Thursday Jul 03, 2003
Actors, not Stars
Inspired by the popular video game franchise, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) is a completely computer-generated film unlike any other. Final Fantasy is a complex science fiction drama with human-looking digital actors who, at first take, look astonishingly real.
Aki, the digitized female lead, is nearly impossible to tell apart from a live actress.
Although all the characters looked real, it is Dr. Sid (voice of Donald Sutherland) who was indistinguishable from a live actor. Why? As it turns out, Dr. Sid was the last character to be developed. In turn, the computer crew used all the experience they had learned from creating the other characters on Dr. Sid—and it shows!
See this movie (available on DVD) for the technology and the future of film making—actors, not stars, performing. What a concept.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, was directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi.»
