The Art of Pixel Performers 101
scriptedfun writes "The BBC features the growing role of computer graphics in movies, but points out that it is still the human actors behind the CG characters which make them alive. From the article: 'It seems that the performance artist can still bring something to a performance, which [ a CG ] artist cannot.'"
Oh yeah (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh yeah (Score:2)
Re:Oh yeah (Score:1)
Re:Oh yeah (Score:3, Interesting)
In case you're too lazy to folow the link or read through the 518 entries he has, some of his notable characters:
Fred from Scooby Doo - and now that Messick has passed away, Scooby Doo as well.
Boo Boo Bear from yogi Bear
Jabberjaw
Dynomutt
All the other Gremlins and Mogwai that weren't Gizmo/Howie Mandel
The following Transformers Blades/Buzzsaw/Chromedome/Frenzy/Galvatron/Groove/ Laserbeak/Megatron/Mirage/Mixmaster/Ratbat/Ravage/ Rumble/Skywarp/Sludge/Soundwave/Ste
Re:Oh yeah (Score:1)
Re:Oh yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in a Spanish-speaking country, and here we can watch them subtitled, or spoken in spanish.
Some time ago, it was a no-brainer, subtitled pictures were much better.
Recently, it does really notice that proffesional voice actors are much better than tv/cinema stars at doubling CG characters.
I like Elen Degeneres, but Dori (?), her character in Nemo, pales in comaprison with its spanish counterpart, my friends and I keep laughing at some lines we heard in that movie (in spanish; -tortugas!!- ). Then we rented it in english, and we didn't laugh at all at the same spots, and little anywhere else.
Shrek is great in spanish, too, its played by the same guy that doubles Homer Simpson in spanish.
That shows that the guys who did the translation did a better work than the original actors, while playing with the handicap of a translated comedy script, that loses lots of lines and jokes.
Re:Oh yeah (Score:2)
With all due respects, I think we're talking about two different things here.
I will, first, agree with you that animated movies often are indeed funnier when we see them in our native tongues, than in their original languages. In Disney's Alladin, for example, there's a scene where the Genie asks Alladin to wish for the Nile. When Alladin wishes for the Nile, the Genie says no (and thus demonstrates his independence). When they dubbed the movie into Telugu, my mother tongue, they changed this line to a ver
Re:Oh yeah (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Oh yeah (Score:2)
Bottom line - MS offers freeloaders cheap way out (Score:1)
Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm probably going to get modded as troll again but never mind!
A Hollywood actor can get $zillions because everyone recognises their face. Few people will recognise an actor from behind the CG mask. Actors for computer generated will be easily replacable and probably not earn anything like their Hollywood counterparts. In fact the computer generated character will probably be worth more money than the actor that played their part behind the scenes.
Voices though... that's a different story.
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Assuming that people still go to watch films about Lara Croft and her computerised friends even thought the whole thing is CG, and assuming that CG does indeed prove to be cheaper than current production methods...
Then there is going to be a lot of extra cash floating around. The natural question is, who will get it?
H
Yes but the elephants will get payed. (Score:1, Insightful)
You do realize that the movie industry isn't some monolithic affair? Now as far as the groupthink complaint about pay. I don't see any of you "'celebrity' programmers" giving up your paychecks, to someone more deserving. e.g. India
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:1)
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Yes it is, my precious.
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:5, Insightful)
A CG artist creates an exceptional 3D character and manages to attract enough movie producer attention to create a movie for their character, the artist keeps the right of using the character instead of giving it away to the producer (in return of offering their exceptional character to appear in the movie), the artist then may build popularity and demand for their character, and attract more movie producers, slowly achieving the success of real-life actors.
With CG movies becoming more common, is this scenario possible? I know it's easier said than done, and my knowledge on movie production is shallow, but I wonder if there is anything that stops this from working for CG artists.
The hard part may be keeping the character usage right, this is where the difference between CG artists and real-life actors lies, but with a character interesting enough, is it possible?
it's a team effort... (Score:2)
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
I don't think so. The only 'usefull' reuse of CG actors is advertisment, but if a new movie gets created I expect to see new characters, not recycled ones. I mean isn't the great thing about CG that it lets us produce a character thats a perfect fit for the movie, instead of having to rely on an actor to more or less match the role? I seriously don't want to see King Kong, Aki Ross or any other CG character again in another movie, it just wo
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Long answer: Characters as well as buildings, objects, etc, are designed with the style of the particular picture in mind. Characters from something like Over the Hedge just wouldn't look right in something like Shrek or Toy Story and the same goes the other way. In more realistic films, if you took a character like Kong and put him in LotR, he wouldn't fit. The style and design principles are too different. A character like the Hulk (ignoring that you wouldn't use it for anything but a
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
What you say is true of a lot of live action as well. Actors act differently according to the role. But consider someone like John Wayne or Owen Wils
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
Re:Impossible (Score:1)
If anyone has the kind of control over a single character that you suggest, it would be the concept/character 2d artist who draws sketches to hash out what the character will look like in the movie- and he's only trying to realize the director/producers vision for the fil
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
The nature of the animation / comics industry is to hand over the rights to your creation to those who are going to publish and/or distribute it. That way, you can be replaced without the publisher/distributor losing money on their investment, should you breach your contract or become unable to continue working on the proj
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:1)
nah (Score:2)
I suggest you see the film S1m0ne.
Re:Yes but the actors will get peanuts (Score:2)
HOWEVER: even if the A-list star is mediocre as a voice artist, the CGI is invariably a caricature of them, thus capitalising on their "brand name". And even more importantly, the stars have an entre to the talk show circuit to promote the film. Bruce Wi
Question: What is the difference in pay? (Score:2)
How many commercials are on now where they've made an animated form of the human actor, and still have that human's voice behind it? They could have shown the actor speaking, but I've been told that there is a huge decrease in pay when they can animate the person, and only pay for the voice.
Is that true?
Re:Question: What is the difference in pay? (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong, sorry! You don't take a pay cut because the thing you are working on is expensive to make! Did the Titanic actors have to take a pay cut because the film was so expensive to make? No!
You take a pay cut because you are easily replacable by someone capable of filling your spot equally well and willing to work for less. And the further you are from your audience, the harder it is to make yourself irreplacable.
Yo
Re:Question: What is the difference in pay? (Score:1)
Re:Question: What is the difference in pay? (Score:2)
Re:Question: What is the difference in pay? (Score:2)
They are paid according to how much money they can bring in for the film! People love faous names and they will pay big bucks to see it, even if the actual film is a flop. The big name gets people through the gates and that generates revenue, and they are paid based on the revenue they are expected to generate.
If people were paid based on the difficulty of the job, actors would get paid a lot less than brain s
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Question: What is the difference in pay? (Score:2)
Guess what. I agree with you. Surprised?
It's just a shame that the majority of moderators don't agree with us though. The stupid moderating is getting worse and I don't care if my posts get modded down I just want people to stop moderating everything they don't agree with as a troll!
Two things... (Score:2)
There are a series of banking commercials on here. They have animated an actor into looking like they're hand drawn, but it's close enough you know you've seen their faces before. It adds nothing to the presentation of the information. I personally think it's because it is cheaper. That's why I asked the question.
There's a series of pharmaceutical commercials here as well that animated somebody swallowing a pill, but not any of the inside of the body. I could see
Re:Two things... (Score:1)
Re:Two things... (Score:1)
True (Score:5, Funny)
Only a human could make Jar Jar so f*#king annoying!
jar jar. |-? no. (Score:2)
Re:True (Score:1)
I dont know, I'll bet a microsoft programmer could make him pretty annoying.
Larry The Cable Guy is not actually a tow truck. (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowing Pixar's people, they were probably playing with toy trucks or watching video of kids scateboarding, or something... but the magic, comedy, and sweetness of that scene was entirely visual and not about the actor(s), per se - though the cast vocalizations and great foley work certainly added to the atmosphere.
Re:Larry The Cable Guy is not actually a tow truck (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Larry The Cable Guy is not actually a tow truck (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Larry The Cable Guy is not actually a tow truck (Score:2, Informative)
Pixar actually auditions the actors while looking at 2-D sketches of the characters. The actors who make them "jump off the page" get the part.
Nothing new. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nothing new. (Score:3, Insightful)
Quality animators are hard to find in the CG market, thus they cost more, and they take more time to get the same realism into movements, it's a fact, and it will remain so for a while.
That's why the article says that the actors animating those CG chars are the ones who deserve the props.
Also, there will always be some sor
No kidding! (Score:5, Insightful)
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:No kidding! (Score:1)
Re:No kidding! (Score:1)
Sure, his performance was competent, but I didn't find myself totally revolted by Gollum. If his performance was up to scratch, I should have wanted to kill the nasty little thing.
Re:No kidding! (Score:3, Funny)
It could also speak to how they don't live in their parents' basements.
Re:No kidding! (Score:2)
Was James Earl Jones an ACTOR in any of the Star Wars movies? Or did he just add some audio?
While we are at it.... (Score:2)
You want to hnour Mr Serkis? Cool, just do so in the correct category (a new one may need to be created).
Cartoons and pixels (Score:2, Interesting)
Just be patient (Score:2)
Yet. The state of this particular art is nowhere near its peak. And there are things that an animated character (CG or otherwise) can bring to a performance that a live actor never could. Unless you're Jim Carrey, and while I'm not suggesting that he's computer-generated, he's definitely animatronic at the very least.
So a voice talent ISN'T an actor? (Score:4, Insightful)
The BBC article says: "So are we moving towards a time when we can get rid of human actors and just use voice artists and computer generated characters? [Visual effects supervisor] Joe Letteri says: "I don't think so. That was the lesson we learnt on Gollum. Andy Serkis was brought in just to be the voice, but what worked really well was that you had an actor there present in the scene doing all of this."
Hmmm . . . "Get rid of human actors and JUST use voice artists"?? Oh, so I guess this Joe Letteri assumes a voice talent ISN'T an actor? Or human, for that matter? Gee, thanks.
Voice artists ARE actors. Acting is just as much about the voice and the way lines are delivered as it is anything physical. If it wasn't, we would just cast models and stunt people in all our live-action films.
Nope, acting requires a voice. That's why it's called an "audition": acting is an auditory medium.
I think it's difficult to pick apart voice and physical action. You can't really have one without the other. Anyone who has seen a decent voice talent at work in the recording booth can see that they're acting using their whole body. The guy who plays Homer Simpson goes nuts inside there. He's an actor all right. The body backs up the voice.
And if voice were only a small part of what makes a good actor, then Julia Roberts and Morgan Freeman would never be doing any voiceover work. (They do lots.)
A visual effects supervisor who brings in someone not to act the part, but "just to be the voice," clearly lacks the understand that "being a voice" IS acting.
Re:So a voice talent ISN'T an actor? (Score:1)
Re:So a voice talent ISN'T an actor? (Score:1)
Blue/green screen is not basic (Score:2)
I remember seeing a preview of Kink-kong and decided not to see the movie because the effect was too obvious&disturbing..
There was the same problem in the arena scene with the monsters in Star Wars episode2.
The Uncanny Valley (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley [wikipedia.org]
I disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
But when it comes to acting, there is nothing to replace the frame by frame attention that an animator can give to a scene. Polar Express proved that humans acting using mocap still look like humans wearing rubber masks. Gollum in LOTR was a good exception, yet the basic mocap of Andy Serkis was gone over by real animators who could use their knowledge and skill to truly bring the character to life.
There's also the issue of character design. If you mocap a real human and put that data on something that isn't really human, you lose a lot. The musculature of a human face might not quite match up to that reptillian monster (or whatever) and the result will appear soft and lifeless. If the body geometry is different, you might be able to compensate in software, but the underlying motion will still be that of a human. If you mocapped a human and put in on Godzilla, you'd have what looks like a human in a Godzilla suit (which may actually be a good thing if you're doing an homage to the old Japanese films)
Mocap is cool, and I'm sure Tom Hanks loved putting on that nifty mocap suit... but the best acting on CG characters today is still the result of animators working one frame at a time
Re:I disagree. (Score:2)
But if your task is to create faces that look completely real... why not just use real faces? Hiring an actor is a heck of a lot cheaper than creating one in CG.
The best use of CG is when the shot supposed to look different and/or better than reality. If you want reality, step away from the computer and go outside... it's all around you.
Re:I disagree. (Score:2)
I'm also an animator, and it is pretty offensive that it's the human actors like Andy Serkis and not the human animators that get any recognition at all. The computer doesn't do anything. It's a high-tech equivalent of a pencil when it comes to this stuff, but nobody ever complimented Van Gogh's pencil as much as they complement computers for making such amazing images. It's always people behind them, every single frame of the way, and through every single line of code that makes the software that allow
Because celebrity names sell (Score:2)
I'd put Alan Tudyk's Sonny up there too... (Score:2)
Of course they stayed on the other side of the valley by virtue of animating a robot.
Polar Express was 'dead people talking'.
This BBC writer can't even speak English! (Score:4, Informative)
Last time I checked, "infinitesimal" meant "extremely small, negligeable", which is the exact opposite of the notion the writer has in mind (that is, that water is hard to animate).
And it went right through the BBC editors, who are apparenlty easily dazzled by latinate words,
Poor Beeb.
I suggest that the author of the article, Spencer Kelly, should be replaced by a random tech news generator. [newscientisttech.com]
Re:This BBC writer can't even speak English! (Score:1)
Re:This BBC writer can't even speak English! (Score:2)
Re:This BBC writer can't even speak English! (Score:2)
Perhaps, but the proper expression is "complex at a MICROSCOPIC scale" anyway. I am afraid you are too kind.
In your gmtm.org site, your writing sounds definitely British. In that case, you should be doubly offended by the BBC's bad writing, because they buy and publish these rubbish texts with your tax money! :-)
Re:This BBC writer can't even speak English! (Score:2)
Re:This BBC writer can't even speak English! (Score:2)
No they don't. Not personally owning a television, I pay no TV licence fee :)
YOU GO, MAN! I don't watch TV either. Although I watched all the "Jeeves and Wooster" and the "Black Adder" episodes on DVD.
Re:Yeah, whatever (Score:1)
I know what you mean, but it's a bad analogy. Ask any clasically trained actor. They say they always put on a mask before acting. (Okay - maybe the clasically trained actors have the bad analogy)
Re:Yeah, whatever (Score:2)
CG artists not good enough? Really?! (Score:1)
So, have they not seen the newest Hulk movie, or are they just ignoring it? Granted, it wasn't a very good movie in most people's opinion, but it sure wasn't the CG artists' fault.
I don't remember the totally CG Hulk saying much in the movie. So, you can't say that the voice of the actor
Re:CG artists not good enough? Really?! (Score:2)
In this sense, the mo-cap performance artist does a lot to help bring the character to life, because he or she must be very flexible and capable of acting (in motion and character) just like how the CGI would actually work (as near as can be determined - after all, it is fan
Artiste (Score:2)
Just a silly article (Score:2)
And there is an entirely different direction that filmmakers can go that started with Tron and was used extensively in Lord
Creative Genres (Score:1)
Moving pictures have been with us for over a century. Black and white silent movies with just actors and no sound (or some lovely fellow playing a piano). We've increased the flexibility of expression of this medium by adding sound and colour, and further bei
Realism (Score:2)
Re:Realism (Score:1, Informative)
The issue is that when a CG character exerts itself, it should get tired. This means its movements, including their speed, acceleration, deceleration, and precision and the character's posture will change in very subtle ways. Even motion capture doesn't entirely address this because the motion-capture actor tends to work in shorter takes - and thus isn't as tire
Re:Realism (Score:3, Interesting)
clearly... (Score:2)
Everyone that has seen that film, knows it's only a matter of time before even real actors can be replaced. At this pace, I predict the first complete CGI films undistinguishable from 'real' movies will come out within the next 5 years.
Some scenes in Advent Children were already so good it was impossible to tell if it was real or not. If they use hi