Virtual actor
Encyclopedia
A virtual human or digital clone is the creation or re-creation of a human being in image and voice using computer-generated imagery
and sound. The process of creating such a virtual human on film, substituting for an existing actor, is known, after a 1992 book, as Schwarzeneggerization, and in general virtual humans employed in movies are known as synthespians, virtual actors, vactors, cyberstars, or "silicentric" actors. There are several legal ramifications for the digital cloning of human actors, relating to copyright
and personality rights. People who have already been digitally cloned as simulations include Bill Clinton
, Marilyn Monroe
, Fred Astaire
, Ed Sullivan
, Elvis Presley
, Anna Marie Goddard, and George Burns
. Ironically, data sets of Arnold Schwarzenegger
for the creation of a virtual Arnold (head, at least) have already been made.
The name Schwarzeneggerization comes from the 1992 book Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner
. In one scene, on pages 50–51, a character asks the shop assistant at a video store to have Arnold Schwarzenegger digitally substituted for existing actors into various works, including (amongst others) Rain Man
(to replace both Tom Cruise
and Dustin Hoffman
), My Fair Lady
(to replace Rex Harrison
), Amadeus
(to replace F. Murray Abraham
), The Diary of Anne Frank (as Anne Frank), Gandhi
(to replace Ben Kingsley
), and It's a Wonderful Life
(to replace James Stewart
). Schwarzeneggerization is the name that Leyner gives to this process. Only 10 years later, Schwarzeneggerization was close to being reality.
By 2002, Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey
, Kate Mulgrew
, Michelle Pfeiffer
, Denzel Washington
, Gillian Anderson
, and David Duchovny
had all had their heads laser scanned to create digital computer models thereof.
for Mick Jagger
's song "Hard Woman" (from She's the Boss
). The first actual human beings to be digitally duplicated were Marilyn Monroe
and Humphrey Bogart
in a March 1987 film created by Daniel Thalmann and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann for the 100th anniversary of the Engineering Society of Canada. The film was created by six people over a year, and had Monroe and Bogart meeting in a café in Montreal
. The characters were rendered in three dimensions, and were capable of speaking, showing emotion, and shaking hands.
In 1987, the Kleizer-Walczak Construction Company begain its Synthespian ("synthetic thespian") Project, with the aim of creating "life-like figures based on the digital animation of clay models".
In 1988, Tin Toy
was the first entirely computer-generated movie to win an Academy Award (Best Animated Short Film
). In the same year, Mike the Talking Head, an animated head whose facial expression and head posture were controlled in real time by a puppeteer using a custom-built controller, was developed by Silicon Graphics
, and performed live at SIGGRAPH
. In 1989, The Abyss
, directed by James Cameron
included a computer-generated face placed onto a watery pseudopod.
In 1991, Terminator 2, also directed by Cameron, confident in the abilities of computer-generated effects from his experience with The Abyss, included a mixture of synthetic actors with live animation, including computer models of Robert Patrick
's face. The Abyss contained just one scene with photo-realistic computer graphics. Terminator 2 contained over forty shots throughout the film.
In 1997, Industrial Light and Magic
worked on creating a virtual actor that was a composite of the bodily parts of several real actors.
By the 21st century, virtual actors had become a reality. The face of Brandon Lee
, who had died partway through the shooting of The Crow
in 1994, had been digitally superimposed over the top of a body-double in order to complete those parts of the movie that had yet to be filmed. By 2001, three-dimensional computer-generated realistic humans had been used in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
, and by 2004, a synthetic Laurence Olivier
co-starred in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
.
would strengthen such laws.) An actor does not own the copyright on his/her digital clone unless he/she was the actual creator of that clone. Robert Patrick, for example, would have little legal control over the liquid metal cyborg digital clone of himself created for Terminator 2.
The use of a digital clone in the performance of the cloned person's primary profession is an economic difficulty, as it may cause the actor to act in fewer roles, or be at a disadvantage in contract negotiations, since the clone could be used by the producers of the movie to substitute for the actor in the role. It is also a career difficulty, since a clone could be used in roles that the actor himself/herself would, conscious of the effect that such roles might have on his/her career, never accept. Bad identifications of an actor's image with a role harm careers, and actors, conscious of this, pick and choose what roles they play. (Bela Lugosi
and Margaret Hamilton
became typecast
with their roles as Count Dracula
and the Wicked Witch of the West
, whereas Anthony Hopkins
and Dustin Hoffman
have played a diverse range of parts.) A digital clone could be used to play the parts of (for examples) an axe murderer or a prostitute, which would affect the actor's public image, and in turn affect what future casting opportunities were given to the actor. Both Tom Waits
and Bette Midler
have won actions for damages against people who employed their images in advertisements that they had refused to take part in themselves.
In the US, the use of a digital clone in advertisements, as opposed to the performance of a person's primary profession, is covered by section 43(a) of the Lanham Act
, which subjects commercial speech to requirements of accuracy and truthfulness, and which makes deliberate confusion unlawful. The use of a celebrity's image would be an implied endorsement. The New York District Court held that an advertisement employing a Woody Allen
impersonator would violate the Act unless it contained a disclaimer stating that Allen did not endorse the product.
Other concerns include posthumous use of digital clones. Barbara Creed
states that "Arnold's famous threat, 'I'll be back', may take on a new meaning". Even before Brandon Lee was digitally reanimated, the California Senate drew up the Astaire Bill, in response to lobbying from Fred Astaire
's widow and the Screen Actors Guild
, who were seeking to restrict the use of digital clones of Astaire. Movie studios opposed the legislation, and as of 2002 it had yet to be finalized and enacted. Several companies, including Virtual Celebrity Productions, have in the meantime purchased the rights to create and use digital clones of various dead celebrities, such as Marlene Dietrich
and Vincent Price
.
Vactor Studio LLC is a New York-based company, but its "Vactors" (virtual actors) are located all across the US and Canada. The Vactors log into virtual world applications from their homes or offices to participate in exercises covering an extensive range of markets including: Medical, Military, First Responder, Corporate, Government, Entertainment, and Retail. Through their own computers, they become doctors, soldiers, EMTs, customer service reps, victims for Mass Casualty Response training, or whatever the demonstration requires. Since 2005, Vactor Studio’s role-players have delivered thousands of hours of professional virtual world demonstrations, training exercises, and event management services.
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
and sound. The process of creating such a virtual human on film, substituting for an existing actor, is known, after a 1992 book, as Schwarzeneggerization, and in general virtual humans employed in movies are known as synthespians, virtual actors, vactors, cyberstars, or "silicentric" actors. There are several legal ramifications for the digital cloning of human actors, relating to copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
and personality rights. People who have already been digitally cloned as simulations include Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Anna Marie Goddard, and George Burns
George Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
. Ironically, data sets of Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
for the creation of a virtual Arnold (head, at least) have already been made.
The name Schwarzeneggerization comes from the 1992 book Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner
Mark Leyner
Mark Leyner is an American postmodernist author.Leyner employs an intense and unconventional style in his works of fiction. His stories are generally humorous and absurd: In The Tetherballs of Bougainville, Mark's father survives a lethal injection at the hands of the New Jersey penal system, and...
. In one scene, on pages 50–51, a character asks the shop assistant at a video store to have Arnold Schwarzenegger digitally substituted for existing actors into various works, including (amongst others) Rain Man
Rain Man
Rain Man is a 1988 drama film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish yuppie, Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son,...
(to replace both Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
and Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
), My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady (film)
My Fair Lady is a 1964 musical film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical, of the same name, based on the 1938 film adaptation of the original stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The ballroom scene and the ending were taken from the previous film adaptation , rather than from...
(to replace Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
), Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
(to replace F. Murray Abraham
F. Murray Abraham
Fahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
), The Diary of Anne Frank (as Anne Frank), Gandhi
Gandhi (film)
Gandhi is a 1982 biographical film based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. The film was directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. They both...
(to replace Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
), and It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
(to replace James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
). Schwarzeneggerization is the name that Leyner gives to this process. Only 10 years later, Schwarzeneggerization was close to being reality.
By 2002, Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
, Kate Mulgrew
Kate Mulgrew
Katherine Kiernan Maria "Kate" Mulgrew is an American actress, most noted for her roles on Star Trek: Voyager as Captain Kathryn Janeway and Ryan's Hope as Mary Ryan...
, Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1980 in The Hollywood Knights, but first garnered mainstream attention with her performance in Brian De Palma's Scarface . Pfeiffer has won numerous awards for her work...
, Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
, Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
, and David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
had all had their heads laser scanned to create digital computer models thereof.
Early history
Early computer-generated animated faces include the 1985 film Tony de Peltrie and the music videoMusic video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
's song "Hard Woman" (from She's the Boss
She's the Boss
She's the Boss is the solo album debut by The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger released in 1985. When the Stones signed with CBS Records in 1983, one of the options available to them was for individual projects, and Jagger—ready to spread his wings after recording exclusively with the famous...
). The first actual human beings to be digitally duplicated were Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
and Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
in a March 1987 film created by Daniel Thalmann and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann for the 100th anniversary of the Engineering Society of Canada. The film was created by six people over a year, and had Monroe and Bogart meeting in a café in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. The characters were rendered in three dimensions, and were capable of speaking, showing emotion, and shaking hands.
In 1987, the Kleizer-Walczak Construction Company begain its Synthespian ("synthetic thespian") Project, with the aim of creating "life-like figures based on the digital animation of clay models".
In 1988, Tin Toy
Tin Toy
Tin Toy is a 1988 short film using computer animation. It was directed by John Lasseter and produced by Pixar. It was the first testing of PhotoRealistic RenderMan...
was the first entirely computer-generated movie to win an Academy Award (Best Animated Short Film
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
). In the same year, Mike the Talking Head, an animated head whose facial expression and head posture were controlled in real time by a puppeteer using a custom-built controller, was developed by Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
, and performed live at SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
. In 1989, The Abyss
The Abyss
The Abyss is a 1989 science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron. It stars Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. The original musical score was composed by Alan Silvestri...
, directed by James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
included a computer-generated face placed onto a watery pseudopod.
In 1991, Terminator 2, also directed by Cameron, confident in the abilities of computer-generated effects from his experience with The Abyss, included a mixture of synthetic actors with live animation, including computer models of Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick
Robert Hammond Patrick, Jr. is an American actor, known for his leading and supporting roles in a number of films and television shows....
's face. The Abyss contained just one scene with photo-realistic computer graphics. Terminator 2 contained over forty shots throughout the film.
In 1997, Industrial Light and Magic
Industrial Light and Magic
Industrial Light & Magic is an Academy Award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and is owned by Lucasfilm. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at 20th Century Fox was shut down after he was given...
worked on creating a virtual actor that was a composite of the bodily parts of several real actors.
By the 21st century, virtual actors had become a reality. The face of Brandon Lee
Brandon Lee
Brandon Bruce Lee was an American actor and martial artist. He was the son of martial arts film star Bruce Lee...
, who had died partway through the shooting of The Crow
The Crow
The Crow is a comic book series created by James O'Barr. The series was originally written by O'Barr as a means of dealing with the death of his girlfriend at the hands of a drunk driver. It was later published by Caliber Comics in 1989, becoming an underground success, and later adapted into a...
in 1994, had been digitally superimposed over the top of a body-double in order to complete those parts of the movie that had yet to be filmed. By 2001, three-dimensional computer-generated realistic humans had been used in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...
, and by 2004, a synthetic Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
co-starred in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure science-fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins , a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan ,...
.
Legal issues
Critics such as Stuart Klawans in the New York Times expressed worry about the loss of "the very thing that art was supposedly preserving: our point of contact with the irreplaceable, finite person". More problematic, however, are issues of copyright and personality rights. An actor has little legal control over a digital clone of him/herself and must resort to database protection laws in order to exercise what control he/she has. (The proposed U.S. Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation ActDatabase and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act
The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act, , was a proposed bill in the United States House of Representatives during the 108th United States Congress...
would strengthen such laws.) An actor does not own the copyright on his/her digital clone unless he/she was the actual creator of that clone. Robert Patrick, for example, would have little legal control over the liquid metal cyborg digital clone of himself created for Terminator 2.
The use of a digital clone in the performance of the cloned person's primary profession is an economic difficulty, as it may cause the actor to act in fewer roles, or be at a disadvantage in contract negotiations, since the clone could be used by the producers of the movie to substitute for the actor in the role. It is also a career difficulty, since a clone could be used in roles that the actor himself/herself would, conscious of the effect that such roles might have on his/her career, never accept. Bad identifications of an actor's image with a role harm careers, and actors, conscious of this, pick and choose what roles they play. (Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
and Margaret Hamilton
Margaret Hamilton
Margaret Hamilton was an American film actress known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz...
became typecast
Typecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...
with their roles as Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
and the Wicked Witch of the West
Wicked Witch of the West
The Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character and the most significant antagonist in L. Frank Baum's children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
, whereas Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
and Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
have played a diverse range of parts.) A digital clone could be used to play the parts of (for examples) an axe murderer or a prostitute, which would affect the actor's public image, and in turn affect what future casting opportunities were given to the actor. Both Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
have won actions for damages against people who employed their images in advertisements that they had refused to take part in themselves.
In the US, the use of a digital clone in advertisements, as opposed to the performance of a person's primary profession, is covered by section 43(a) of the Lanham Act
Lanham Act
The Lanham Act is a piece of legislation that contains the federal statutes of trademark law in the United States. The Act prohibits a number of activities, including trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and false advertising.-History:Named for Representative Fritz G...
, which subjects commercial speech to requirements of accuracy and truthfulness, and which makes deliberate confusion unlawful. The use of a celebrity's image would be an implied endorsement. The New York District Court held that an advertisement employing a Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
impersonator would violate the Act unless it contained a disclaimer stating that Allen did not endorse the product.
Other concerns include posthumous use of digital clones. Barbara Creed
Barbara Creed
Barbara Creed is a Professor of Cinema Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne known for her cultural criticism....
states that "Arnold's famous threat, 'I'll be back', may take on a new meaning". Even before Brandon Lee was digitally reanimated, the California Senate drew up the Astaire Bill, in response to lobbying from Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
's widow and the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
, who were seeking to restrict the use of digital clones of Astaire. Movie studios opposed the legislation, and as of 2002 it had yet to be finalized and enacted. Several companies, including Virtual Celebrity Productions, have in the meantime purchased the rights to create and use digital clones of various dead celebrities, such as Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
.
In fiction
- S1m0neS1m0neS1m0ne is a 2002 science fiction comedy film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Rachel Roberts, Evan Rachel Wood, Winona Ryder and Rebecca Romijn.-Plot:...
, a 20022002 in filmThe year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...
science fictionScience fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama filmDrama filmA drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
written, produced and directed by Andrew NiccolAndrew NiccolAndrew M. Niccol is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. He wrote and directed Gattaca, S1m0ne, In Time, and Lord of War. He also wrote and co-produced The Truman Show, which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 1999 and won a BAFTA award for Best...
, starring Al PacinoAl PacinoAlfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
.
In business
A Virtual Actor can also be a person who performs a role in real-time when logged into a Virtual World or Collaborative On-Line Environment. One who represents, via an avatar, a character in a simulation or training event. One who behaves as if acting a part through the use of an avatar.Vactor Studio LLC is a New York-based company, but its "Vactors" (virtual actors) are located all across the US and Canada. The Vactors log into virtual world applications from their homes or offices to participate in exercises covering an extensive range of markets including: Medical, Military, First Responder, Corporate, Government, Entertainment, and Retail. Through their own computers, they become doctors, soldiers, EMTs, customer service reps, victims for Mass Casualty Response training, or whatever the demonstration requires. Since 2005, Vactor Studio’s role-players have delivered thousands of hours of professional virtual world demonstrations, training exercises, and event management services.