Replicating Walker
October 19, 2015 6:23 PM Subscribe
Many of those who went to see Furious 7 earlier this year went because it was, by all accounts, a raucous good time. And there were also a number of us who were extremely curious about how they were able to finish the film after the tragic death of star Paul Walker. Variety currently has an article up on the methods used to replicate Walker for certain scenes and, most intriguingly, an imgur gallery has been posted of all the shots that were completed after Walker died.
Having just watched the entire series for the first time (I'm getting old, so playing cultural catch up) I can honestly say the only scene where it seemed obvious that Walker was VFX'd was the big fight scene with Tony Jaa-- but mostly because they kept obscuring his face in awkward ways. Is that imgur gallery for real? If so, the Uncanny Valley has just been crossed. Hell, there were car shots in the Abu Dabi tower that looked faker than some of those imgur shots.
Also, if you're wondering: 5, 6, 1, 7, 2, 4, 3.
posted by gwint at 6:42 PM on October 19, 2015
Also, if you're wondering: 5, 6, 1, 7, 2, 4, 3.
posted by gwint at 6:42 PM on October 19, 2015
Jeez, that's frustrating... I kept waiting to see some before-and-afters, so I could really see what they did. Instead it was just a bunch of screengrabs from the finished film. If you didn't already know they were the work of the WETA artists, you'd just think they were ordinary shots. Was there some aspect I was missing in that gallery, like maybe when you scrolled over the pictures some Flash gizmo was supposed to show you the scenes without Walker or something?
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a movie yet starring a long-deceased celebrity resurrected by digital means. I'm not talking about something like this or bringing back the young Schwarzenegger for a scene or two, but more a movie with an entirely recreated celeb from long ago in the lead, like Marilyn Monroe or Bruce Lee starring in a new movie. Probably the closest we've come so far was Tron 2, where they brought back young Jeff Bridges as the main villain. I think that's about as ambitious as anybody's gotten with the idea. When they do a CGI recreation of an old celebrity for a movie cameo or a commercial or whatever it always looks weird and creepy, but I'm still surprised that nobody's tried to make a movie starring a CGI version of some dead star.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:44 PM on October 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a movie yet starring a long-deceased celebrity resurrected by digital means. I'm not talking about something like this or bringing back the young Schwarzenegger for a scene or two, but more a movie with an entirely recreated celeb from long ago in the lead, like Marilyn Monroe or Bruce Lee starring in a new movie. Probably the closest we've come so far was Tron 2, where they brought back young Jeff Bridges as the main villain. I think that's about as ambitious as anybody's gotten with the idea. When they do a CGI recreation of an old celebrity for a movie cameo or a commercial or whatever it always looks weird and creepy, but I'm still surprised that nobody's tried to make a movie starring a CGI version of some dead star.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:44 PM on October 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you watch the movie on the big screen, there are a couple of moment where the uncanny valley gets triggered, but just barely.
On a small screen, I'm not sure you'd notice at all.
Looking through the gallery, there are a couple that I didn't notice.
Interestingly, I found the parts where they used his brothers as a body double more noticeable than the digital version.
Even with brothers, subtle differences in the way we carry ourselves stand out.
posted by madajb at 6:45 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
On a small screen, I'm not sure you'd notice at all.
Looking through the gallery, there are a couple that I didn't notice.
Interestingly, I found the parts where they used his brothers as a body double more noticeable than the digital version.
Even with brothers, subtle differences in the way we carry ourselves stand out.
posted by madajb at 6:45 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I must confess, I haven't seen any of Walker's movies and don't know him well. The guy in those shots looked like Walker to me... but were some of them his brother? As I said, to me it just looked like a bunch of normal shots featuring Paul Walker.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:49 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:49 PM on October 19, 2015
Seeing it in the theater, the only shot that seemed off to me were of him on the floor holding up the watchamadoodle they were after (images 18 and 19 in the gallery). Now that I have a second chance to see them, his face in those shots definitely looks more Grand Theft Auto-ish than is comfortable.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:52 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:52 PM on October 19, 2015
I must confess, I haven't seen any of Walker's movies and don't know him well. The guy in those shots looked like Walker to me... but were some of them his brother? As I said, to me it just looked like a bunch of normal shots featuring Paul Walker.
They were all either done using a body double (his brother, apparently) or just by inserting a fake cartoon digital Paul Walker wholesale into the shot. If a body double was used, a digital composite of his face was pasted over the body double's face to make him look identical to Walker.
The fact that you can't tell it's not Paul Walker is why you're supposed to respond with 'Holy shit.'
posted by shakespeherian at 7:06 PM on October 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
They were all either done using a body double (his brother, apparently) or just by inserting a fake cartoon digital Paul Walker wholesale into the shot. If a body double was used, a digital composite of his face was pasted over the body double's face to make him look identical to Walker.
The fact that you can't tell it's not Paul Walker is why you're supposed to respond with 'Holy shit.'
posted by shakespeherian at 7:06 PM on October 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
If you didn't already know they were the work of the WETA artists, you'd just think they were ordinary shots. Was there some aspect I was missing in that gallery, like maybe when you scrolled over the pictures some Flash gizmo was supposed to show you the scenes without Walker or something?
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a movie yet starring a long-deceased celebrity resurrected by digital means.
I am confused why you say we haven't see a movie using a digital character and that the still gallery of digital shots are not useful because...what the still images show is precisely what you want: "recreating a deceased celebrity via digital means." Those look like real stills from a traditionally-shot movie but Paul is digital in all of them and looks real! That's astounding!
From the article, they shot a person standing in for Paul to know where to put their digital actor, but they generated him digitally and had him give a performance he had half-completed.
This is amazing and I don't even care about F&F as a franchise, but I kinda want to see it now.
posted by holyrood at 7:07 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a movie yet starring a long-deceased celebrity resurrected by digital means.
I am confused why you say we haven't see a movie using a digital character and that the still gallery of digital shots are not useful because...what the still images show is precisely what you want: "recreating a deceased celebrity via digital means." Those look like real stills from a traditionally-shot movie but Paul is digital in all of them and looks real! That's astounding!
From the article, they shot a person standing in for Paul to know where to put their digital actor, but they generated him digitally and had him give a performance he had half-completed.
This is amazing and I don't even care about F&F as a franchise, but I kinda want to see it now.
posted by holyrood at 7:07 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
They look a bit off, but I've been told they're fake and can pour over the stills.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:32 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:32 PM on October 19, 2015
I watched the film aware of what went on, and like madajb I though I caught several of the ones where his brothers carried themselves differently, particularly in the family scenes.
Those last stills (from the movie's drive off into the sunset) were from the first movie, weren't they? I definitely got teary when that popped up in the film and they got the soundtrack going...
posted by TwoStride at 7:34 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Those last stills (from the movie's drive off into the sunset) were from the first movie, weren't they? I definitely got teary when that popped up in the film and they got the soundtrack going...
posted by TwoStride at 7:34 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
but I'm still surprised that nobody's tried to make a movie starring a CGI version of some dead star.
Even getting past the point of families not wanting to see their parents/granparents being cybermanced, I'm guessing the backlash of fans would be just unbearable. I remember the shit that went by with that perfectly innocuous Audrey Hepburn ad, and that was just under a minute of slightly unnerving, gorgeous digital Hepburn shilling chocolate.
Also, I'm guessing that for the time being, to look realistic, the FX people might need a digital shit-ton of very high definition visual data. It should be easier to create a Running Man style digital mask of Paul Walker, a huge star of the super-crisp digital era, than of Monroe or Lee, even bigger stars but of the analogue era.
But the possibilities in this technology are amazing. Imagine biographies where instead of terrible casting choices, the directors could simply cast stand-ins with the same build, and sculpt 3D heads of the key characters. Or like with Tron 2.0, use digital facial reconstructions of their younger selves instead of casting kids/teens who look nothing like the stars at their age (or look, but can't act shit).
I wonder how far we are from the ideas floating around the dreadful Final Fantasy movie, where in the future we'd have digital stars - fully digital characters, with the only link to the meatspace being a voice actor. Something like Hatsune Miku, but for acting.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:40 PM on October 19, 2015
Even getting past the point of families not wanting to see their parents/granparents being cybermanced, I'm guessing the backlash of fans would be just unbearable. I remember the shit that went by with that perfectly innocuous Audrey Hepburn ad, and that was just under a minute of slightly unnerving, gorgeous digital Hepburn shilling chocolate.
Also, I'm guessing that for the time being, to look realistic, the FX people might need a digital shit-ton of very high definition visual data. It should be easier to create a Running Man style digital mask of Paul Walker, a huge star of the super-crisp digital era, than of Monroe or Lee, even bigger stars but of the analogue era.
But the possibilities in this technology are amazing. Imagine biographies where instead of terrible casting choices, the directors could simply cast stand-ins with the same build, and sculpt 3D heads of the key characters. Or like with Tron 2.0, use digital facial reconstructions of their younger selves instead of casting kids/teens who look nothing like the stars at their age (or look, but can't act shit).
I wonder how far we are from the ideas floating around the dreadful Final Fantasy movie, where in the future we'd have digital stars - fully digital characters, with the only link to the meatspace being a voice actor. Something like Hatsune Miku, but for acting.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:40 PM on October 19, 2015
Does every movie contract have a rights clause that they can use your reanimated ghoul likeness to finish the movie if you die?
I don't think they could do this if it wasn't in the contract. Or maybe they negotiate with the estate . . .?
posted by grobstein at 8:18 PM on October 19, 2015
I don't think they could do this if it wasn't in the contract. Or maybe they negotiate with the estate . . .?
posted by grobstein at 8:18 PM on October 19, 2015
I can honestly say the only scene where it seemed obvious that Walker was VFX'd was the big fight scene with Tony Jaa
Well, there was also the bit at the end where he was suddenly suffused with gentle white light and drove off in his white car to heaven while See You Again played in the background. I was reasonably sure that was CGI Paul Walker even at first glance.
posted by Copronymus at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
Well, there was also the bit at the end where he was suddenly suffused with gentle white light and drove off in his white car to heaven while See You Again played in the background. I was reasonably sure that was CGI Paul Walker even at first glance.
posted by Copronymus at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
Yeah the car bit was obvious as was the beach. I still thought it was well done though.
posted by zutalors! at 8:53 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by zutalors! at 8:53 PM on October 19, 2015
I wasn't saying I WANTED to see a movie starring a dead celeb resurrected using CGI, merely that I was surprised we hadn't seen it yet.
Holyrood, I would draw a distinction between using CGI to resurrect your lead for a few shots, and using CGI to have Marilyn Monroe, for example, star in a whole new movie. As I said, the closest we've come was the young Jeff Bridges being remade as the main villain for Tron 2.0. But that still wasn't a lead performance and they had a live Bridges around to work with.
The fact that you can't tell it's not Paul Walker is why you're supposed to respond with 'Holy shit.'
However impressive the digital trickery in this movie may be, I don't think it's showcased very well by just showing us a bunch of screen grabs from the final film and assuring us that his image was faked. Still images are much easier to fake than clips, and without some idea of what the shot looked like before all we know is that the images we're looking at aren't completely real.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:32 PM on October 19, 2015
Holyrood, I would draw a distinction between using CGI to resurrect your lead for a few shots, and using CGI to have Marilyn Monroe, for example, star in a whole new movie. As I said, the closest we've come was the young Jeff Bridges being remade as the main villain for Tron 2.0. But that still wasn't a lead performance and they had a live Bridges around to work with.
The fact that you can't tell it's not Paul Walker is why you're supposed to respond with 'Holy shit.'
However impressive the digital trickery in this movie may be, I don't think it's showcased very well by just showing us a bunch of screen grabs from the final film and assuring us that his image was faked. Still images are much easier to fake than clips, and without some idea of what the shot looked like before all we know is that the images we're looking at aren't completely real.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:32 PM on October 19, 2015
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a movie yet starring a long-deceased celebrity resurrected by digital means.
It's inevitable, and there won't be a backlash, because Americans have no taste, as our TV viewing habits will confirm. The biggest reason it hasn't happened yet is the cost is probably too high to justify the risk, but we move closer to the day where we get an official sequel to the Magnificent Seven, with the entire original cast, with each passing year. It's just a matter of who owns the rights to Brynner and McQueen's image.
posted by Beholder at 9:54 PM on October 19, 2015
It's inevitable, and there won't be a backlash, because Americans have no taste, as our TV viewing habits will confirm. The biggest reason it hasn't happened yet is the cost is probably too high to justify the risk, but we move closer to the day where we get an official sequel to the Magnificent Seven, with the entire original cast, with each passing year. It's just a matter of who owns the rights to Brynner and McQueen's image.
posted by Beholder at 9:54 PM on October 19, 2015
The first glimpse I remember seeing of this future was that time that Humphrey Bogart was in Tales from the Crypt back in 1995. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who'd done Forrest Gump not long before that.YouTube link.
posted by Pryde at 11:53 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by Pryde at 11:53 PM on October 19, 2015
TwoStride: "Those last stills (from the movie's drive off into the sunset) were from the first movie, weren't they? I definitely got teary when that popped up in the film and they got the soundtrack going..."
Yeah... and there it was... after Iron Giant and Guardians of the Galaxy another movie featuring Vin Diesel (of all people) that manages to make me cry.
Give this man an Oscar already!
(Diesel Time!)
posted by bigendian at 12:04 AM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah... and there it was... after Iron Giant and Guardians of the Galaxy another movie featuring Vin Diesel (of all people) that manages to make me cry.
Give this man an Oscar already!
(Diesel Time!)
posted by bigendian at 12:04 AM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't get the concern. How much acting on film irecreates famous dead people? There's no statute of limitations: you can pop your clogs one minute and be in a biopic the next. In fact, if your death is newsworthy and there's footage of you alive, it's going to be film at eleven and YouTube forever. There's not the slightest hint of cultural taboo here.
The edge case, when an actor dies while making a movie, isn't novel, just the options the director has to deal with the problems this causes them.
No, the interesting stuff will happen not when Hollywood gets the corpse reanimation down pat, but when it's trickled down to Photoshop level.
posted by Devonian at 4:32 AM on October 20, 2015
The edge case, when an actor dies while making a movie, isn't novel, just the options the director has to deal with the problems this causes them.
No, the interesting stuff will happen not when Hollywood gets the corpse reanimation down pat, but when it's trickled down to Photoshop level.
posted by Devonian at 4:32 AM on October 20, 2015
> I don't get the concern. How much acting on film irecreates famous dead people?
There's often controversy around biopics of people living or recently deceased. The current movie on Steve Jobs is a timely example. Portrayals of real people have always been and always will be something people argue over. Misrepresentations of what real people say can and do can replace the public recollection of what they actually said and did, and this is an issue for news organizations as well as film studios.
The problems with digitally generated figures are many, but I think the essential ones are the matter of the uncanny valley and the sense of the loss of agency over your representation of yourself. At least when other people portray you, there is the conceit that somebody is performing an interpretation of what they think you might do. They're not being you.
Our cultural notion of realism is one that assumes an objectively perfect replica has been made (or at least that a perfect replica is possible) without editorial interference within the constraints imposed by the medium. That assumption informs our interpretation of the portrayal -- a digital recreation of Marilyn Monroe that's sufficiently indistinguishable from surviving footage of her is going to be able to get away with things that a capable actor imitating her could not. It can speak like Marilyn at times when the actor's own accent would show, move like Marilyn, and otherwise seem to be decoupled from the seeming imperfections of an interpretive performance, including doing things an actor would refuse to or can't... At which point we begin to question our ability, as the audience, to keep clear in our minds the historical figure of Marilyn and the record of activity left by her exact replica. The multitude of airbrush paintings of Marilyn and James Dean at an idealized 1950s soda fountain will never pass muster in the way one sufficiently well-done digitally generated film could.
The reality of realism is like the Turing Test, a moving goalpost: As the simulation improves, so does our ability to discern simulations. Though there seems to be a general expectation that cinematic illusion will eventually become good enough to get away with, say, Marilyn stepping out of a Tesla sports car and shilling for Samsung smart phones. At which time we'll finally have to confront our own willingness to allow anybody, even ourselves, to surrender yet another facet of control we had over the public record of our existence.
posted by ardgedee at 5:31 AM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
There's often controversy around biopics of people living or recently deceased. The current movie on Steve Jobs is a timely example. Portrayals of real people have always been and always will be something people argue over. Misrepresentations of what real people say can and do can replace the public recollection of what they actually said and did, and this is an issue for news organizations as well as film studios.
The problems with digitally generated figures are many, but I think the essential ones are the matter of the uncanny valley and the sense of the loss of agency over your representation of yourself. At least when other people portray you, there is the conceit that somebody is performing an interpretation of what they think you might do. They're not being you.
Our cultural notion of realism is one that assumes an objectively perfect replica has been made (or at least that a perfect replica is possible) without editorial interference within the constraints imposed by the medium. That assumption informs our interpretation of the portrayal -- a digital recreation of Marilyn Monroe that's sufficiently indistinguishable from surviving footage of her is going to be able to get away with things that a capable actor imitating her could not. It can speak like Marilyn at times when the actor's own accent would show, move like Marilyn, and otherwise seem to be decoupled from the seeming imperfections of an interpretive performance, including doing things an actor would refuse to or can't... At which point we begin to question our ability, as the audience, to keep clear in our minds the historical figure of Marilyn and the record of activity left by her exact replica. The multitude of airbrush paintings of Marilyn and James Dean at an idealized 1950s soda fountain will never pass muster in the way one sufficiently well-done digitally generated film could.
The reality of realism is like the Turing Test, a moving goalpost: As the simulation improves, so does our ability to discern simulations. Though there seems to be a general expectation that cinematic illusion will eventually become good enough to get away with, say, Marilyn stepping out of a Tesla sports car and shilling for Samsung smart phones. At which time we'll finally have to confront our own willingness to allow anybody, even ourselves, to surrender yet another facet of control we had over the public record of our existence.
posted by ardgedee at 5:31 AM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Jeez, that's frustrating... I kept waiting to see some before-and-afters, so I could really see what they did.
Yea, i really REALLY want to see one of those VFX reels showing how it's done.
I also think these still photos are fairly worthless. There's been completely lifelike still CGI renderings for almost 10 years on cgtalk and stuff. Show it moving, that's where it always falls apart.
posted by emptythought at 12:42 PM on October 20, 2015
Yea, i really REALLY want to see one of those VFX reels showing how it's done.
I also think these still photos are fairly worthless. There's been completely lifelike still CGI renderings for almost 10 years on cgtalk and stuff. Show it moving, that's where it always falls apart.
posted by emptythought at 12:42 PM on October 20, 2015
That series started as a car stunt type film, but then turned to almost all animation. And it's very apparent--the FX are very animation-like (and the continual "how can we top this?" stunts are now just comic book ridiculous).
One of the characters being partially digital/animation/composited kinda fits right in....
The only different thing is that instead of an actor resting in the trailer and having a stunt double or digital effect do their acting for them, the actor is deceased.
posted by CrowGoat at 1:12 PM on October 20, 2015
One of the characters being partially digital/animation/composited kinda fits right in....
The only different thing is that instead of an actor resting in the trailer and having a stunt double or digital effect do their acting for them, the actor is deceased.
posted by CrowGoat at 1:12 PM on October 20, 2015
I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen a movie yet starring a long-deceased celebrity resurrected by digital means.
Wait until the the porn industry gets ahold of this technology.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:33 PM on October 20, 2015
Wait until the the porn industry gets ahold of this technology.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:33 PM on October 20, 2015
This is very good, but the F&F films are lit basically like video games anyway, so it's kind of a best case scenario for CGI, I think. Still, the uncanny valley is just about bridged. If not now, then in a couple of years.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:13 PM on October 20, 2015
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:13 PM on October 20, 2015
Nah, the F&F films aren't video games, they're re-enactments of the games I played with Matchbox cars when I was a kid.
posted by straight at 6:38 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by straight at 6:38 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
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