Published
Video duration: 5 min
Anger movement in the film industry, because Hollywood studios would like to use the images and voices of actors to make digital copies.
Resurrecting deceased actors, cinema has already done it. In 2016, Disney brought Peter Kushing, who died 22 years earlier, back to life for the new Star Wars opus. Rare, complex and very expensive, these special effects are now more accessible thanks to brand new technology; the scanning of the actors. In one of the only studios in the world capable of achieving this feat, a sphere of 170 cameras can create the very realistic digital double of an actor. With this scan, everything becomes possible. A new technology that could change the face of cinema, causing concern among professionals in the sector.
Disappearing professions?
In Hollywood, in 2023, these scans were one of the main reasons for the actors’ strike. The latter fear being dispossessed of their image by the studios. Jean-Baptiste, actor, recounts how, on set, he was asked to create digital doubles of extras. “The role of the extra is doomed to disappear”, he laments, because companies will use these technologies to save money. Contacted, the production company Chapter 2 denies having used this technique.
The dubbing professions are also threatened by these artificial intelligences capable of copying the voices of actors. More than professions, they are also artistic practices which could be replaced by technologies.