LOS ANGELES – The men who brought James Dean back to life for an upcoming film aim not only to give him a lovable role in digital, but a whole new career.
Dean’s planned appearance in the Vietnam War film “Finding Jack” and the possibility of future installments, comes as digitalisation and duplication of real actors have been phased out. cinematography became the norm. And it gives new life to old arguments about immortality and the dignity of the dead.
“Our aim was to create a virtual version of James Dean. That’s not just for one movie but will be used for multiple movies and also games and virtual reality,” said Travis Cloyd, CEO of Worldwide XR, who is directing Project Dean’s design for the project. know. “Our focus is on building great James Dean so he can live on any medium.”
Legally, they have every right to do so, through the full consent of the Dean estate and his surviving relatives.
Mark Roesler, CEO of CMG Worldwide, the legal and licensed company that has long owned the same title as Dean, said: “Our customers want to protect these precious intellectual property rights and the memories they have of their loved ones. “We have to trust them. … They want to see that the images and memories of their loved one continue to live on.”
Dean was an obvious candidate for a revival with his Hollywood embodiment and the brevity of his life and career – he died aged 24 and made just three films: “East of the Garden”. Paradise”, “Revolt Without Cause” and “Giant. “
Roesler and Cloyd are not allowed by Warner Bros. allows the use of footage from those films, but they have a large stock of Dean’s photographs and dozens of television roles.
“There are thousands of images that we have to work with,” says Cloyd. “What we usually do is take all those images and videos and run them through machine learning to generate that content.”
That would be in addition to the work of a standing actor using motion capture technology as is often done today with CGI characters, along with another actor’s voiceover.
The announcement of the role last year sparked a swift backlash, with replies such as “Captain America” star Chris Evans on Twitter: “Maybe we can get a computer to use. paint us a new Picasso. Or write some new John Lennon tunes. The utter ignorance here is shameful.”
Terri White, editor-in-chief of film magazine “Empire”, said: “I think there’s definitely something cynical and a little uncomfortable about bringing back special actors who have been long dead. “The reaction to similar news about James Dean has really shown that I think most people don’t really want that.”
For the people behind Project Dean, negative reaction is inevitable as they believe it will be accepted in the end. Cloyd foresees a Hollywood where even living actors have a “digital twin” to help them with their work.
“This is groundbreaking technology,” Cloyd said. “Some people hear it for the first time and they are moved by it. But this is where the market is going.”
Reviving the dead, often awkwardly done, has been going on for most of Hollywood’s existence.
Footage of Bela Lugosi, combined with a double cloak covering her face, used in 1959’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, was released after the horror star’s death. Bruce Lee’s “Game of Death”, unfinished before his death in 1973, was completed using double effects and dubbing and released five years later. “The Fast and the Furious” star Paul Walker passed away in 2013 before making the movie “Furious 7”. His two younger brothers and others acted as stands so his shot could be completed.
Even Lennon, and many other deceased historical figures, were resurrected digitally in 1994 in “Forrest Gump.”
But regeneration and resurrection technology has taken a huge step forward in quality and credibility, with the extensive de-aging and re-aging properties used in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman”; a young Will Smith returns digitally to play opposite the current version in last summer’s “Gemini Man”; and Carrie Fisher, whose youth returned to digital in 2016’s “Star Wars: Rogue One” and reappeared after her death, in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
These cases have sparked scattered skepticism – both about the quality of the technology and the correctness of the revivals – but audiences have largely accepted them.
Guy Williams, visual effects supervisor at filmmaker Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital, says these possibilities really present a moral dilemma.
“The question isn’t so much if you use someone’s likeness to bring them back or create a digital version of them, that’s what you do with it and the respect you show it, ‘ Williams said. “So for me, that’s the more important question.”
Pablo Helman, the visual effects supervisor behind Robert De Niro and others on “The Irishman,” said he considers the ethical dilemma of his work. .
“The main question you need to ask yourself is why?” Helman said. “You know, just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should, you know? That would be one thing I always ask: Does it serve the story? “
Ethical considerations are likely to give way to market forces if viewers decide they find digital versions of dead actors reasonable and palatable.
“I think the ethical question will be decided by the audience and society, whether they want to see it or not,” said Bill Westenhofer, visual effects supervisor on “Gemini Man.”
Dean will play a supporting role in “Finding Jack”, which is currently in pre-production. At this point, the limited screen time is as long as the people who recreate him want to continue. But they hope the digital avatar could eventually carry a movie, perhaps even starring James Dean of different ages.
“At some point there will be a James Dean biopic,” Cloyd said. “I think today’s technology is not necessarily there to take risks.”
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Kemp reports from London.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton.
Andrew Dalton and Matt Kemp, Associated Press
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