Science and visual culture

This week we talked about science and visual culture and what better place

to look for the inspiration for this post than the Technology, Entertainmne,

Design (TED) website. After brief research, I came across one of the TED

talks posted on the website that was given by Ed Ulbrich, one of the

leading scientists working on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Many

of us know that the film was groundbreaking in terms of the technology

that was incorporated in the production. As he explains in this video, 155

people all involved in ditigal technology industy worked on the project for

nearly two years. Ulbrich proceeds that the first half of the film displays a

computer-generated character, which looks so real. Apparently, the

making of this film was postponed a few years ago due to the absence of

technology that could realize the complexities of the plot and the vision

of the director and producer.

This film generates some questions. We all know that computer-generated

characters were often used in many different films, however, this case is

very different, for the mere fact that due to the new technological

innovations and creativity, the Brad Pitt character looks very real at

the age of 87, even though, the facial mimics that it displayes belong to

Brad Pitt. This means that it is no longer necessary for the casting

managers to look for actors and actresses of different ages who have

identical features in order to show aging of a person in a film. It is also

worth mentioning that the computer-generated head of an old man was

placed instead of a body-actor’s face. Since, the face of an actor was

going to be replaced with this 3D head, it did not matter who would be

the body-actor. For this reason, Brad Pitt only got involved in the acting

when he had to play a character closer to his own age.

The question than becomes: What if, in about 20 years, the filmmakers,

since it is now possible to create real-looking computer-generated

characters, only used this method to make films? What kind of impact

would that have on actors and acting in general? If they advance this

technology to the point where it is unneccessary to have real-actors act,

will people react the same way to these imaginary, virtual actors and

actresses as they do to the real ones? Will this challenge the criteria for

being a celebrity.