Does The Future Of Film Really Revolve Around Glowing Ping Pong Balls ?

This lady is prepped for a motion capture performance. That means that her movements, as mapped by the little balls, will be stored in a computer as a 'performance'. CG artists will then take that data and put whatever appearance they want on both her and her surroundings. Beowulf, Polar Express and the forthcoming Avatar all use this technology. And as much as I love special effects, this does concern me somewhat.

These CG films do look a little fake, no matter how spectacular they can be, and the actors that have been digitised can come across as zombie-like and rather sinister. This effect gets more pronounced as you see a familiar face in amongst the graphics, almost as if the actor has been sucked, Tron style, into a computer and is being forced to perform like a monkey every time you turn on the TV.

I also think it's always when too many effects get involved that story tends to get neglected in favour of pretty pictures. It really doesn't matter how many pixels you are throwing around that screen, if the story sucks the audience will have either left or fallen asleep before that finale you are so proud of. And then there's the oft mentioned prospect of bringing back dead movie stars to appear in films again. Except no-one seems to explain where the voice, personality and acting will come from. I've been an advocate of techie things on this blog for as long as it's been here, but one thing I do draw the line at is a gadget being used for no other reason than it's cool. So when Jim Carrey inevitably mugs and overacts his way through 'A Christmas Carol' which itself seems to have received the action flick treatment, I wonder if people will be thrilled by it, or whether they would have preferred a straight adaptation of a story that is, let's face it, already perfect.