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.
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.
The thing I'm missing about what you're saying is what your over-arching argument or overall point is.
It appears to be something along the lines of "this would be easier/cheaper to do with something that never was a living actor."
To which my recurring rejoinder is "Okay," for a reason. Because it's money lying on the table. They can do it your way, but it's also lucrative to do it with dead actors. Maybe there are ways in which your schema brings benefits. But doing it the other way does too--which is why they're doing it.
I'll admit to being halfway lost here, as I really don't understand your argumentative thrust. Your initial post said "Why," and I answered plausibly "because x etc."
That there are other ways of doing things in the world is really neither here nor there. Sure, they could do anything else. But instead they're doing this, for reasons I hazarded. They're decided to puppeteer the corpse of Val Kilmer. They could've...rented a billboard, and put original IP or a completely new, completely invented character on it. But they didn't. It's not necessary to explain why not. This was about why.
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.
The thing I'm missing about what you're saying is what your over-arching argument or overall point is.
It appears to be something along the lines of "this would be easier/cheaper to do with something that never was a living actor."
To which my recurring rejoinder is "Okay," for a reason. Because it's money lying on the table. They can do it your way, but it's also lucrative to do it with dead actors. Maybe there are ways in which your schema brings benefits. But doing it the other way does too--which is why they're doing it.
I'll admit to being halfway lost here, as I really don't understand your argumentative thrust. Your initial post said "Why," and I answered plausibly "because x etc."
That there are other ways of doing things in the world is really neither here nor there. Sure, they could do anything else. But instead they're doing this, for reasons I hazarded. They're decided to puppeteer the corpse of Val Kilmer. They could've...rented a billboard, and put original IP or a completely new, completely invented character on it. But they didn't. It's not necessary to explain why not. This was about why.