The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

Research Writing 197 (Perry 3). When you stare deeply into their eyes, all you get is a blank stare. This lack of humanity is pronounced in movies that are completely animated, such as Toy Story 3, The Polar Express and even The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. In Toy Story 3, people do not notice the flaws in the toy characters, but the lack of humanity is pronounced in the humans of the film (Smith Reality 2). The Polar Express may be given a bit of leeway because it is an older film, but it demonstrates that even mimicking real actors’ performances does not convey a true soul to the digital characters (Perry 3). Even in the modern film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn that has almost photo realistic humans, some people can still spot the lack of soul in the actors. George Lucas and Scott Ross are leaders in the field of digital effects. They say that a virtual actor will never be able to truly replicate the performance of a talented human actor. George Lucas says that “Acting is a human endeavor and the amount of talent and craft that goes into it is massive - and can a composite reproduce that” (“George Lucas” 1). Scott Ross, the CEO of the visual effects company Digital Domain, concurs with this assessment by stating, “One of the things that I’m mostly concerned about in terms of virtual actors is that there’s been millions of years of experience in our genetic code. And I’m concerned that when you create a close-up of a virtual actor and look into its eyes, that it will take real skill to be able to give that virtual actor a soul. And I’ve not yet seen that” (Kurtz 2). There are two different views on the subject of virtual actors and whether they should be developed further. Both sides present valid arguments as to why their side is right. The side supporting virtual actors focuses on how developing this technology has greatly improved the movie industry. The side against virtual actors focuses on how the expansion of digital humans has caused some people to lose their jobs and how this field has a myriad of legal and ethical issues surrounding it. In the end, virtual actors are like a double edged sword. They have the potential to change movies forever, but they come with many issues as well. Annotated Bibliography In today’s movies, we see an exceptional amount of computer effects, but none have replaced the need for real actors. Recently though,