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In the Hollywood of the future, actors may become obsolete

2008-08-27 18:35:00 (GMT) (Caymanmama.com - Technology News)



HOLLYWOOD, CA (Caymanmama.com)–What if an entire movie could be made using only the actor’s…FACE?

Well, now it can.

Using the world’s second largest camera, with 93 computers and lights aimed at the subject’s face from 546 directions, the subject sits inside a sphere-shaped framework that holds all the tiny lights. The scan takes only 2 ¼ seconds.

The camera grabs all the data needed to create one of the most accurate, super high-resolution images of any camera in the world, capturing the face in its purest form—“warts and all.” Techs can then use this scan to create a mirror image of a person’s face, a “digital double.”

As for those “warts,” well, they can be removed far more quickly, easily, and painlessly than in real life.

Techs can then create an entire “digital body” to put the face on. They add life-like movement to the image, which can then be placed on a “virtual set,” or digitally-created 3D background.

If everything in the movie is created by computer, and the only “real life” images are the actor’s faces, is a movie still a movie? Or is that going beyond what we all commonly accept as a movie?

This technology is available and being used right now. So what does that mean for movie actors?

Extrapolating on the possibilities can be, well, entertaining, but also a bit bizarre.

Will actors even be NECESSARY to create movies? If all they need is one scan of the face, which could be saved and used over and over again, how could an actor make movie acting a career? Would they really even be “actors” if all they did was sit for a facial scan? Or would they be more like models? As an actor aged, why not just keep using the scan of his or her ‘young’ face? Why use any particular face at all, if a scanned face can be altered to look completely different? Or why not use ANYONE’S face? All it takes is a two-second scan. Anyone—perhaps everyone—could be a “star.” Why not you?

Could long-dead legendary stars from Hollywood’s past be brought back to “virtual life” by creating enhanced digital images of their faces and putting them on digitally-created bodies? Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, John Wayne…the list goes on and on. But who would own the “rights” to these dead star’s images? Would it be their families and descendants, or the multi-national mega-corporations that now own the names of the studios they once worked for? Or some eccentric billionaire who bought up the rights to hundreds of old movies and started his own channel, (Ted) Turner Classic Movies? Could the images of deceased movie stars become public domain?

With all of these possibilities, the shining legends of the silver screen could be used for anything, from pornography to selling erectile dysfunction pills. Do we really want to see John Wayne hawking Viagra?

While this new technology has the future possibility of making anyone a “star,” maybe it’s best to leave the stars of the past IN the past.

But knowing Hollywood, that’s not likely.

Contributor: Renee Brown—Staff Reporter



renwrite · Filed Under Technology 

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