Imagine a movie starring House of Cards star Robin Wright. You can see them on the big screen, but once you start looking for images from the shoot, you’ll hit a dead end. Because there aren’t any. Robin Wright plays the main role. However, she didn’t spend a single day on the set.
How is that possible?
The sci-fi film Congress imagines a bleak vision of the future in which the actors end scanned from head to toe by a computer become. Your datasets can then be used by the studio in films and series as often as you like. The star becomes immortal, the real person behind the familiar face and name is forgotten.
The eerie sci-fi of Congress has become a Hollywood reality
When The Congress premiered in Cannes in 2013, it all sounded like an interesting mind game. Nobody seriously expected a digital Robin Wright to be stored on any hard drive in Hollywood. In recent months, however, this vision frighteningly real become.
You can watch the trailer for The Congress here:
The Congress – Trailer (German) HD
More and more actors are reporting that studios have created digital likenesses of them, without informing them of the intended use. The most recent example comes from the Marvel universe, where scans of the extras were apparently created on a large scale for the WandaVision series.
One of them is Alexandria Rubalcaba. She tells NPR about her experiences. After four weeks working on the WandaVision set, she joined other extras from the production ordered into a room. There was a large device set up with numerous cameras and lights.
Her face and body were scanned to create a digital copy – a process that took about 15 minutes. Rubalcaba has not received any information about how and where this replica is used. It could appear in any movie without it that she ever finds outlet alone being paid for it.
The big Hollywood strike is also about digital counterparts and artificial intelligence
A scary idea, not least as Rubalcaba emphasizes that she no consent to use made in her likeness. Now she fears that Hollywood will gradually replace real extras on new projects with digital versions. Exactly this approach is currently an issue in the double strike in Hollywood.
Disney
The AI generated intro sequence of Secret Invasion
The screenwriters and actors from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA unions have been taking to the streets for weeks to campaign for a reasonable compensation to demonstrate. It’s about minimum wages and bonuses. In addition, the question of artificial intelligence is an important point of contention in the negotiations.
The fear, losing their job due to AI technologies, determines the day-to-day work of many people in the film industry and is fueled by reports such as Rubalcaba. Another recent example is also linked to a Marvel series, namely Secret Invasion.
Method Studios, a visual effects company, used AI to create the series’ intro sequence, which both industry and audience alike caused outrage. A statement from the studio said that no real jobs were endangered, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter. But the damage was done – a breach of trust shook the dream factory.
Blurring the lines between real and digital, it puts the magic of cinema to the test
pull step by step digital replacement options into Hollywood. A rejuvenated Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy becomes a rejuvenated Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny. When Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher return from the dead as digital ghosts in Star Wars, James Dean is not far away.
Disney
The digitally rejuvenated Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny
This development has been evident for years. So far, however, the uses of the technology have been transparent, if not even that supposed figurehead a production. A young Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian arouses curiosity and plays directly into the hands of nostalgia-driven blockbuster cinema.
However, if even an extra like Alexandria Rubalcaba doesn’t know if one day she’ll appear in the background of a movie she’s never heard of, it should be clear to everyone that here crossed a line where people are right to take to the streets.
In Congress, however, Robin Wright had given her consent. But she didn’t really have a choice: she knew that as a person in Hollywood she had an expiration date.
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