score:2)
Which part of "demand for them falls; they retrain and do other things; there's a modicum of structural unemployment until they find other things to do; there's some individual hardship but society adjusts fairly smoothly" were you unable to dream up for yourself?
Now, where's that confounded Stocking Loom [cudenver.edu]
Good Lord! (Score:5, Funny)
But... But... I wouldn't know what to think without Hollywood Actors and Actresses [barbrastreisand.com]!
progress (Score:2)
I suppose they'll be replaced with programmers and computer artists. So what's wrong with that? It's how the world has always worked, and pretty much the only way to live with progress. I guess we could all become satisfied with our current level of technological advancement, but c'mon... Besides, it's only going to hurt the industry, not destory it. I highly doubt even most people from this generation would forgo all real actors for computer ones.
Not to worry (Score:2)
Oh My Various Deities!!! (Score:2)
Man, I wish we'd had some more foresight.
Oh yeah, and remember how once they started making animated movies, we didn't need actors anymore? What a tragedy.
Alarmist bastards...
Sounds like a double standard (Score:2)
Umm, who cares? Get with the times, get with the program. If technology changes, we can't be responsible for people left behind. Their personal business models failed, and it is their own fault.
At least that's what most slashdotters have to say about the RIAA member companies when confronted with cheap/easy distribution.
Why should these people be any different from Hillary Rosen's buddies?
FWIW, we're still a long way off. And as far as I can tell, there will always be work for voice actors.
jobs are like energy: they change form (Score:2)
The economy shifts. Deal with it. The rest of us have for many, many years.
Careers (Score:3, Insightful)
If this takes off, what will happen to all the people like the background characters, costume makers, construction, caterers, cameramen, model makers, casting companies, etc.
The same thing that happened to all the cobblers, blacksmiths and buggy-whip makers.
The whole website is a troll (Score:2)
It's a real person (Score:2)
they will dissapear (Score:2)
Ripple effects... (Score:5, Insightful)
How will Playboy and Penthouse stay in business without the occasional blockbuster sales brought by an issue with candid shots of some current celebrity sunbathing nude, or a washed-up actress or singer willingly getting naked for the camera in an attempt to revive her career? I mean, trading popular bootleg actress AI's could be the next big P2P rage-- who needs an old-fashioned nudie magazine when one can spend a few minutes downloading the actual Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Mira Sorvino* on Kazaa and simply order them to engage in a hot lesbian threesome just the way one likes it, on one's own computer?
*-names of current real actresses used for effect, but I really mean popular CGI actresses of the possible future.
~Philly
Re:Ripple effects... (Score:2, Funny)
*-names of current real actresses used for effect, but I really mean popular CGI actresses of the possible future.
Max Headroom doing it with Lara Croft!?
Cheers, Ulli
Future of Playboy (Score:3, Funny)
The future of Playboy... akinude
http://www.geocities.com/ffclips2/maxim/14_hire
Maybe (Score:2)
You also still need the writers, they're already in short supply (don't believe me go to the movies)
Like most things it will change the type of work, and make it more efficient, the jobs will be displaced.
I like the automated checkouts at stores
Technolgy forced changes in business models (Score:2)
In short, the movie industry is destined for great termoil, but the result will be a more efficient marketplace offering products of greater customer utility. While the requirements for creation and delivery of these products is not the same as those of the previous generation, there are plenty of service sector opportunities around every new technology. The players must simply be fleible enough to adapt and identify a service requirement of the new technology, which is compatible with that company's earlier business.
It will be a painful transition but we will all be better for it.
--CTH
Answer: (Score:2, Funny)
Finally Ractors (Score:2)
As for the "costume makers, construction, caterers, cameramen, model makers, casting companies, etc.," well they could get a new education and shift jobs. It happens all the time when major technological/industrial shifts occur. Someone will need to do the programming, modeling, building of new equipment.
The only problem I see is that the CGI might not be as good as the real stuff, but it might be cheaper so that the big corps will switch anyway and we'll get shafted.
The industry is bigger than you think (Score:2)
There is a great deal more money being spent on such things as trade shows, carpenters, painters, graphics created and applied to real objects
What CGI is better at and will always be better at is creating environments and characters that are not real, like the cave troll in LOTR....
And that is constrained to video/film production only.
Real actors and unsung heros can do what they do faster, better, and far more unique than any character generation can hope to achieve, for it is a combining of mind, creativity and real human interaction where alot of what you see is created from. Just compare something like "Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within" with how you know it could have been done with a combination of real actors and CGI, rather than totally CGI.
This doesn't dismiss the artist who might produce such amazing work as has been done in some of the 3D films.... but these works are few and recognized for their artistic valuse more than information or entertainment value.
I know these things because I've worked in set *theaterical and movie) and trade show work....there is alot more money and far more steady work t o be found in the trade show and corporate theater industry
Hmmm we've heard things like this before. (Score:2)
WHERE ARE ALL THE FLYING CARS? I WAS PROMISED FLYING CARS?!
Some Interesting Potential... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure there are wonderful actors/actresses out there who don't get a chance because they're not sufficiently photogenic. If they can take Pretty Actress A and digitize her, they can then send her off to gaze at a mirror somewhere or do a feature on Entertainment Tonight, while Talented Actress B does the actual acting that they map onto the model.
Maybe they could even get Intelligent Person C to provide quotes/thoughts for occasions where Pretty Actress A has to be seen in public. I'm sure there'd be many people grateful for that.
I certainly wouldn't miss the current system which in many cases idolizes perfect cheekbones and then expects the styrofoam brains behind them to come out with deep thoughts. It's so sad when they can launch a new TV series whose "gimmick" is that the heroine is "less than perfect" (yet who you can clearly see from the ads is just another typical TV actress dressing down and slouching a bit).
Yes, there are actors and actresses who are attractive, talented and intelligent. It's just that there aren't many who are all three.
Looker (Score:2)
Forget just movies and TV... (Score:2)
Bah whatever.
Integration and Supplementation, not Replacement (Score:5, Insightful)
Even when computers graphics, sound, and physics get so good that we could design exacting realism via CGI, it would still be painstaking, consuming too much time. Think about all of the things that real-life actors do and real-life scenarios do, which would have to be emulated. All of the little habbits, motions, etc etc -- not to mention voice and emotion. Sorry, but there's no way that one guy is going to be able to sit at his computer and create a complicated movie with several characters, and accurately express emotion in their appearances and voices.
Ultimately, it will still be much cheaper to higher real actors for major parts -- they won't be necessary for background parts, like crowds, armies, etc; but for the main parts, completely necessary.
CGI will, of course, be very useful in many movies (don't count on it being used for Soap Operas, though). It will be used to eliminate flaws, or even to place characters in a virtual or modified world (as was done in Jurassic Park 1/2). CGI will also be useful for things which simply aren't possible in the real world -- like dinosaurs, for example; or space-ships, aliens, etc etc.
But real-world models will also still be used. Though computer CGI is evolving at an exponential rate, so is animatronics. 10, 20 years down the road, it may be possible to do a movie like Jurassic Park using life-sized robotic recreations. What's the advantage to this? Well, in terms of the creature, very little. But in terms of the actors, alot. Its hard for an actor to seriously act terrified when some head on a stick representing a T-rex is chasing them.
Of course, if such is used, CGI will also be used to supplement it. Animatronic models may be able to walk and look like dinosaurs, for example, but don't count on them steaming up a window with their breath, or many other things which real animals would do. So CGI will be used to add that.
CGI will (already has been) very useful. But it does not completely eliminate the need for traditional approaches. I'm sorry, but a person created entirely on a computer will never have the same emotion as a real character.
I'd like to p2p that (Score:2)
but you could have the CGI chariters on you PC acting them out!!!.
what about hero worship? (Score:2, Insightful)
People need people to emulate, and I don't believe that the human psyche is ready to yearn to be digital Brad Pitt. It will never be a secret (the conceit in S1M0NE, for example) that there are no real people in a film because we're just too interconnected, informationally-speaking, so it'll be a choice by the mass market, and I guarantee that sometimes we will want to see real people doing things that we can't do, that we wouldn't do, that we want to do.
It's already been mentioned that the market will just expand to accommodate the new styles of entertainment, but the end to film and the use of human crews to make movies is inconceivable.
Consider, also, that the Teamsters wouldn't hear of it. Trust me, if this ever becomes a major threat, the East Coast Council will just sign a deal with everyone outlawing CG. Don't think they can do it? You've obviously never dealt with them. I happen to work on feature films for a living and have.
"Keaton always said 'I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him.' Well, I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Kaiser Soze."
Anyway, I'm not afraid for my job, so I don't expect anyone to be afraid for it for me. Thanks anyway.
Susan Dey in "Lookers" ~ 1981 (Score:5, Interesting)
Every five years, this question comes up. In the early 80s, the question was raised in the form of the movie, "Lookers," directed by Michael Crichton.
In Lookers, actors and actresses are being replaced with computer-generated equivalents, to optimize their impact in advertisements. A techno-thriller "ahead of its time."
Re:Susan Dey in "Lookers" ~ 1981 (Score:2)
In Lookers, actors and actresses are being replaced with computer-generated equivalents, to optimize their impact in advertisements. A techno-thriller "ahead of its time."
While we're at it, could someone invent the "Looker" guns that put people in stasis so you can rob them, run away from them, etc. The movie had some cool ideas. Bad acting though.
Uh, oh yeah "cough", CGI rules...
Let's "skin" this story, for the slashbots' sake: (Score:2)
National Enquirer Effect (Score:2)
You can compare this to the rise of the phonograph record. Everyone predicted that live performances would disappear. Hasn't happened yet. Some people will always want to see live actors (REAL actors) on a stage.
Aside: I love to tease the wife about this. She has her Equity & SAG cards, but every time a new & improved CG effect is produced, I tell her, "See, it's just a matter of time before you'll be fetching my Mt. Dew!"
The renaissance of theatre (Score:5, Insightful)
Isaac Asimov Gold (Score:2)
Oh heavens to gimbles, no! (Score:3, Interesting)
A character in a movie is always composite -- a combination of the character that was envisioned by the person who wrote their lines, blended with the personality and imagination of the actor that ultimately ends up portraying that character. It is because of this blend that you will be hard pressed to find two characters that are alike, even if they have had their lines written by the same person -- In fact, you may even find that different characters in different movies, portrayed by the same actor, have more similarities than any two characters whose lines were written by the same person.
If you replace the characters by CGI, suddenly not only are their lines written by a small group of people (sometimes even only one person), but the characters themselves become a presentation of an equally small group. There are two measures that can minimize this problem -- _really_ good writers and good voice talent. However, these measures cannot take things any further than you can expect from any other well-done cartoon.
So, unless or until the movie-going public is ready to accept cartoons (no matter how well done they are, that is what they would be) as the standard movie form rather than the currently more popular photographic form, we won't see CGI actually replacing actors in a large scale.
Why it probably won't happen... (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the long run, however, I still don't see it happening. The reason being is the entire culture that has been built upon the obsession of movie stars and their lifestyles.
For some reason, one that I can't explain, people seem to enjoy reading about the daily lives of their favorite celebrities. They like reading about the rediculous things these actors do with their money. They like reading about Hollywood divorces. They like obsessing over famous figures, and dream about someday meeting them. They like watching their favorite actors win academy awards.
If you replace actors with computer generated characters, all of this goes away. The allure of
celebrity vanishes because a computer generated character isn't real. They can't win awards in the same way. They can't have a lifestyle that the common person envies because they aren't alive. A common person can't ever hope to meet a celebrity who only exists as a computer program.
I believe a huge part of the film industry relies on the attraction people have to the actors themselves. I believe that replacing actors with CG will affect just about everything but kids films negatively from a money standpoint, because people will lose interest.
Why it probably WILL happen (Score:2)
For an example, look at photography. By and large, professionals no longer manipulate images using darkroom techniques, they use Photoshop. Some fine photographers no doubt still use traditional methods on occasion, but the meat-and-potatoes work that is the mainstay of photographer's income is all done using Photoshop these days. Hollywood will end up beng no different.
As for lack of live celebrities, maybe that'll be a factor, but it hasn't seemed to hurt The Simpsons, or South Park. I think people would adapt.
One phenomenon I expect to see is, as the technology gets cheaper and better, very small groups of people will be able to produce Hollywood-quality entertainment for very low cost, and distribute it via the internet. If it's good enough, it might further cut into the real Hollywood's revenue, and be yet another source of pressure for the entertainment industry to use these techniques itself.
Electric buggy whips (Score:2)
Much better TV (Score:5, Insightful)
To a considerable extent, CG is already talent-limited, not tool-limited. There aren't that many people who can really use a 3D animation system artistically. Look at amateur CG. Spaceships, robots, rollercoasters. But very, very few people can do a good model of their cat. Nor is training the problem. Looking at demo reels from art school students shows how few people, even with training, are any good.
Since I've done tools for 3D animation, I'm very aware of this. I've been down to major Hollywood animation shops. I know good animation artists and have watched them work. The good ones have very clear internal pictures of what they want out, and work until they get there. This is a rare skill. And it has nothing to do with the tools. These people do their creative work with a pencil. I can run the same programs they use, but can produce only mediocre art.
Remember that thirties invention, "animation?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, the animators couldn't do it all by themselves. All of the figures in the Disney cartoons that had to look human--such as Snow White--were "rotoscoped," a process that basically allowed animators to trace over film of human actors.
I don't know if you remember the Disney publicity material that implied that actors were hired to spend lots of time "modelling" so that the animators could see and draw how the folds of the clothing moved, etc? That was disinformation--they didn't make drawings of the "models," they rotoscoped the actors who did the actual performances you saw in the film. I mean cartoon.
The modern analog to this is, of course, motion capture.
All the "doing away with live actors" is just another version of the managerial "robots-don't-call-in-sick-or-have-strikes" fantasy. If you're a manager, it seems as if it would be nice to have total control and not have to deal with those difficult human beings all the time... but those pesky machines have problems of their own--to say nothing of the human technicians that operate them, the human field service engineers that repair them, and the human vendors that sell them to you in the first place and want to make money out of them...
Lions, Tigers and Social Upheaval, Oh My! (Score:2)
If CGI ever gets that good, I'm betting the pay vs. talent scale will be rearranged in short order. Maybe then we'll get as diverse voice acting as they do for anime in Japan...
Sets will go long before actors. (Score:2, Insightful)
CGI is already being used in place of sets, locations, crowd scenes, etc, that are too expensive to physically create. Expensive CGI is already at the point where it is hard to see any difference between CGI and a physical set. When cheap CGI gets to this point then pretty much all acting will take place in front of a blue screen, and all but the cheapest and most readily available sets will be virtual.
If we can dispense with sets, and filming on location, and extras, then that is a big slice of the Holywood economy.
Its been going that way for decades. (Score:3, Interesting)
Step 2: Popular sitcoms start using more CGI
Step 3: someone figures out how to do the actors in CGI
Step 4: Actors get fired
Step 5: All the jobs move off to Delhi
What will the MPAA say then? What % of the biggest movies in the last year were made in the US? LotR wasn't. Harry Potter wasn't. Major parts of Star Wars weren't. Sydney is beccomming a hot spot to film major action films.
Bab 5 was using virtaul sets back in its 1st season. Trek has been using computer animated "actors". How long ago did the Simpsons production move off shore? This isn't new.
Missing the point ENTIRELY (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's why: people don't care about CG characters, on or off screen (ok, Lara Croft is a notable exception, but that's mainly for an audience of 13 year old boys).
Answer me this: Could a CG character have played a more interesting Joker than Jack Nicholson in Batman? Would we have cared as much if a CG Gandalf had shown as much intensity as Ian McKellan? Would a CG character have riveted us as much as Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man? The answer is "No," because we find the actors to be just as compelling as the characters they play.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure CG characters are going to grow much more popular over the next decade. But, I predict, that popularity is going to be more faddish than anything.
Collapse of Hollywood due to CGI? Not Likely (Score:3, Insightful)
Actors? It seems to me that the great actors deliver so much in terms of interpitation of their roles that it is going to be impossible to replace them with CGI. I cannot imagine a CGI ever being able to match Alec Guiness as Fagin in Oliver Twist, or Olivier in Henry V, or Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. They are not merely faces, but creative in their own right. Will a CGI technician be able to contribute at the same level? Would a CGI technician be able to invent a Groucho Marx or Charlie Chaplin? I don't think so.
On the other hand, if I were a Jean Claude van Damme, or similar hack, I would be very worried about CGI.
Animated Characters != Actors; ex: Mickey Mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
But it appears not be the case that Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willy, and all of their spirtual heirs, have failed to cost actual human actors jobs. Shoot, they've actually created jobs for humans: think of all the people who work at Disneyland & Disneyworld wearing overstuffed character costumes and you'll see my point.
And I really doubt we have much to worry about as regards Jar Jar Binks, other than if/when and (hopefully) how soon the hard drives containing his models & animations are formatted for all eternity.
In any event, it would seem that much of the attraction of human actors is that they are, well, people, and also that they provide entertainment value far beyond whatever they convey (or fail to convey) on-screen; in other words, they are celebrities whose personal lives are exposed for our amusement. When they get divorced and remarried for the nth time, we know. When they beat somebody up and go to jail for it, we know. When they make home videos of their lovemaking that end up on the Internet, we of course know.
I think you could argue that the majority of "entertainment value" human actors provide stems from their offscreen antics, and I will respectfully refer you to the nearest supermarket checkout line for evidence of same.
So how are CG characters going to compete with that? Mickey hasn't beat them yet in the seventy odd years he's been bouncing and squeaking around, and he and his kin don't seem to show much promise of being tabloid fare, so I suspect human actors may be around for awhile.
Return of the good movie? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, real-life actors will still exist in the indie/international tradition. The cost of making a good indie movie is so low it will take years for CGI to be good and cheap enough to replace real actors and a hand-held steadicam.
Re:Well, currents stars still have power... (Score:2)
There's also people who believe that today. Nothing ever dies out.
Re:I hope CG replaces actors (Score:2)
Re:As long as Vin Diesel will be out of a job (Score:2)
Re:The answer to your query (Score:2)