The impact of the epidemic forced the global film and television industry to press the pause button, and the overseas drama "The List of Crimes" (hereinafter referred to as "Crime"), which is close to the final chapter of the seventh season, was caught in the predicament of a filming shutdown in mid-March, and remote work and home production became the incredible but only viable options. In addition to downsizing this season from 22 episodes to 19 episodes, the entire team used their imagination to decide to fill the unfinished live-action gap in the form of visual effects previews. So in the next five weeks, animators and editors in Los Angeles, London, Atlanta and other places rushed to produce nearly 20 minutes of CG footage day and night; at the same time, Megan Boone and other actors received microphones from the producer's courier and recorded the dialogue with their mobile phones in the storeroom or cloakroom of their home. After countless rounds of video discussions, season seven ended incredibly on time. The crew did not forget to edit the ins and outs of the cloud production into a film flower and insert it in the main film to commemorate this unusual victory against the epidemic.
The industrial process forced by the epidemic has tasted new, which can be described as unprecedented, bringing unlimited reverie to the future cloud production, and at the same time, at the level of image presentation, it also provides an aesthetic space worth exploring.
The cloud creation across time and space brings scenes of mixed dimensions, and the image enters the aesthetic stage of daytime trance
Stills from The Blacklist
In "The Blacklist of Sins", which is close to the final chapter of the seventh season, the preview animation is used directly for live-action scene mixing, and the final comic texture stills are compared with the stills of the live-action version of the show
Visual effects preview was originally used before the official shooting, to provide directors, videographers, special effects artists, etc. with a preview reference for the actor's position and camera movement, in order to adjust and formulate the final shooting plan, so most of them use low-precision models, under simple rendering, it is inevitable to cause uneven polygon shapes and stagnant character actions. The preview animation is directly used in the play and the real scene mixing, although it is a time-limited rescue move of the "Sin" drama, but its intention is that the animation part deliberately chooses the comic material, with the rough contour lines and the text pop-up window that exposes the psychology of the characters, which naturally stimulates the spatial jump and dimensional displacement of the real scene and the derivative comic, mixes the two-dimensional element and the original element, and finally realizes the seamless connection of cross-dimensional images.
Amazon Original's Erase And Repeat ("Erase") is another interesting example. Different from the "Sin" drama, the "Smear" drama has spent a lot of time to complete the live-action shooting, but it has used more time to portray the real shooting into animation, and the rotoscoping process is used in the meantime. This technology was invented by Max Fletcher, the father of Popeye, and has been passed down for hundreds of years. The original approach was to project live-action images onto a curtain or glass, and animators were able to outline the character lines and draw backgrounds frame by frame, in order to obtain more realistic character shapes and action postures in a shorter period of time. If you look back at China's first animated feature film "Princess Iron Fan", as well as "Snow White", "Cinderella" and other early Disney works, you can find the figure of the rotoscope.
Stills from Erase and Repeat
Although with the leap of computer imaging technology, the rotoscoping process has been simplified and the tracing accuracy has been greatly improved, it has always been time-consuming, labor-intensive and laborious. What is the intention of the "Smear" drama to challenge the whole book to retrace the length of the series? To know that the protagonist Bob Odenkirk is a big hit after starring in "The Wind Lawyer" and "Breaking Bad", is it not fragrant for real people to star?
When the plot unfolds, the director's ambition gradually becomes clear. Super-powered human settings, reciprocating narrative lines, distorted temporal and spatial structures, all story elements rely on mixed dimensional images to guide the viewer, to achieve the shuttle between reality and illusion. If you look closely, the viewer can easily identify the archetype of the actor in the close-up shot, but the covered color blocks and light and shadow are surrounded by the unique beating contour outline of the rotoscope, and the visual acceptance and psychological cues keep sliding between the poles of live action and animation, bringing about a film trance that is inseparable from the virtual and the real.
Since its inception, video art has been dedicated to blurring the boundaries between reality and illusion, and Georges Mérière's films have fascinated 19th-century viewers with their fantastical scenes. Developed by the original special effects methods such as downtime re-shooting, overprinting, fast and slow motion, the illusion of light and shadow is approaching reality, and currently mainly follows three technical paths: First, the clarity is greatly improved through ultra-high resolution. At this stage, 4K has been fully popularized, 8K is also poised to develop, almost the human eye's recognition limit of pixel density, and the high resolution has lacked daily application value, probably the rate is the display of technical strength. The second is to bring a smooth sense of intuitive reality through ultra-high frame rates. Director Ang Lee is a pioneer in this field, and has entered the theaters with the commercial attempts of two 120-frame films, Billy Lynn's Halftime War and Twin Killers. The result is a multiplication of the regular 24 frames, with every second bringing a sense of reality, vision, and more information about the picture that had been previously overlooked. These two visual methods are also often used in conjunction with surround sound and even panoramic sound, and their core appeal is to push the viewer's sense of presence to the limit.
Alita represents the pinnacle of decades of rapid iteration of three-dimensional imaging technology
The third is the high simulation of virtual characters and scenes. From "The Lord of the Rings" to "Avatar" to "Rise of the Apes" and "Alita", three-dimensional imaging technologies such as motion capture, skin texture, and expression reconstruction have been iterating at a high speed in decades. I don't know if the viewer can recognize Alita's true figure as Rosa Salazar, the actress of the "Smear", and when we gaze at the pair of unfathomable eyes, we can find that the iris structure of the 9 million polygons in one eye and the complex calculation of the optical path bring the human eye to the character in some moments. Technology has made the virtual character has become a "self-thing" that interacts with the real environment, and the virtual scene is taking the viewer's world as a frame of reference to achieve dimensional penetration and fusion.
It is difficult to say that today's image production is more logical than dream-making, and the hypnotic effect of true and false is more likely than ever to regress the viewer's consciousness and fall into the rift valley of doubt, fantasy and daydreaming.
The public breaks through the wall with images, and the virtual parasitism of the digital body is intertwined with real life
Detective Keane in The Crimes enters the world of animation after calling out "I will be transformed." This transformation of dimensional forms is not unfamiliar to the viewer who is busy teleporting between various screens and real life. Network philosopher Michael Heim pointed out in his book "Virtual Realism": "Virtual reality is an art form and a state of symbiosis with technology." This view points to two kinds of existence of different natures of human beings: one is an objective existence governed by physical laws and natural laws; the other is an imaginary, creative, and unfettered virtual existence. The latter is often associated with rich experience in video art, but it must be soberly realized that when we discuss images at this moment, we should not be limited to entertainment such as watching movies, brushing dramas or games, but should be more broadly regarded as an important medium for individual interaction with the world.
Unlike any previous screen, in this era of smart screens, all flash screens such as mobile phones, tablets, game handhelds, etc. in the interconnected state are closer to a layer of two-way penetration of the film in the psychological sense, so many colorful images are immersed in and flock to the viewer, and the viewer's image stream and stream of consciousness surge through the past, sometimes forming a dialogue with the hidden choreographer in daytime dreams, and sometimes building understanding and imagination with others.
Just as the BBC launched an experimental programme called "BBC Together" in May, homemakers can log on to the Tasker platform, send a link to their favorite show as a host, and invitees can click to join the group to enjoy a new show or work out with a fitness programme. Similar platforms include Netflix Party, which mostly have the same step sequence and effect as Zoom conferences. This "same frame is the same" connection and aggregation has become significant during the epidemic, from the star-studded online concert to an online class, and after the physical isolation, the intersection of information, thoughts and emotions has never stopped. Sociologist Max Weber defines man as "an animal hanging from a web of self-woven meaning," and at this moment, the image is the material for weaving.
I have to mention this year's Nintendo phenomenon-level work "Collection! Animal Forest Friends Association (hereinafter referred to as "Moving Forest"), netizens have mercilessly divided the world into two categories: those who have played "Moving Forest" and those who have not yet started. This Q-version of the strategic management game is not very powerful in terms of imagery and function, but it can quickly become popular around the world for two reasons: the first is to allow players to systematically establish their own parallel worlds without any fixed plot restrictions, fishing vegetables, slow and rational, self-enjoyment, especially during the epidemic period to decompress and heal; more importantly, the concept of interaction and symbiosis is deeply implanted in the game. On the one hand, the time of the virtual world completely corresponds to reality, the sunrise and sunset, the four seasons of the year can be synchronized, and the theme activities such as World Earth Day and International Museum Day are constantly launched to ensure the smooth flow of the time across the interdimensional corridor. On the other hand, the participation of friends and relatives has become an indispensable social link in the game, constituting the activity, legitimacy and dependence of the virtual community.
Just two months ago, a couple who cancelled their wedding due to the epidemic held a virtual ceremony on the beach side of The Moving Forest World, surrounded by friends. When the bride Yasha posted this news on the Reddit platform, it caused a sensation in the "moving forest world" and attracted unlimited blessings from netizens.
There is no doubt that "Dynamic Forest" provides players with a practical place for virtual survival, in fact, similar scenes have been shown in the virtual community "VR Chat" established many years ago, but today," the indiscriminate heat of "Dynamic Forest" may indicate that the public's understanding, acceptance and application of parallel worlds and virtual parasitism have risen to a new stage. Taking the screen as the doorway and breaking the wall through images, in the post-epidemic era, the public has become accustomed to or even unable to get rid of the digital avatars of different roles through the exercise of various scenes such as work, study and even live streaming, and the "remote presence" state of the flesh here, consciousness and other has far exceeded the past entertainment boundaries, and the objective "presence" of day after day is tightly bitten, constituting a complete social existence of contemporary people.
Stills from Ready Player One
The virtual civilization of image-mediated reality requires us to reflect on the meaning of existence
At this stage, the wall-breaking parasitism is only a starting point, and many films such as Ready Player One, Virtual Revolution, Tron: WarTime, and The Matrix are depicting a grand parallel world built up by virtual images, trying to explore a future in which conscious existence overrides objective existence. This kind of thinking is frightening but also hopeful, and most posthumanist scholars are optimistic: to break through the confines of the physical body and have an independent conscious existence is undoubtedly a new dimension of rethinking the meaning of human existence.
So back to the level of image creation, how far is it from building such a world? At the technical level, there can be two directions of progress. One is the ultimate degree of image realism; the other is the image infiltration of the sense of wholeness.
Alita's emergence has pushed virtual image production to a peak, but emotions, reactions, micro-expressions, these sixth-sense human elements, are still difficult to reach with current technology, which is why viewers can finally distinguish Alita from live actors. How to inject mental phases into virtual characters, so that anthropomorphs can live in parallel worlds without distinction with real people, artificial intelligence may be a way to solve problems.
Starting from the well-known "AI graffiti" and "AI poetry", artificial intelligence has made great strides on the road of artistic creation. At the 2016 London Science Fiction Film Festival, a short film written by artificial intelligence, Sunspring, entered the public eye. The SELF-proclaimed "Benjamin" AI robot, after repeatedly "observing" classic science fiction works such as "Chrono Jihad", "The Fifth Element", and "Interstellar", conceived a story of love and murder in a future world, and designed a full set of dialogue and action instructions. Although these texts based on the "long short-term memory recurrent neural network" are quite confusing, compared with the words of the AI predecessors, the logical coherence of many sentences in the film, as well as the vague formation of the plot and story, are expected. In contrast, the most promising "generative adversarial networks" at this stage are further giving artificial intelligence human "common sense" through deep learning to enhance its ability to observe and understand how the real world works. Japanese DataGrid once launched a virtual idol girl group in 2018, and recently upgraded from generating faces to full-body images, through the study and judgment of massive pictures to achieve something out of nothing, sweeping away the plastic sense of previous AI characters, with a realistic look, smooth movements are expected to replace part of the work of live models and actors in the future.
Artificial intelligence has sharp corners, and the current anthropomorphic state can only be regarded as a large number of fragmentary interception and reorganization of real-life prototypes, which is an optimized imitation and attachment, and it is still far away to produce a "self-contained thing" with full dimension. But a credible judgment is that with the exponential development of big data, cloud computing, and machine learning, in addition to continuing to dominate areas such as Go, which are limited by certain operating rules, artificial intelligence will also have open and "ordinary" thinking power and enter the creative field that touches human intuition.
Another degree of image progress is characterized by multi-body feeling, high immersion, and strong interaction. The production of images with the help of virtual devices follows this technical route, and the protagonist in "Ready Player One" wears VR glasses and enters the virtual world. With the gradual maturity of 5G technology, the VR industry, which once entered the cold winter period, has returned to the cusp. A notable trend is that VR is beginning to move away from the single-camera viewing mode and pursue the integration with AR, installation art, and large-space experiences. Last year's Best VR Film at the Venice International Film Festival, "The Key", set up a room-size interactive installation, the viewer was given six-way freedom to move the scenery after entering, the virtual world was "standing", forming a real sense of the image to build space.
Stills from "The Key"
Of course, the final goal of post-human virtual survival is to break through the physical limitations of all screens and devices, and an interesting concept of "body media" came into being. In films such as Alita and Ghost in the Shell, human-machine coupling is explored, just as mechanical prosthetics enhance physical strength, and when the image world is directly connected to our perceptual system, physical sensations and media will no longer be separated from each other. This more or less caused the fear of virtual backwards and anti-phagocytic reality, which version of the world to live in, how to write and direct our own avatars, as if it became the virtual civilization era of TO BE OR NOT TO BE.
Author: Hua Hui, Deputy Director of the Department of Film and Television, School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University: Zhou Minxian Responsible Editor: Xing Xiaofang
Image sources such as Douban