Digital Impact
Digital art has turned American entertainment upside down. Its presence is evident in nearly every area of electronic entertainment. A talking gecko tries to sell me insurance while I’m watching UFC fights. I am consistently alerted by an alluring female voice accompanied by a flashing animated pop-up window that I have won, not just one but two Ipod Nanos for checking my email, or playing poker online. Video games have transformed from a white square cursor bouncing back and forth between a couple of blocky white paddles on a black screen into immersive, living, multiple player interactive platform experiences. Perhaps the most significant way that digital art has changed entertainment in western culture though, is the way that it has changed the process of creating movies and the scale and scope of chart smashing films that are being created today.
The entire process of making a film prior to the development of digital technology was extremely expensive. The cost of the film that the movie was printed on alone nearly precluded the independent filmmaker from undertaking the process of making something as low-cost as a nature based documentary, where the backdrops, sets and superstars came free of charge. Reasonably priced, high quality digital video cameras eliminated that problem entirely.
The blockbusters of old could only be undertaken by huge production companies because they had to build extravagant sets, from real materials, often having to duplicate them in miniature for “fishing line” quality special effects.
Before digital processes if a scene called for two thousand warriors charging across an enormous battleground toward a seemingly endless sea of evil forces, the studio had to pay salary for those two thousand actors their weapons, and their costumes to charge across that field. They charged toward another huge group of paid, union represented actors who must also be provided costumes and weapons. In the charge there was always a risk that an actor could be injured and that a lawsuit would ensue. Even if the shot went perfect on the first take, and no one was injured, this two minute scene would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That same scene can now be created by a couple of computer savvy kids using available software, slurping on Starbucks and sitting at a good home computer.
Instead of using a rented grassy field as the backdrop, those same kids can set the scene in Antarctica, an untouched remote wilderness, or on an oxygen-free exploding space platform in a different galaxy. All of these are places that the aforementioned living actors would never dare to tread. Using a computer generated environment also means that you don’t have to get a permit to shoot there. Digital actors don’t cost a cent after development, you can chop them in half, splatter them all over, or blow them up and you don’t even have to feed them! If you really need Tom Cruise or Milla Jovovich in the shot, the green screen is never far away, but their glowing nine foot tall semi-transparent alien nemesis can be played by the short funny looking kid that took your money at the Burger King drive-thru, by dropping him into a sensor suit for a few bucks an hour!
This is by no means a suggestion that amazing movies are being made for less money, nor that it takes any less artistic capability, but that the same budget can be stretched to create a far more visually stimulating experience for a fraction of the cost. In many cases great scenes can now exist that would have been cut from the script because the scene would cost too much or was simply impossible to produce. Digital art and effects have radically altered the type of cinematic choices made available to us. Oscar Wilde once said “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” If this phrase holds an inkling of truth, computer generated imagery and the digital artists who create these cinematic masterpieces have played dominant roles in the formation and structure of our current western culture.
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