Another Marvel of Movie Technology

Source: movieposterdb.com

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button evokes wonderment at the advancement in the visual-effects industry. Making a movie that requires the protagonist (Brad Pitt) to age backwards is by no means an easy task. Brad Pitt is born as a tiny, old man with a wrinkled baby face, who then develops into a handsome middle-aged man, finally becoming an infant at the end of the film. How director David Fincher – with the help of tons of make-up artists, visual effects experts and body doubles – achieved this, makes this movie even more fascinating.

Only when I read about the technological wizardry behind this movie, did I finally understand how the old man resembled, sounded and emoted like Brad Pitt despite being computer generated.

Ed Ulbrich, the digital-effects pundit from Digital Domain, explains the ground-breaking technology in this TED Talk. As Danielle Sacks stated in FastCompany, Ed Ulbrich left the visual-effects world breathless when his team unveiled Benjamin Button, a photo-realistic but completely digital (and Oscar-winning) Brad Pitt head, with a full range of human expressions.
 

LIGHTS. CAMERA. ACTION.

However, this development in “emotion capture” technology makes me wonder whether the need for actors will be diminished in the future. Actors may only be required to map their various movements, emotions and nuances, and then with the help of this technology (which might be long-established by then), the movie can be shot ‘in studio’ at a relatively lower cost of production. A technological-shift of this proportion might also give rise to a host of ethical dilemmas.

Nonetheless, until we experience such transformation in movie making, the human touch will prevail and actors will remain in demand in reel as well as real life!