Attention, Hollywood: De-Aging Isn’t Working, So Please Stop Using It
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The de-aging prevented me from understanding the story.
It was the scene at the gas station where Joe Pescis character says to De Niros character something like "what's your name kid?" that made me laugh out loud. De Niro literally looks like a 50 year old.
They went so technically heavy with IR cameras (Watch the making of) and some dude on YouTube made a better de-ager with a deep fake. Not marginally better, but dimensions better.
The Irish Man is just comically bad.
Soon enough the results will be sufficiently believable that actors/celebrities will be selling the right to use their image and voice for a role in a movie without ever actually being on camera.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/act...
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sag...
The upside to this is that tech might be able to fix up some actors.
Who will get the Oscar?
Also, talent agencies have been paying for 3d scans of their top talent for years, just to have banked in case anyone should need it. I would guess that all the A list actors plan on getting scanned every 5 years so they can be in a movie at any age.
And I see two scenarios too:
1. You can pay the studio (?) some semi-trivial amount for the use of a completely generated AI actor that perfectly fits the Director's vision for the role.
2. You get legal knock-off actors. Sure, it's $20 MM to use Tom Cruise, but for only $1 MM you can use AI-generated Thom Ruse, who looks exactly like Tom Cruise, but just slightly different enough to be legally considered his own IP.
Like (virtual) Japanese and Korean music idols, but for tv and movie actors.
We see this time and time again. Live action X, sequel Y, reboot Z, ad nauseam because once a company reaches a certain point the marketing budgets and brand loyalty can convince anyone to see anything. So, why take on “risky” new ideas when the old ones still work?
We also see what happens to these “new” ideas, even when successful. Cartoons such as “Infinity Train” and “The Owl House” getting canned partway through their run for literally no reason while other shows like “Raven’s Home” and “The Legend of Korra”, both spinoffs of mid-2000s shows, were pushed to extremes with the former still running to this day.
Then there are the familiar story reboots. The Jazz Singer has had multiple remakes since the 1920s (and we're overdue for another one). A Christmas Carol has been redone even more.
There's a fair amount of sly humor in The Wizard of Oz (1939) clearly directed at adults.
Edit: Everything Everywhere I think a was the last one.
I suppose there are two ways to include an actor if they are unable to perform in the role. Given that the reason why you want a specific performer back is because this current production is a sequel or takes place in the same universe, you can always use archival or cut footage from a prior engagement. The problem with this approach is that it leaves the character seemingly in their own world: they don't react to anything and events just happen around them. Audiences pick up on this quickly and the movie magic is lost as a result.
The CG case is where we can "de-age" or bring an actor back to life, which I suppose is a sort of de-aging in itself. It involves mapping a digital prosthetic to the stand-in's face and remaping movements from the body double back onto the mask. In the case of de-aging, the body double is just the older version of the same actor. This is done with mo-cap typically and more and more special effects are being done within video game engines and development suites like Unreal and Unity, also contributing to the cutscene look of the final output.
In the past, film editors have been able to "live paint" as if using photoshop to retouch an image. The software follows the image between frames an applies the transformation. This additive method of altering the image is used in every single medium to high-production value piece of video media and we are used to the retouched look of it to the point where we don't notice it whatsoever. A skilled artist can do the de-aging here.
Hollywood is behind the high-tech world of AI-driven facial replacement by a few years even thought it all feels like old news to us. I suspect it will only get better and move from "uncanny valley" to "passable" within about five years and firmly into the world of "undetectable" within a decade. However, I believe that AAA video games will show us more realistic renditions a few years in advance of cinema because that industry's technology is driving film and TV and I believe will continue to do so for years to come.
A movie is a story. If the story is good, we're all ready to accept imperfect VFX, SFX, sets, costumes, props and so on as long as they're in service of a good story.
So the story is the problem.
The problem is the story is very often the problem in modern movies. So my feelings about that WGA strike are very mixed. The industry has seen an influx of young, inexperienced, at times obnoxious writers, whose union insists "you'll hire them in greater numbers, for longer time, at higher salaries".
I'd say:
Attention, Hollywood: the WGA isn't working, so please stop using it.
Yeah.
Young and inexperienced isn't that big a problem. But obnoxious certainly is a problem.
The biggest problem is these people know nothing and they are very preachy in their writing. It makes it miserable to experience. No one likes to be preached at by the young and inexperienced.
At least in the dad movie category they've switched to the hot girl half his age being the protagonist's daughter instead of love interest.
That's not to say the technology isn't overused.