Grace under fire … Zoe Saldana in Avatar Photograph: 20th Century Fox
In the 2002 science fiction tale S1m0ne, disillusioned counsellor Viktor Taransky (Al Pacino) uses a computer program to create an apparently perfect female actor who goes attached to win an Oscar. It’s a last ditch attempt to salvage the film-maker’s new movie after his flesh-and-blood luminary walks finished on him. But S1m0ne is so strikingly realistic the public comes to believe she is an actual human being, causing Taransky difficulties when the distress want to interview her.
- Avatar
- Production year: 2009
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): 12A
- Runtime: 161 mins
- Directors: James Cameron
- Cast: CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana
The idea of entirely removing the actor from the film-making process is not one that has really taken root in Hollywood, though it represents an attractive prospect as antidote to currently cash-strapped studios. Were it possible to shoot photo-real footage using just a voiceover artiste to provide conversation, film-makers could potentially save millions.
Taking things even farther, techniques such as vocal font splicing, still in their infancy, one day promise to allow realistic delivery on an audio level also. In theory, one could lever a “Sean Connery” kit, perhaps created with the help of the actor himself over hundreds of hours of recordings, with software algorithms filling in the gaps.
Such technology may never have being available, and even if it is, it’s likely that it won’t live up to the claims made by its developers. These are the identical manner of people who put confidence in the general body of mankind cannot tell the difference between CGI and filmed footage. Even in 2009, 18 years on from the spectacular advances made in James Cameron’s Terminator 2, and 16 years after Jurassic Park, the vast majority of computer-based extraordinary furniture work still looks utterly phony.
The likes of Pixar are fully capable of delivering excellent characterisation without using prompting take by force, yet movies like Up and Toy Story are based on a different type of act of enlivening, one which does not try to mien, and does not need to look true to life. The search for “photoreal” footage continues, and fortunately film-makers at the top of their quarry have long since realised that visual effects artists and computer programming, even in synthesis, are no match for an individual action acting. This is why Peter Jackson brought in Andy Serkis to provide the basis for the striking qualities Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films, and it’s for what cause Cameron spent 12 years waiting for the technology to catch up far enough for him to be ingenious to make Avatar.
Even so, until recently, much of the hype surrounding motion capture has been largely that: hype. Speak privately to animators at special effects houses in Soho, and they’ll likely tell you the whole universal is overegged: for a abundant part, it’s designers sat at their desks who end up providing the nuances of emotion that bring a character to the vital spark, not the actors. Such a action has, until recently, been faster, and special effects experts often believe they can do just as interest a job.
With the arrival of Avatar we’ve seen a huge amount of currency surrounding the revolutionary capture system developed by Cameron’session team, based on tiny cameras which pick up subtle facial movements. The film-maker is promising that more than 95% of his actors’ performances are ending up there on screen. The jarring is that this time around, we may just have to start believing. There is a feral intensity, in particular, to Zoe Saldana’s not pertinent heroine Neytiri which could not have come from anyone otherwise but the actor. The creature she plays is all grace and fire: it may just be the first motion captured performance that exercise volition stand the test of time.
If Hollywood once aspired to the actorless movie, Avatar may just be the breakthrough which spells the end of that particular dream (or nightmare). Technology tends to move along the path of least resistance, and right now that’s a route which is eschewing software programs in favour of performances based forward real human beings. All of which means it’sitting back in the box toward S1m0ne and her ilk.
