Digital Sets, Digital Actors, etc.
I’m not as quick as most smart folks I know but I do eventually figure things out. It was after the third or fourth Pixar film that I realized that not only would animation be done almost entirely on computers going forward, but that someday, the bulk of films in general would be made entirely on a computer. I’m not talking about editing film or video digitally. I’m talking about digital sets, digital actors, digital everything.
George Lucas has made it clear that one of the reasons he has moved to animation, television, and not using the name actors to do the voices is because of cost. Another is of course — control. This is not his issue alone:
“They look like real actors, they walk like real actors, they talk like real actors. But with these stars there are no contentious contract negotiations or on-set meltdowns. They do exactly what the director tells them, down to curling a lip just so or flaring a nostril to the perfect degree, no questions asked.”
Machinima has been a stage for this type of creativity for some time. Many customizable videogames have almost the perfect set of tools to make your own digital films. A series of web apps are also cropping up that are starting down this path.
I know none of this is new… And I know that democratizing the tools of creation will definitely result in a lot more crap being created. That said… the fact that it costs a boatload of money to make a big commercial film hasn’t stopped them from making horrible movies today. And with more people getting access to the tools we are bound to see some amazing creations down the road.
I think the day where a movie like Wall-E can be made at home is coming sooner than people realize.