Due to the amazing new software available, it is now possible to make a movie without the actual actor. The software can watch the actor in various scenes, and those working in the editing room can control the actor digitally. Once complete, a hologram can be made, and you can interact with the real actors who were in the scene, or be placed in a scene with various objects. Okay, so let’s talk about this, okay?
We have the ability to take Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and any other actor from the past and put them in a scene as if they were real today. We can make a whole new movie with these actors wearing clothes from this current period, and it will look as real as if they were there. We are talking about making movies with immortal virtual images of historical actors. Yes, there are issues with this having to do with “likeness” and copyright. Still, many of these former actors’ families would be happy to release their pictures considering the amount of money involved.
It also means that very famous actors like Tom Cruise can produce several movies at the same time. In reality, they could be shooting one movie and their image is being used in four others at the same time through digital editing. Maybe he could get 30 million dollars to make a movie, and only 4 or 5 million for the movie that is copyrighted to his likeness, with final editing cut privileges either to himself or to the his agent. Can you see how it could work?
A few months ago, I was in Beverly Hills at a Starbucks near Rodeo Drive. She was talking to a young graduate student from the USC film school about all of this. I told him I was wondering who would pick up the Academy Award the first time one of these movies using an immortal virtual image wins a best actor award. Will they upload a hologram to the podium to give the speech? A hologram can’t lift the Academy Award over its head and thank the crowd. The hologram could mimic what could be interpreted as authentic speech, but holograms can’t lift objects, at least not yet.
In fact, this is such an intriguing topic for the future of cinema, not to mention all the legal issues that have to do with intellectual property, likenesses, copyrights, future proprietary technologies, etc., that we may need talk more about this as time goes on. forward because these technologies are almost upon us. Please consider all this and think about it.
