Citizendia

"synthespian" redirects here. For the Doctor Who novel, see Synthespians™. Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Synthespians™ is a BBC Books original novel written by Craig Hinton (the author's last and based on the long-running British science
This article is about the digital creation of virtual human beings. For the software program Virtual Human, see Virtual Woman. Virtual Woman is a software program that has elements of a chatbot, Virtual reality, Artificial intelligence, a Video game, and a virtual human


A virtual human or digital clone is the creation or re-creation of a human being in image and voice using computer-generated imagery and sound. Computer animation Computer-generated imagery (also known as CGI) is the application of the field of Computer graphics or more specifically 3D computer graphics The process of creating such a virtual human on film, substituting for an existing actor, is known, after a 1992 book, as Schwarzeneggerization, and in general virtual humans employed in movies are known as synthespians, virtual actors, vactors, cyberstars, or "silicentric" actors. There are several legal ramifications for the digital cloning of human actors, relating to copyright and personality rights. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for Personality rights are generally considered to consist of two types of rights the right to publicity or to keep one's image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission People who have already been digitally cloned as simulations include Bill Clinton, Marylin Monroe, Fred Astaire, Ed Sullivan, Elvis Presley, Anna Marie Goddard, and George Burns. William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson, June 1 1926 &ndash August 5 1962 baptized Norma Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 &ndash June 22, 1987) was an American Academy Award Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan ( September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American Entertainment Writer Anna-Marie Goddard (born 13 January 1970 is a Dutch model and actress. George Burns ( January 20 1896 &ndash March 9 1996; born Nathan Birnbaum) was an American comedian, Actor Ironically, data sets of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the creation of a virtual Arnold (head, at least) have already been made. Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger ( German ˌaɐnɔlt aloʏs ˈʃvaɐtsənɛɡɐ born July 30 1947 is an Austrian American Bodybuilder, Actor [1][2]

Contents

Schwarzeneggerization

The name Schwarzeneggerization comes from the 1992 book Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner. Mark Leyner (born 1956 is an American postmodernist author Leyner employs an intense and unconventional style in his works of Fiction. In one scene, on pages 50–51, a character asks the shop assistant at a video store to have Arnold Schwarzenegger digitally substituted for existing actors into various works, including (amongst others) Rain Man (to replace both Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman), My Fair Lady (to replace Rex Harrison), Amadeus (to replace F. Murray Abraham), The Diary of Anne Frank (as Anne Frank), Gandhi (to replace Ben Kingsley), and It's a Wonderful Life (to replace James Stewart). Rain Man is a 1988 dramatic film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV ( born July 3 1962 better known by his screen name Tom Cruise, is an American Actor and Film producer Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8 1937 His brother Ronald is a lawyer and economist My Fair Lady is a musical Film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical My Fair Lady, based in turn on the play Sir Reginald “Rex” Carey Harrison (5 March 1908 - 2 June 1990 was an English Academy Award and Tony Award -winning Theatre and Amadeus is a 1984 drama directed by Miloš Forman. Based on Peter Shaffer 's stage play Amadeus, the film Fahrid Murray Al-Ahmad Abraham ( Arabic: ﻱﻴﺵ ﺞﺜﺙ ﻙﻘﭪ ﭐﭖﺏ (born October 24 1939) is an Academy Award -winning American The Diary of a Young Girl is a book based on the extracts from a Diary written by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family Gandhi ( 1982) is a Biographical film about Mohandas ("Mahatma" Gandhi, who was a leader of the Nonviolent resistance movement Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born 31 December, 1943) is an English Actor. It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story " The Greatest James Maitland Stewart (20 May 1908 – 2 July 1997 popularly known as Jimmy Stewart, was an American Film and stage Actor Schwarzeneggerization is the name that Leyner gives to this process. Only 10 years later, Schwarzeneggerization was close to being reality. [1]

By 2002, Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, Kate Mulgrew, Michelle Pfeiffer, Denzel Washington, Gillian Anderson, and David Duchovny had all had their heads laser scanned to create digital computer models thereof. James Eugene Redmond "Jim" Carrey (born January 17 1962 is a Canadian-American Film actor and Comedian. Katherine Kiernan "Kate" Mulgrew (born April 29 1955 is a American Actress, most famous for her roles as Mary Ryan on Ryan's Hope Michelle Marie Pfeiffer ( IPA: /mɪˈʃɛl ˈfаɪfɜr/ born April 29 1958 is an American Actress. Denzel Hayes Washington Jr (born December 28 1954) is an American Actor and director. Gillian Leigh Anderson (born August 9, 1968) is an American Actress, best known for her roles as FBI Special Agent David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is a two-time Golden Globe Award -winning American television and film Actor, best known [1]

Early history

Early computer-generated animated faces include the 1985 film Tony de Peltrie and the music video for Mick Jagger's song "Hard Woman" (from She's the Boss). A music video is a Short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music most commonly a Song with lyrics Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger, Kt (born 26 July 1943 is a Golden Globe -winning and two-time Grammy -winning English rock She's the Boss is the solo album debut by The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and was released in 1985. The first actual human beings to be digitally duplicated were Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart in a March 1987 film created by Daniel Thalmann and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann for the 100th anniversary of the Engineering Society of Canada. Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson, June 1 1926 &ndash August 5 1962 baptized Norma The film was created by six people over a year, and had Monroe and Bogart meeting in a café in Montreal. Montreal, or Montréal in French ( pronounced in French, in English) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec The characters were rendered in three dimensions, and were capable of speaking, showing emotion, and shaking hands. [3]

In 1987, the Kleizer-Walczak Construction Company begain its Synthespian ("synthetic thespian") Project, with the aim of creating "life-like figures based on the digital animation of clay models". [2]

In 1988, Tin Toy was the first entirely computer-generated movie to win an Academy Award (Best Animated Short Film). A tin toy, or tin lithograph toy, is a mechanical toy made out of Tinplate and colorfully painted by Chromolithography "The Oscar" redirects here for the film see The Oscar (film. The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year In the same year, Mike the Talking Head, an animated head whose facial expression and head posture were controlled in real time by a puppeteer using a custom-built controller, was developed by Silicon Graphics, and performed live at SIGGRAPH. Silicon Graphics Inc (commonly initialised to SGI, historically sometimes referred to as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) is a company SIGGRAPH (short for S pecial I nterest G roup on GRAPH ics and Interactive Techniques is the name of the annual conference on Computer graphics In 1989, The Abyss, directed by James Cameron included a computer-generated face placed onto a watery pseudopod. The Abyss is a Science fiction film that was written and directed by James Cameron in 1989. James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is an Academy Award -winning Canadian - American director [3][4]

In 1991, Terminator 2, also directed by Cameron, confident in the abilities of computer-generated effects from his experience with The Abyss, included a mixture of synthetic actors with live animation, including computer models of Robert Patrick's face. Terminator 2 Judgment Day, commonly abbreviated as T2, is a 1991 action / Science fiction film directed co-written Robert Patrick (born November 5, 1958) is a Saturn Award -winning American Film and television Actor. The Abyss contained just one scene with photo-realistic computer graphics. Terminator 2 contained over forty shots throughout the film. [3][4][5]

In 1997, Industrial Light and Magic worked on creating a virtual actor that was a composite of the bodily parts of several real actors. Industrial Light & Magic ( ILM) is a motion picture Visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and is owned [2]

Rise of the machines

By the 21st century, virtual actors had become a reality. The face of Brandon Lee, who had died partway through the shooting of The Crow in 1994, had been digitally superimposed over the top of a body-double in order to complete those parts of the movie that had yet to be filmed. Brandon Bruce Lee ( 李[[wikt 國|國]] 豪; Cantonese: Léi Gwokhòu; Pinyin: Lǐ Guóháo; February 1, The Crow is a Comic book series created by James O'Barr. The series was originally written by O'Barr as a means of dealing with the death By 2001, three-dimensional computer-generated realistic humans had been used in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and by 2004, a synthetic Laurence Olivier co-starred in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Final Fantasy The Spirits Within is a Science fiction film by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series of Laurence Kerr Olivier Baron Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American Pulp adventure, Science fiction film written and directed by Kerry [6][7]

Critics such as Stuart Klawans in the New York Times expressed worry about the loss of "the very thing that art was supposedly preserving: our point of contact with the irreplaceable, finite person". More problematic, however, are issues of copyright and personality rights. An actor has little legal control over a digital clone of themselves, and must resort to database protection laws in order to exercise what control he/she has. (The proposed U. S. Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act would strengthen such laws. The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act,, was a proposed bill in the United States House of Representatives during the 108th United States Congress ) An actor does not own the copyright on his/her digital clone unless he/she was the actual creator of that clone. Robert Patrick, for example, would have little legal control over the liquid metal cyborg digital clone of himself created for Terminator 2. [6][8]

The use of a digital clone in the performance of the cloned person's primary profession is an economic difficulty, as it may cause the actor to act in fewer roles, or be at a disadvantage in contract negotiations, since the clone could be used by the producers of the movie to substitute for the actor in the role. It is also a career difficulty, since a clone could be used in roles that the actor himself/herself would, conscious of the effect that such roles might have on his/her career, never accept. Bad identifications of an actor's image with a role harm careers, and actors, conscious of this, pick and choose what roles they play. (Bela Lugosi and Margaret Hamilton became typecast with their roles as Count Dracula and the Wicked Witch of the West, whereas Anthony Hopkins and Dustin Hoffman have played a diverse range of parts. Béla Lugosi (October 20 1882 &ndash August 16 1956 was an iconic Hungarian stage and film actor best known for his portrayal of Count Dracula in the American Margaret Hamilton (December 9 &ndashMay 16) was an American film actress best known for her portrayal of The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of The Wicked Witch of the West (or simply The Wicked Witch) is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937 is a Welsh Film, stage and Television Actor. Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8 1937 His brother Ronald is a lawyer and economist ) A digital clone could be used to play the parts of (for examples) an axe murderer or a prostitute, which would affect the actor's public image, and in turn affect what future casting opportunities were given to the actor. Both Tom Waits and Bette Midler have won actions for damages against people who employed their images in advertisements that they had refused to take part in themselves. Thomas Alan Waits (born 7 December 1949) is an American Singer-songwriter, Composer, and Actor. Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is anAmerican Singer, Actress and Comedian, also known (as her informal stage name as [9]

The use of a digital clone in advertisements, as opposed to the performance of a person's primary profession, is covered by section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, which subjects commercial speech to requirements of accuracy and truthfulness, and which makes deliberate confusion unlawful. The Lanham (Trademark Act (title 15 chapter 22 of the United States Code) is a piece of legislation that contains the federal statutes of Trademark law in the The use of a celebrity's image would be an implied endorsement. The New York District Court held that an advertisement employing a Woody Allen impersonator would violate the Act unless it contained a disclaimer stating that Allen did not endorse the product. Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; December 1 1935 is an American Film director, Writer, Actor, Comedian, and [9]

Other concerns include posthumous use of digital clones. Barbara Creed states that "Arnold's famous threat, 'I'll be back', may take on a new meaning". Barbara Creed (born 1943 is a Professor of Cinema Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne known for her Cultural criticism Even before Bradon Lee was digitally reanimated, the California Senate drew up the Astaire Bill, in response to lobbying from Fred Astaire's widow and the Screen Actors Guild, who were seeking to restrict the use of digital clones of Astaire. The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature. Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 &ndash June 22, 1987) was an American Academy Award The Screen Actors Guild ( SAG) is an American labor union representing over 120000 Film and television principal performers and background Movie studios opposed the legislation, and as of 2002 it had yet to be finalized and enacted. Several companies, including Virtual Celebrity Productions, have in the meantime purchased the rights to create and use digital clones of various dead celebrities, such as Marlene Dietrich and Vincent Price. Marlene Dietrich maɐˈleːnə ˈdiːtrɪç (December 27 &ndashMay 6) was a German -born American Actress, Singer and Entertainer Vincent Leonard Price Jr ( May 27 1911 &ndash October 25 1993) was an American Film Actor, remembered [2]

References

  1. ^ a b c Brooks Landon (2002). "Synthespians, Virtual Humans, and Hypermedia", in Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon: Edging Into the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation. University of Pennsylvania Press, 57–59. ISBN 0812218043.  
  2. ^ a b c d Barbara Creed (2002). Barbara Creed (born 1943 is a Professor of Cinema Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne known for her Cultural criticism "The Cyberstar", in Graeme Turner: The Film Cultures Reader. Routledge. ISBN 0415252814.  
  3. ^ a b c Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann and Daniel Thalmann (2004). Handbook of Virtual Humans. John Wiley and Sons, 6–7. ISBN 0470023163.  
  4. ^ a b Paul Martin Lester (2005). Visual Communication: Images With Messages. Thomson Wadsworth, 353. ISBN 0534637205.  
  5. ^ Andrew Darley (2000). "The Waning of Narrative", Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres. Routledge, 109. ISBN 0415165547.  
  6. ^ a b Ralf Remshardt (2006). "The actor as imtermedialist: remetiation, appropriation, adaptation", in Freda Chapple and Chiel Kattenbelt: Intermediality in Theatre and Performance. Rodopi, 52–53. ISBN 9042016299.  
  7. ^ Simon Danaher (2004). Digital 3D Design. Thomson Course Technology, 38. ISBN 1592003915.  
  8. ^ Laikwan Pang (2006). "Expressions, originality, and fixation", Cultural Control And Globalization in Asia: Copyright, Piracy, and Cinema. Routledge, 20. ISBN 0415352010.  
  9. ^ a b Michael A. Einhorn (2004). "Publicity rights and consumer rights", Media, Technology, and Copyright: Integrating Law and Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing, 121,125. ISBN 1843766574.  

Further reading

See also

This is a chronological list of films and television programs that have been recognised as being pioneering in their use of Computer-generated imagery.
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic