First All-Artificial Feature Film Released 281
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock writes "Machinima.com have just released the DVD version of Killer Robot, award-winning filmmaker Peter Rasmussen's buddy movie about two mining robots who set out to protect their "meat-sack" masters from a master mining robot gone insane. The twist here is not only that it's Machinima, made in 3D Game Studio, but that even the actor's voices are computer-generated using programs like Festival, making this possibly the world's first all-artificial movie."
Humans still did all the work. (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that humans still did most of the work. It would be more accurate to say movie with environment and actors fully computer modeled.
When I read the first all-artificial movie, I thought of a program that wrote the plot, picked main characters and background characters, edited the models and the envirnoment and generated all that without any human involvment.
mmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
disappointing voice technology (Score:3, Interesting)
soundtrack? (Score:4, Interesting)
So is the soundtrack done in MIDI?
Re:What about pr0n? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:All-artificial? (Score:2, Interesting)
American Flagg (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:nope (Score:3, Interesting)
Internalist and externalist acting (Score:5, Interesting)
Internalist is most often associated with the Stanislavsky "Method": feel it inside and it will come out on the outside. The Method has been taken to stupid lengths that have been much parodied ("What's my motivation?"), but the core is extremely sound. Audiences are extremely sensitive to faked emotions, and internalist acting makes for very compelling performances.
Externalist acting predates internalist acting, but it's still much used. It's basically the school of thought that says, "I don't care what you feel; as long as it looks good on film, I'm happy." It's necessary for a lot of things. You can't lose yourself in a fight scene, for example, because that's how actors get hurt (especially on stage.) But other than that, it's largely out of favor among top-flight actors and directors.
Most modern actors use a combination of the two techniques, but the balance is different for every actor.
I bring this up because computer animation is the ultimate externalist acting. You have a physical control over the "muscles" of a virtual actor far beyond that which you have over yourself. That's why externalist acting often fails: you may think "this is what I look like when I'm angry/happy/sad", but you just don't have the control over the hundreds of little muscles in your face.
I've been incredibly impressed by what emotions they can get a virtual actor to do. I remember thinking it for the first time watching Barbie at the end of Toy Story II, doing her flight attendant "bye bye, buh bye, bye-ee" routine. She clearly had a "fake smile", in contrast to the real smiles. Everybody knows the difference, but it takes an extraordinary eye to reproduce it precisely.
Shrek and Fiona showed me layered emotions I'd be hard pressed to reproduce myself.
Now these guys are adding voice, where there are even more fine gradations, and it hasn't been as well studied. Artists have been dissecting people's faces for centuries and every art student knows the name, origin, insertion, and purpose of every single muscle in the face.
The voice will prove harder, but I've looked into some of those programs and it looks like a good start. It's a lot of work to specify the exact shape of a line reading, but as with faces, they'll probably get it eventually.
It flies precisely in the face of what I've been taught as a director. I tend to the internalist school most of the time, and you never, ever specify the details of a line reading to an actor. You give intents, motivations, impulses, and try to help the actor find the natural way to get what you want out of a line. If you give the actor a line reading, it will read falsely to an audience, because the line reading won't match up to the rest of the clues that the audience gets about what the character feels (body language, timing, facial expressions). These details are too hard to control, so you give emotional directions instead. It's tedious, but the result will be more compelling.
It would be interesting to direct an actor who did have minute control over voice and body, as this film will show. It's probably too early for the thing to be 100% successful, but I'd really like to find out.
CGI porn will NOT be a replacement (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, this just can't be that far off. Sex and war drive technology, and all that. Give them time, and I'm sure the adult industry will find a way to drive the costs of this down to levels where it's reasonable for everyone.
I agree that computer-generated porn is inevitable but I disagree that it is going to become so cheap as to replace the real thing (such as it is) anytime soon. Let's face it, it costs almost no money to make a porn flick. I'm sure they spend no money on the writers. There is essentially no budget for props. The actors and actresses don't have an awful lot of career choices so they can be paid a pitance. And it's recorded on videotape for chrissake. You are arguing that replacing this dirt-cheap operation with an all CGI environment is economically a great idea? I don't think so.
The question is, will people be interested in this for its own sake, or will it have to wait until things reach the point where it's indistinguishable from the real thing? I'm guessing from the preponderance of cartoon porn on the internet that it's just around the corner.
I suspect that the "real" porn will continue much as it has for decades and that if CGI evolves to the point that it is feasible to make pornos from it will satisfy a slightly different crowd or need. You pointed out the cartoon porn. That stuff is pretty different from flesh and blood porn. Those films feature fantastical characters or situations. A typical film would feature a female ninja with green hair who can change into a warewolf battling monsters on behalf of some ancient clan rivalry. You couldn't make something like this with flesh-and-blood porn without it being absolutely laughable. Now, granted, the cartoon version isn't meant to be taken seriously but the audience is more willing to accept it just because of the choice of media that is used. And the non-consensual nature of a lot of cartoon porn makes it a definite no-no for anything remotely realistic. But I think the reason cartoon porn florishes is precisely because it is not realistic. It is fantastical. I suspect that CGI porn would fill the same niche -- something completely wild rather than a substitute for mainstream porn.
One possible avenue of CGI porn is letting amateurs and hobbists make their own porn films. If easy-to-use authoring/animation tools get created, you could have guys making their porn flicks. People could play out movies for whatever crazy fantasies that they have. And with p2p software, I can easily see people trading their homemade pornos with others. This would actually be an interesting development. Let's face it: there aren't a lot of creative minds in the adult film industry. Once you give people (and there are a lot of people who secretly love porn) the ability to author what's on their mind, I think you will see an explosion of all sorts of porn. Some of it will be real sicko stuff, I'm sure. However, you'll also get people who can actually write decent stories creating some porn. CGI may end up being the greatest thing that ever happened to porn within a decade.
GMD
Torrents anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not truly "All-artificial" ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, once a computer, sensitive to the fact that the timing is profitable for "Shrek 12", kicks off "Hollywood.pl" to generate a movie, I'll be more inclined to give it the "All-artificial" tag.
Of course, the only ones who'll go and see it are machines on their lunch breaks
Thanks,
Peter
Re:What about the textures? (Score:2, Interesting)
I SO want to see that movie... it would have to be apeshit crazy.
Imagine, an intelligent being cut off from all stimulous and told to produce a work of expression for free people to see. that's gotta be one angry movie.
Re:Nope (Score:2, Interesting)