| <No.534> |
| Visual Effects Could Change How Movies are Made |
Almost anything that can be imagined by a director can now become reality on the silver screen.
"We’re really not limited by the technology to build pretty much anything we want."
David Smith of Sony Pictures Imageworks says, with today's computer processing power and speed, the digital world is more realistic than ever before.
For The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Smith's team created a Times Square that was indistinguishable from the real one in New York.
"If there’s lights inside the stores that are lighting, we put those lights in there.
All the street lights on the street, we put versions of that into the computer world so that it mimics the real world exactly."
But there is still one challenge remaining for visual effects artists, says Paul Debevec of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, who uses this light stage to scan faces and create digital doubles.
"We’re still trying to figure out how to perfect the human face in movies."
Debevec says the 2008 movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is still the best example of a computer-generated face, in this case of actor Brad Pitt.
But he says effects artists are now going beyond the stars of today.
Last year, they created a digital double of deceased Asian pop singer Teresa Teng in concert with Chinese pop star Jay Chou.
"With a ton of data from us and a ton of artistic effort and technical know-how from Digital Domain, they were able to create a singing face of Teresa Teng where she performed not only one of her original songs but two songs that weren’t even written at the time she was alive with Jay Chou."
Debevec expects directors will start to use more virtual production techniques, like those seen in the movie Avatar.
"Even though it looks like that’s a bunch of expensive technology, ultimately it’s gonna be much easier to make movies that way."
He says with virtual production, there will not be a need for as many people behind the scenes.
But visual effects artists agree, even with improved technology and the potential to create anything in the virtual world, there is no replacement for a real actor interpreting a character in a movie.
Elizabeth Lee for VOA News, Los Angeles |
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