Astonishingly real Audrey Hepburn shills chocolate in new commercial, article.
(The video may be viewable only in UK, but this article has more pictures.)
Well, I would never have guessed that this was a CGI human. They have done it. Virtual actors will come. I was wondering when it would happen. (Of course making a whole movie is another thing.) They did start with an actress, but in the end they had to make a fully digital Audrey. Impressive result.
I wonder if they had to pay her estate and get their agreement to use her likeness? I mean such legendary beauty is worth a *lot* of money! (Such beauty is like a force of nature.)
Another thing is that I would personally debate the ethics of using dead celebrities in advertising. They can't tell you if they would have agreed or not, and they don't get their slice of the cake. It is parasitical.
17 comments:
Must be good chocolate.
Won't be long before you will be able to check into a Hollywood-themed robo-brothel and pay top dollar to f--- your choice of perfectly re-created Hollywood actress sex-bot.
This could be very good in the long - leading perhaps to writers being able to realize their vision by having actors who do exactly what they want, how they want it, who look exactly the part. And they'll be their own directors, art directors, producers, etc.
Won't be long before you will be able to check into a Hollywood-themed robo-brothel and pay top dollar to f--- your choice of perfectly re-created Hollywood actress sex-bot.
Which will lead to the downfall of civilization if that episode of Futurama is correct.
Another thing is that I would personally debate the ethics of using dead celebrities in advertising. They can't tell you if they would have agreed or not, and they don't get their slice of the cake. It is parasitical.
I don't like the idea either and I'm surprised they were able to do this. For one thing, I'm not sure I like the idea of the estate of someone getting to rake in dough. What you should do, maybe, if you're one of those people is set up a foundation so that anything like this, the money goes there rather to your layabout heirs.
I thought some of the comments on that article were funny. There are always those people who will say they were never fooled by it for a second, who will go on about how fake it is, etc., etc. That is, the real life Comic Book Guys.
People said that? That's ridiculous, I'll bet nobody from a unknowing audience will call it faked.
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"And they'll be their own directors, art directors, producers, etc."
Yep. That's what William Gibson called the "garage Kubrick" And he used the idea in one of my fave books, Pattern Recognition, although he had to include a farm of prison inmates to help process the footage.
I wonder whether requirements will ever shrink down to just one guy. He will have to be very good at the tech, at writing, at acting, etc.
"It is parasitical."
Yes it is. The same thing happens all the time with brand names like Polaroid and Gateway, but we are more used to that.
On an old organ my dad had, there were toggle keys to depress to make the tone sound like another musical instrument -- violin, clarinet, bassoon, etc.
Maybe a future app will let you choose a famous character to get superimposed onto the choicest part in your Funniest Home Video.
This vision of Eolake getting his underwear caught on the top of the refrigerator door, and it tipping over...just won't get erased.
Being in the UK, I don't see many US commercials. Who have Polaroid and Gateway used?
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I thought I had tracked down every copy of the fridge vid, durnit.
With Gateway, and Packard-Bell, you have two companies that died. Acer bought the brand names and "reanimated" the brands. They slap a Gateway or Packard-Bell logo on Acer products, change the model number by one digit or so, and that's all.
WIth Polaroid, the brand name has been sold and resold several times. Polaroid does not make anything anymore. It's basically dead, died a long time ago. The brand owners license other companies to use the Polaroid brand name and logo.
Not quite the same thing as reanimating a dead person, but in a business sense, done in the same way for the same reasons.
If you want to see something real instead, I recommend Varanasi, India: "Beyond".
It is about clicking, or as you call it, photography.
Maybe it's just me, but you sound singularly unimpressed with this virtuality feat.
I think there's great potential in this. (Though very typical of this world that one of the milestones happens in crass advertising, rather than in art.)
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By the way, the chocolate is OK, but I find Lindts and Black And Green's to be the real high quality. Galaxy is mid-market.
A virtual actor is old news; done already a couple of years ago. The fact that it's the likeness of Audrey Hepburn doesn't make it more interesting. It makes it less so.
But more importantly: CGI footage in general seems a bit passé. Real is in. Fake is out. To understand the difference, watch the documentary I linked to above.
A virtual actor is old news; done already a couple of years ago.
This was about how well it was done - no one said it hadn't been done before.
The fact that it's the likeness of Audrey Hepburn doesn't make it more interesting. It makes it less so.
Care to tell us why that makes it less interesting? Your opinion matters to you but the rest of us need a bit more.
But more importantly: CGI footage in general seems a bit passé.
Is it? Somebody better tell the movie industry.
Real is in. Fake is out.
Well, if we were talking about titties I'd be on board, but (sadly) we're not.
To understand the difference, watch the documentary I linked to above.
Hm, I'll give it a try.
This was about how well it was done ...
It's been done this good before. The Emily demo, for example, is already five years old. There have been several virtual actors on the big screen in recent years.
Care to tell us why that makes it less interesting?
A CGI Audrey will always be perceived as fake, no matter how well you were to execute it. A completely new character, on the other hand, is an original creation, the "real thing". There is nothing to compare it against.
Is it? Somebody better tell the movie industry.
Yes, there will still be many CGI films made. But I predict their popularity has peaked.
Well, if we were talking about titties I'd be on board, but (sadly) we're not.
But I was. I was referring to a general mega trend which favors authenticity in all expressions. The fact that fake titties are no longer as popular as they used to be is another sign of this.
As a fan of Audrey Hepburn, I have seen all her films and can say that she was unique in every way, unlike most of the so called stars of today. I have seen the Galaxy ad on TV and think it is an insult to her memory. I can say in all honesty Anonymous that I was NOT fooled for 1 second.
It's been done this good before. The Emily demo, for example, is already five years old.
It's, again, only your opinion that it's been done this good before. The comparison is not equal since no one knows this other woman - they would look more closely at someone as famous as Hepburn (most importantly, someone almost univerally known to be dead).
There have been several virtual actors on the big screen in recent years.
It's not the same thing when it's not someone so univerally known and universally known to have been dead for years.
A CGI Audrey will always be perceived as fake, no matter how well you were to execute it. A completely new character, on the other hand, is an original creation, the "real thing". There is nothing to compare it against.
That doesn't say why it's less interesting. To you that might be the case, but you need to come up with something better for the rest of us to believe it.
Yes, there will still be many CGI films made. But I predict their popularity has peaked.
Based on what? I need more than your opinion.
But I was. I was referring to a general mega trend which favors authenticity in all expressions. The fact that fake titties are no longer as popular as they used to be is another sign of this.
Fake titties are as popular as they've ever been. There will always be guys who don't like them but enough must not care. (While you might say whether guys like them or not is irrelevent, but it's not - what woman would bother if it wasn't for guys?)
I have seen the Galaxy ad on TV and think it is an insult to her memory. I can say in all honesty Anonymous that I was NOT fooled for 1 second.
Whether you've seen them on TV is irrevelant. I don't believe you saw through it because almost everyone knows she's been dead for years so they knew already it wasn't her, and because you would have known it was CGI you were predisposed to think it fake. You would have asserted that even had they found some long-lost commercial she'd done - you'd have sworn it looked fake because you have this idea that it just must be an insult to her memory. It's your age. A new generation that will grow up with this technology as commonplace won't share your disgust of its use - whether to create someone knew or to recreate someone long dead.
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