I just got the Blu-rays of Beowulf and Tintin (and Sin City, but that's another, related discussion). The results are interesting.
In full HD, Beowulf suffers. The movie's definitely beginning to date. At the time, I applauded Zemeckis for going ahead and doing it even though the technology was still in its infancy: it reminded me of every other time that Hollywood's jumped onto a train that's not quite moving yet (including the early color-tinted films of the 1920s and 1930s, the "sound" films that didn't have full soundtracks, animated features that "cheated" by using photographic backgrounds, Tron, etc.) I stand by that: I still think I was right, and it's still a great movie that couldn't have been done any other way. Zemeckis himself makes some interesting points in the Q&A on the disc: he contends that motion-capture/CGI movies like his are comparable to graphic novels, in that they find a middle-ground between photographic reality (which he argues, persuasively, simply "doesn't work" for graphic-novel subject matter) and traditional cell-animation, which he argues is too "cartoony" for the dense, dramatic subject matter in question. Watching Beowulf five years later, though, the seams really show. The character animation suffers, because the faces are just too stiff to adequately convey the actors' underlying expressions and emotions. (Jolie comes closest, but I think that's because her features are so exaggerated to begin with, and her actual face is so expensively, flawlessly smooth and line-free).
Tintin, however, looks absolutely glorious. Peter Jackson's Weta Digital (the creators of Gollum) did their usual amazing job of just inventing a new system from scratch, and the results are better than Zemeckis' in absolutely every way. But there's an aesthetic difference, too: It's not just that the heads are caricatures (as in the Hergé drawings); it's Spielberg. It's just a vastly superior movie from a directing standpoint: the art design is far less garish and obvious; the timing and camera moves are more lyrical and serve the story more effectively; the entire project comes off as much less video-game-y and much more cinematic, and I think that's because of creative differences rather than digital advancements (although the digital advancements are obvious).
Anyway, I don't believe in the "uncanny valley" and I eagerly await the next stages in this amazing evolutionary process.
7 comments:
Excellent and interesting post as usual, Jordan. It is amazing how quickly technology is evolving. I haven’t seen Beowulf but I remember thinking that the CGI looked really cool from the trailers, and that was just 5 years ago. In 5 years will Tintin look dated? I’m certain the answer is “yes”.
One reason that I’m not a George Lucas “hater” when he tinkers with his Star Wars films is because they are among my favorite films and I like them to look fresh so they don’t age poorly. Star Wars looks like it could have been made today. People argue nostalgia, etc, but I have no problem with upgraded FX (although I don’t like him changing the actual content of the film). Lucas seems intent on keeping his films looking “new” until he dies. How did this turn into a Star Wars comment? Don’t all roads eventually lead back to Star Wars?
I currently don’t own a Blu-Ray player because my TV set is ancient and would not benefit with an HD player. In the very near future I plan on overhauling everything so I can have a modern system. It’s quite pathetic how I’m living at the moment.
Sorry, I have a bunch of cancellations today and too much time on my hands.
I thought it odd that you "don't believe" in the uncanny valley concept until I looked it up again on Wiki. I remembered it as the difference between realistic robots/CG characters and real people but it actually refers to the (negative) emotional reaction to that difference. Since that doesn't seem to affect you, it doesn't actually exist for you.
While I've never heard of anyone else who feels that way, I bet the folks who do are largely those people employed trying to erase the uncanny valley for everyone else.
Side note: Adam, my friend at Pixar, pointed out to me that they don't try for total human realism for that very reason; it freaks people out.
Side side note: the bracket indicating the uncanny valley on the the Wiki page's graph looks eerily like a mustache.
Octo, I think that's probably correct. ("While I've never heard of anyone else who feels that way, I bet the folks who do are largely those people employed trying to erase the uncanny valley for everyone else.")
When I watch Beowulf, I definitely see a problem (as I elaborated), but it's not a conceptual problem. There's nothing "wrong" with what they're doing; they just need to get better, and the only way to get better is to keep trying (rather than giving up on it for being "wrong").
Asking audiences to put up with the slightly-weird faces is like asking audiences to put up with title cards that interrupt the movie and print out what the guy was saying when you couldn't hear him. It's a huge limitation, but it's worth it, because it's in the process of being overcome.
A better example would be matte paintings (that lock down the camera) or visible matte lines around the Enterprise. "Looks fake!" Okay, but they're trying, you know?
I realize that none of my examples deal with the human face (arguably the root of all drama, except in Kabuki theater or puppet shows or Greek plays with masks), but stripping out sound and color is definitely an impediment to the basic human communication built into the performing arts.
As a side point (I know; fifth comment in a row), an interesting difference between the Zemekis system and the Jackson/Spielberg/Weta system is that the Beowulf actors had electronic sensors on their faces which picked up their muscle movements (including eye rolls etc.), while the Tintin actors had simple paint dots applied to their faces (through masks that were made from 3d-sculpts of the actors, which in turn were made from laserscans of their faces).
The Tintin actors therefore had real cameras mounted on rigs attached to their heads, facing their faces (like sportscaster headsets) so that the facial captures were based on a visual record of their faces moving rather than some kind of electrical sensor array. When you see the systems and the results side by side, it's an enormous difference.
I think the Weta guys just got way better than anyone else at understanding the basic problem of facial detection/reproduction, because of all their "Gollum" work (and just because they're so damn good at what they do -- Cameron chose them for Avatar even though he's got his own "Lightstorm Digital" company).
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