Because truly artificial faces always suffered from the uncanny valley. May or may not be the case now, but the human brain has always been wired in a way to only ever accept real faces, and also visualise them: every face you see when dreaming is a face you saw at some point, we can't mentally fabricate faces.
That's fair. I was thinking more about a synthetic "actor" rather than every piece having no real world basis. Being able to fake the delivery is the important part. If you get that far, there's no shortage of people who would offer up face or voice samples for a few bucks.
I'm sure they've already started accumulating real face assets to use for crowds and background extras.
You might as well ask why use anyone other than established celebrities. Because a lot of people consume media at least partially because they like looking at particular people they've come to enjoy. This ghastly manikin-making is cashing in on that impulse.
That's an inherent limitation of using actual actors. The appearance, delivery, voice, mannerisms are a package. VFX fuckery aside, if you want Anthony Hopkins' acting or voice, it comes with Anthony Hopkin's face and body. Animated film lessens this. You still have the voice work and delivery, but now the character can look like anything. So you don't need someone who looks the part. And it's not like that's uncommon in live-action movies already. Darth Vader had one actor doing movement and one doing the voice in the 70s. Every damn Marvel movie has someone doing face acting composited onto a digital body. Body doubles were never uncommon. And then there's mocap for CG characters.
There's nothing about current production that would prevent a character from being one person doing the motion capture, another person doing the voice, using the face of another person and the body of another. If you're using AI in the first place, why not use unrelated models for all of them? Especially in adaptations. You don't need to cast, model the "actor" around the descriptions in the source material.
We tunnel vision on how new tech can be used to keep doing the same thing we're already doing because they can't think outside of the framework they're familiar with.
looking at particular people they've come to enjoy
I've never met Tom Cruise. If you told me every movie and television appearance I've seen of him was AI, not a single one of my "interactions" with him would actually change. I'd still like the performances I liked and dislike the ones I disliked. Celebrities exist as a social reference point shared by a large group of people. If all you're doing is watching media, Tom Cruise might as well be as real as Hatsune Miku. It's the expectation of consistency that's important, not the mechanism. And that's not even addressing the bit about how many celebrity's off-screen personas are constructs of PR firms. They're more than halfway to fiction already.
Okay? I don't know what this has to do with my post. You describe how you operate. I described how 99.99999% of everyone else does. They see Thing They Know, they pay money to see more of Thing They Know. It's the same reason why the laundry up the street from me when I was a kid had Winnie the Pooh stuff painted all over the walls. It's also why Disney sues the shit out of people for doing things like that.
There hasn't been anything special--acting talent or whatnot--about actors and actresses for decades and decades. That's not what they're there for. And this new voodoo isn't using corpses out of sheer utility. They're using these packages, limitations and all, because of the cache the actor-as-icon brings to the table. Thing They Know.
Okay? I don't know what this has to do with my post.
...
They see Thing They Know, they pay money to see more of Thing They Know
I thought it was clear, but I'll try again. You weren't born familiar with Mr. Actor. At some point you went to one movie he was in and said, "oh, I like that guy." Which, to your point, drove you to watch other movies with him in it. He became a familiar quantity and people would pay more to see the Thing They Know.
At no point in this process did that require Mr. Actor to be a real person or even based on a real person.
Winnie the Pooh
You're making my point for me here. Winnie the Pooh is a drawing. Completely artificial. No need to have any basis in anything recognizable.
I get what you're trying to say, but you're missing what I'm saying. I know they're doing AI of familiar actors because it will appeal to the people where he is Thing They Know. I'm saying that they can establish Thing They Know going forward with something cheaper, that they have complete control over, will never age, owe nothing to the unions, and it won't embarrass itself on social media.
But you've got a fair point. Dead actors are also free of those constraints and still familiar.
Why do they even bother using existing actors? Just make new actors. Then they won't even be able to whine about it.
Because truly artificial faces always suffered from the uncanny valley. May or may not be the case now, but the human brain has always been wired in a way to only ever accept real faces, and also visualise them: every face you see when dreaming is a face you saw at some point, we can't mentally fabricate faces.
That's fair. I was thinking more about a synthetic "actor" rather than every piece having no real world basis. Being able to fake the delivery is the important part. If you get that far, there's no shortage of people who would offer up face or voice samples for a few bucks.
I'm sure they've already started accumulating real face assets to use for crowds and background extras.
If that's the problem, then just hire a bunch of people who aren't in SAG to model for AI actors.
Demons cannot create, only distort. That's why they need your soul.
You might as well ask why use anyone other than established celebrities. Because a lot of people consume media at least partially because they like looking at particular people they've come to enjoy. This ghastly manikin-making is cashing in on that impulse.
That's an inherent limitation of using actual actors. The appearance, delivery, voice, mannerisms are a package. VFX fuckery aside, if you want Anthony Hopkins' acting or voice, it comes with Anthony Hopkin's face and body. Animated film lessens this. You still have the voice work and delivery, but now the character can look like anything. So you don't need someone who looks the part. And it's not like that's uncommon in live-action movies already. Darth Vader had one actor doing movement and one doing the voice in the 70s. Every damn Marvel movie has someone doing face acting composited onto a digital body. Body doubles were never uncommon. And then there's mocap for CG characters.
There's nothing about current production that would prevent a character from being one person doing the motion capture, another person doing the voice, using the face of another person and the body of another. If you're using AI in the first place, why not use unrelated models for all of them? Especially in adaptations. You don't need to cast, model the "actor" around the descriptions in the source material.
We tunnel vision on how new tech can be used to keep doing the same thing we're already doing because they can't think outside of the framework they're familiar with.
I've never met Tom Cruise. If you told me every movie and television appearance I've seen of him was AI, not a single one of my "interactions" with him would actually change. I'd still like the performances I liked and dislike the ones I disliked. Celebrities exist as a social reference point shared by a large group of people. If all you're doing is watching media, Tom Cruise might as well be as real as Hatsune Miku. It's the expectation of consistency that's important, not the mechanism. And that's not even addressing the bit about how many celebrity's off-screen personas are constructs of PR firms. They're more than halfway to fiction already.
Okay? I don't know what this has to do with my post. You describe how you operate. I described how 99.99999% of everyone else does. They see Thing They Know, they pay money to see more of Thing They Know. It's the same reason why the laundry up the street from me when I was a kid had Winnie the Pooh stuff painted all over the walls. It's also why Disney sues the shit out of people for doing things like that.
There hasn't been anything special--acting talent or whatnot--about actors and actresses for decades and decades. That's not what they're there for. And this new voodoo isn't using corpses out of sheer utility. They're using these packages, limitations and all, because of the cache the actor-as-icon brings to the table. Thing They Know.
I thought it was clear, but I'll try again. You weren't born familiar with Mr. Actor. At some point you went to one movie he was in and said, "oh, I like that guy." Which, to your point, drove you to watch other movies with him in it. He became a familiar quantity and people would pay more to see the Thing They Know.
At no point in this process did that require Mr. Actor to be a real person or even based on a real person.
You're making my point for me here. Winnie the Pooh is a drawing. Completely artificial. No need to have any basis in anything recognizable.
I get what you're trying to say, but you're missing what I'm saying. I know they're doing AI of familiar actors because it will appeal to the people where he is Thing They Know. I'm saying that they can establish Thing They Know going forward with something cheaper, that they have complete control over, will never age, owe nothing to the unions, and it won't embarrass itself on social media.
But you've got a fair point. Dead actors are also free of those constraints and still familiar.
Because boomers will see a movie with faux Val Kilmer.
This movie would be beyond irrelevant if it wasn’t attached to his name