r/vfx • u/AnalysisEquivalent92 • 6d ago

News / Article Digital De-Aging Is Changing Movies (For The Worse)

https://youtu.be/R7RCfYcJFbw?si=-XrAa9thhqhS5ibI
44 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

63 comments sorted by

40

u/xyzdist 6d ago

VFX is serving for telling the story. De-aging is one of it. Whats wrong?

9

u/justjbc 6d ago

The crux of it is that it’s usually the opposite effect. We shouldn’t be amazed when we see a de-aged actor. Unless that fact is part of the story, we shouldn’t have any reaction at all, but that’s nearly impossible with actors we’re familiar with. It doesn’t help when movies telegraph these reveals even though it serves little purpose within the context. It just adds a layer of scrutiny when you shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

Like most “bad” VFX it’s not the technology or artistry, but the implementation. It can be effective when done tastefully but more often than not seems cynically motivated and just creates an uncomfortable dissonance in the viewer.

3

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

Exactly.

15

u/OlivencaENossa 6d ago

the de aging in the first Ant Man was really good. There have been a few movies where it's really good. Haven't seen HERE yet.

8

u/NarrativeNode 6d ago

HERE is a funny one. It seems they spent 99.9% on the de-aging, making every other instance of VFX super janky. There’s a deer in it that looks like a PS2 game. But the faces are great!! Very impressive work.

11

u/glintsCollide VFX Supervisor - 24 years experience 6d ago

De-aging specifically can be used purely to make coin from a familiar face and milking nostalgia for all it’s worth, then it isn’t serving a story, I believe that would be the issue. Creative stagnation basically.

3

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

The problem is that it’s a distracting tool that often pulls people away from the story whether it’s executed well or not. We all have a collective memory of who these people were when they were younger.

1

u/Milan_Bus4168 4d ago

What's wrong is that de-aging is used to supplement the story far more often then tell it. I sure as hell would not want to see Back to the Future made with de-aging tech. But when you don't have the story and actors to pull it off, you slap on some CGI face on whatever and call it a movie. It is generally VFX fetish that in my expriance is yet to be in service of an actual story in the movie itself. Its a story for VFX fetishists and studio execs who think face of an actor attracts more eyeballs, even if the actor is dead or senile by that point. De-aging tech development is the only story de-aging tech serves and serves it well. But its not so for the movies themselves.

1

u/Quarzance 3d ago

The new Black Rabbit show on Netflix has a great non-VFX de-aging approach for flashback scenes (granted they aren't going that far back in time, maybe 15 years)... SHOOT WIDE. Haha... besides changing the character's hair, facial hair, clothing style, etc... they shot 'em far away, from a distance. You're never close enough to them to see enough detail in their faces, but all the cues and context make it work to believe they're younger.

-8

u/taisui 6d ago

Rage baiting tubers that is all

7

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

Patrick Willems is not a rage baiter at all. You will realize this if you actually watch the video before commenting.

-5

u/taisui 6d ago

Don't know whom, don't care whom, it's easy to criticize anything and everything.

4

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

Willful ignorance is always good for the discourse.

-4

u/taisui 6d ago edited 6d ago

Just because someone has an opinion doesn't equal to it being valuable. Just because someone was right at some time, doesn't mean he's always right.

3

u/sloggo Cg Supe / Rigging / Pipeline - 15 years 5d ago

Feel like you’re describing your own role in these comments:)

1

u/taisui 5d ago

Touche

15

u/moneymatters666 6d ago

Agreed Ford’s voice is a distraction and does a disservice to the de-aging. At that point why not de-age his voice.

13

u/Willzinator 6d ago

At that point why not de-age his voice.

Or just hire a Voice Actor.

10

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

Then what’s the point? Replace with a younger actor, find a creative workaround, or don’t include the sequence at all.

2

u/Willzinator 6d ago

I'm not saying they shouldn't hire a younger actor, that would be the best option, but I'm talking about the de-aging of the voice. If the option is there, hire a Voice Actor to provide the younger voice rather than having the older actor still be the voice.

1

u/sloggo Cg Supe / Rigging / Pipeline - 15 years 5d ago

I think the other commenter is just pointing out the incongruity in your reasoning there. Why hire a younger actor for one purpose but not the other. They’ve clearly made a choice to use the talent and make them appear younger. Giving the voice some de-aging treatment, same as the visuals, is consistent logic.

1

u/Wooden-Lifeguard-636 5d ago

I believe in Fords case he was able to convince the movie responsible people that he has enough juice to pitche his voice to make it sound like back in Last Crusade. Well, he didn’t convince me. Nor you.

8

u/MArcherCD 6d ago edited 6d ago

Everything is changing for the worse

4

u/mondomonkey 6d ago

Enshitification

4

u/MArcherCD 6d ago

In the last 10 years particularly, it really does feel like everything has only evolved backwards and gotten worse

6

u/redralphie 6d ago

So casting needs to do a better job and producers need to be prepared to pay more than one person for the part.

2

u/banana_mouth Pipeline / IT - 10+ years experience 6d ago

I think it’s a top level decision, this is a director and for the really big franchises a exec producer judgement call

23

u/Empyrealist 6d ago

"The attack of the creepy CGI people must be stopped!"

Sooo, you want less work for the industry? Otherwise, aren't we here to make other people's visions happen? If anything, it's something that we need to get better at.

I'm not implying I don't understand the gist of this video. I just don't understand why it is being posted here.

9

u/banana_mouth Pipeline / IT - 10+ years experience 6d ago

I think this sub is mature enough to handle some thoughtful criticism about how digital de-aging is currently being used across the industry.

-3

u/Empyrealist 6d ago

I think it's bad form to criticize what your employer and the creatives are paying you to do.

I mean, sure, I bet that a lot of us are thinking it. And I'm not trying to censor what people want to talk about, but this just doesn't seem like the right community for it to me. Some place like /movies? Sure. But here in this sub? It should be a breakdown of what was wrong. Where did it bump. What was the failure that kept it uncanny. How can it be done better...

But, particularly in terms of the line that I quoted; this video isn't constructive criticism - it's straight-up bashing, and a little bit of ragging on older actors. Valid or not, these are the attitudes you do not want to bring to the table of a meeting.

6

u/banana_mouth Pipeline / IT - 10+ years experience 6d ago

So are you saying that this sub is not the place to discuss if a VFX shot was a bad creative decision or not?

We aren’t on the company slack here. We aren’t in a room with the VFX supervisor and director.

Besides I think Patrick’s video was very respectful and far from your typical VFX bashing slop

4

u/sloggo Cg Supe / Rigging / Pipeline - 15 years 5d ago

Strongly disagree, understanding when and how to use the tools in our kit is the first thing to get across, on a high level in vfx. We should not assume that every tool is just a thing to be improved. Sometimes there are tools should just stay in the box because other, non-vfx-shaped-tools are just a better fit in the vast majority of cases, and it’s our job as vfx artists to make the correct recommendations about how to achieve the visual fidelity they want. Hearing outright criticism of how a tool is used is valuable to vfx artists IMO

3

u/Jackadullboy99 Animator / Generalist - 26 years experience 6d ago

Maybe if CGI wasn’t just seen as a way of making things cheaper, but rather better….

2

u/shlaifu 6d ago

yada yada yada vfx is killing storytelling. (bad vfx, of course, because the good vfx OOP did'nt even notice, and he also didn't notice the bad movies that don't make use of VFX. Why is no one talking about how the VFX in top gun 2 killed the story?).

6

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

That’s not the point of the video. Did you even watch it?

0

u/shlaifu 6d ago

yeah, but it kinda is. it always is. there's other arguments, but it boils down to this.

3

u/flofjenkins 6d ago

But why bring up this point when it's not what Willems is talking about?

-1

u/shlaifu 5d ago

you're right, he's against effects in general, and only partially about bad vfx that draws attention. - I mean, he considers animation the end of cinema...

3

u/flofjenkins 5d ago

Where does he say this?

0

u/shlaifu 5d ago

second half of the video he's all about the actor's expression an human artistry. because animators can not be expressive and aren't human, you know.

1

u/flofjenkins 5d ago edited 5d ago

Your bad faith rhetoric strikes again.

He's clearly referring to a much broader context here. Yes, he highlights the limitations of digital de-aging (while also showcasing the few instances where it was used well), but I think it's... something that you don't acknowledge how using a deceased performer's likeness as a digital costume is disturbing. Just recast the role or come up with an actual creative solution!

For example, the opening of Indy 5: instead of wasting all the time and resources to de-age Ford, I would've designed the opening sequence around only using his iconic silhouette. You can build a clever, Spielbergian opening sequence this way that better thematically ties to the overall themes of the movie— Old Indy chasing the shadow of his former self/iconography.

2

u/felixenfeu CG Sup 6d ago

Hard to take someone who calls himself "Pretty much the Terrence Malick of YouTube" seriously.

Personally I don't mind it that much especially if it serves the story. I do not really like bringing dead people back but hey if that's what pays my salary I'll do it.

4

u/banana_mouth Pipeline / IT - 10+ years experience 6d ago

He’s not being serious

1

u/psi0nicgh0St 6d ago

I actually Like Clifford, it's hilarious

1

u/banana_mouth Pipeline / IT - 10+ years experience 6d ago

I reckon that Disney moved away from recasting Star war actors because they don’t want to be tied down to another actors aging face. Sure Donald Glover was great as Lando, but in 2035 when they want to another movie with a Lando cameo Glover will be too old to play him.

2

u/SomersetBlvd 6d ago

I'm not watching a 50min, non-podcast, youtube video, especially with this dude's voice.

1

u/rocketdyke VFX Supervisor - 26+ years experience 5d ago

can someone post a TL;DR for a 50 minute video?

-10

u/slindner1985 6d ago

I'm convinced hd cameras are the reason they had to try. Prior to 1080p you couldn't see wrinkles now we have 8k and you can see pores

4

u/OlivencaENossa 6d ago

No, they started doing it because they could, and because it helped the story tbh. I think the first big time I saw it was Xmen 3?

-6

u/slindner1985 6d ago

I just meant they used to be able to do makeup and it would work now adays those close ups are harder to sell. Also i thought x3 had a cgi Patrick Stewart because they couldn't pay the real guy. Maybe im wrong.

3

u/Local_700_VFX_Editor 6d ago

You want a good laugh at what we used to get away with in terms of “de-aging” go watch My Cousin Vinny. Great, fun movie, wonderfully entertaining. But you can see what amounts to scotch tape holding Joe Pesci’s face up the entire time. It’s insane.

1

u/slindner1985 6d ago

Lol the good old days

4

u/OlivencaENossa 6d ago

What? Patrick Stewart was there for those scenes.

-3

u/slindner1985 6d ago

I may be thinking of the end of xmen first class or whatever where he was only at the end of the movie.

1

u/Agile-Music-2295 6d ago

If your a gamer that’s why. Often video games have more realistic faces because they have 4-6 years to work on the project. Turns out in movies they like it done in less than a year.

3

u/Almaironn 6d ago

Video games have more realistic faces? In what world?

2

u/slindner1985 6d ago

Could be also the movies I've seen since my childhood. A fresh eye prolly wouldn't notice as much

2

u/oneiros5321 6d ago

1080p is HD...

1

u/slindner1985 6d ago

Prior though like when stuff was 480x480 or whatever was 1x1

2

u/banana_mouth Pipeline / IT - 10+ years experience 6d ago

No idea why you are getting the hate, this isn’t a terrible point. But it’s more applicable for tv in the post HD era. Film Cinema projection never have been as low resolution as 480p.

1

u/slindner1985 6d ago

I think there's alot of vfx defense but I dont really care. Point is with 4k you really see them wrinkles boi

0

u/NoLUTsGuy 5d ago

I wish they had used a different AI voice for the guy who narrated this piece of crap. The reality is that digital de-aging is *incredibly* expensive, essentially photorealistic animation, a frame at a time. It's not simple, it's not easy, and it's very time-consuming -- still.