Digital Technology Research | makeupexploration

Digital Technology Advancements.

This is the start of the technology developmetns and where it all came from. Predomantly used for atheletes on how to prevent them from injuring themselves by improving there technique however it can be used once an injury has appeared to find the root of the problem and possible solutions. It is where you are recorded running/walking then a specialist looks at the alingment of your hips/anckles/knees/etc and the pressure it puts on them. The video below is an example of how gait analysis is used to improve a runners technique.

Here I am looking at how CGI and other digital technology's and how they are affecting the industry and the future, will there still be a role for makeup artists? This is the question I will explore and get opinions on to see how all the digital advances make them feel when they watch films and television.

Some times when analysing it is put into a program to make a 3D skeleton, this is so that the joint movements can be seen in detail if this is the are that needs to change, the charts on the left show the degree when walking and how this changes throughout the gait cycle. A gait cycle is two steps in total it starts when the first heel touches the floor and stops when the same heel retouches on it second step.

Motion Caption (Mocap).

This is the process of capturing and recording the movement of people using computer technology this technique is usually used in the enterainment industry. Real time motion tracking is the best way to explain it. It can be done by marker- based system where the actor wears special markers or a suit with sensors on to detect their movement. However you can do this markless - this involves not suits or marker points on the skin but relies on the advanced computer vision technology, generally the results from this arent as clear because there are no focus points (dots on a suit).

Performance Caption (Percap).

This is to capture the finer detail such as facial expressions and emotions which is then translated into a digital character. When this technology first came around for the process to happen lots of dots need to be placed on the face that would then be recorded and translated onto the computer but as technology progressed instead of individual dots technology has allowed us to flick florescent make-up to create thousands of spots on the face which are now picked up and recorded. Even more progressed that some dots arent even needed on the face they can be worn on a band around the head as in pirates of the caribbean.

Andy Serkis has seen first hand the development of these two processes starting with his character gollum in Lord of the Rings (2001) to king Kong (2005) and most recently Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Here I have picked parts out of an interview describing how this part of the indusrty has changed focusing on the devlopments in the past 14 years.

Where it all started..

Motion capture had come out of the medical industry—studying joint-related illnesses and looking at knee and ankle movements for medical purposes. It was being used in video games at that point, but there was still a sense that it didn't have much of a future. It was very much a peripheral activity in the entertainment industry. And it had been employed for some early tests on some of the characters for Lord of the Rings, but no one really knew what it was going to lead to. At the time, it was purely capturing motion and not emotion or performance. It was very much about the movement of the character. (McCarthy, 2011)

In Lord of the Rings (2001).

The whole nature of Gollum and Sméagol, the relationship between those two, evolved over a long period of time. We were able to experiment on the motion-capture stage. That was the joy of it—here's a possibility to create afresh the character, revisit it and improvise and come up with new stuff. (McCarthy, 2011)

This shows how technology has enable people to experiment more without having weeks of makeup prep for different looks, almost instantly they could change the persona applied giving them a whole new character. This was the start of the journey of this technology for Andy Serkis below he explains how it developed inbetween each film.

The development from Lord of the Rings to King kong.

King Kong was a significant change in performance capture. Gollum obviously had a lot of dialogue—you know what he thinks and feels because he communicates it verbally. But with Kong it had to be conveyed through body language and gorilla vocalizations. I'd been to Rwanda and I spent a lot of time in zoos researching the behavioral differences between gorillas in captivity and gorillas in the wild. I wasn't employed as someone to come in and do monkey movements and capture motion. It was much more to do with, "Who is this gorilla?" And then there was the technical aspect of creating a character that was 25 feet tall versus all the other characters. The facial motion capture began to come into existence at that point. We worked with 3D markers; I had about 132 markers all over my face and my eyelids. Kong was a real marriage of physical and facial capture. I had a two-month capture session after principal photography ended, which was just me, and we did all of Kong's movements on that stage. (McCarthy, 2011)

This is one of the first times that directors wanted to see the emotion and facial expressions of the actor within there digital character. King kong, 2005, was exploring this more in depth than other films at the time, it had the need to potray emotion without words driving them to persue this percap more in depth.

Developments move on so fast between films.

Performance capture went from a peripheral activity to the fundamental way a film is shot. Before, we could film only in small volumes. But with facial markers painted on, and using helmets with cameras on a boom recording the face, the entire crew [plus] big set elements [can fit on] the motion-capture stage, and actors can go anywhere. And now, returning to play Gollum in The Hobbit that's the method we used.(McCarthy, 2011)

That's another one of the breakthroughs—having a very reliable, real-time playback that you can use to choreograph. It's like looking in a magic mirror, working out how your performance is going to read physically, and then adjusting. The digital puppet can be calibrated to your movements, so you're finding a happy medium between what you're doing as a performer and as an actor and what the puppet is capable of.(McCarthy, 2011)

The boom fitted with a camera was a development made when filming Avatar, which was a break through and as discussed being used as a basic piece of equipment for perfomance capture now. This shows just how quicky technology in our industry is developing and becoming the norm, is this right? Should the industry be moving at such a rapid pace? Is it improving our industry for the better?

Devleopment of Mocap and Percap.

Andy Serkis Interview.

Lord of the Rings and motion capture.

Avatar and their technology developments.

This was the film that was (practically) entirely created using these techniques the video to the left discuss how they created a helmet with a sepcial camer which allowed them to constantly capture the actors facial expressions and emotions whilst there whole body movements were being captured.

It discusses that what you see on screen is the actors performance it is not a visual effects. This for many people changes there perception on this technology as you dont just sit in a booth and read lines the actor is actually performing, being the character. I think this as a whole shocked people and made them re-evaluate there preconceptions, for me it allowed me to appreciate the animated characters as it was like they had a sole for me this is what this technology does. It gives animated character a sole and real feel to them which overall I feel enhances them.

CGI's Development.

CGI stands for computer generated Imagery, this is putting 3D graphics within a scene or to create a whole scene entirely. This started as a very small area in our massive industry but as the scale of productions have grew the technology has improved and now it has become a major part of production, in a lot of cases directors are choosing to create digital scenes rather than physical sets. The video below shows the progression of CGI in films over a 35 year period and the major developments made.

As you can see over the 35 years how much the technology has developed and how more realistic CGI has become. Below we see a more recent film that shows not only a background has been digitally made, or a face but the entire scene, costume, makeup, background, lighting, this is a newer development. An example of this would be Davy Jones in Pirates of the Carabbeian.

I think that the advances made in both CGI, mocap and percap have improved the quality of our films making the whole experience much more intense and realistic, especially where fanasty creatures are concerened, it has allowed characters that were previously very hard to create in makeup of not as realistic in animation much more belieable. However I believe that the technology in some cases isnt as good as makeup espcially when creating a human character as they have a unfamilarity even though they look life like. So in this case I would like to see more directors choosing to use both traditional and new methods. I feel blending these together would enhance each other rather than working against and fighting on screen. In on set terms it is a slot easier and quicker to film with the mocap/percap however alot of time is spent afterwards in the editing and animation departments, because of this i am not sure which is more cost effeective, a team of editing/animators or a makeup department. You also have to take into consideration the final effect wanted and the best way to achieve it. I hope that in the future digital makeup doesnt wipe out traditional methods as there are so many skills involved and talent it would be ashame to loose that in the entertainment industry.

Digital makeup for live performance.

There have already been developments with digital makeup being projected onto a persons face live, which looks beautiful howver it does have that comptuer screen feel around it from the way the makeup evolves.

My opinion.

Image 3.0 - Gait Analysis how it is used for athletes.

Gait Analysis.

Image 3.1 - Gait analysis diagram.

Mocap and Percap.

Image 3.2 - Lord of the Rings motion capture.

This looks at how they made the lord of the rings with motion capture, it talks about how they over come issues and their process' to create gollum. Below is on how they used the updated technology methods to film Gollum for the hobbit and how this improved his character. You can see just by looking at the character how much his appearance has approved bythe graphics even without the movement but combined with using performance capture it adds a whole new depth to the character we did not see before.

Image 3.5 - CGI History