In these two weeks I have focused on structuring my thesis points and doing further research to find the answer to the questions and sub-questions about my topic. I also had my 1-to-1 tutorial with Nigel.
1-to-1 session
Before this session, I prepared the below form with some questions about my thesis proposal to discuss it with the professor.
The feedback I received from Nigel was that I had to extend my bibliography and to find more contemporary sources. Also, he said that I should focus more in the peer reviewed papers or case studies already made by other authors, and do not make a survey myself (considering that it would be time consuming, and its would be hard to acquire opinions from professionals of the industry). He also said that I could focus on the ‘uncanny valley’ that exist around photorealism instead of trying to cover every aspect of this topic. I could also take some movies as references and depart from that.
Further research and thesis proposal structure
Doing some further research to expand my sources, I found a book called The Complete Guide to Photorealism for Visual Effects, Visualization and Games: For Visual Effects, Visualization and Games by Eran Dinur. This book provides detailed explanations of the differences between the view through our eyes and the view through a camera lens, the uncanny valley, and the imperfections of reality. It also talks about the challenges that visual effects have faced with photorealism in filmmaking as well as some more technical aspects of how to achieve a photorealistic look. Lastly, it also mentions briefly how photorealism is likely going to evolute with the emerging of new technologies and new techniques. This book is going to help me understand the technicalities of photorealism and why is so easy to get stuck in the uncanny valley with this style.
I also made a new structure of my thesis taking in consideration the new approach I want to focus on which is the photorealism struggles regarding the uncanny valley and the solutions that the industry has come up to deal with it. I also started to link my sources that could answer those questions and to start with the literature review next week.
Main question – Will photorealism continue to be the leader in the film industry in the future against traditional visual effects and despite its controversy around the uncanny valley?
- What is photorealism?
Photorealism is an art movement that started on 1960s in America, that shows artworks that look photographic. This form of art is defined by being complex, extremely clear, and emotionally neutral. Since this type of art was considered unoriginal and boring, this led to the pop art movement. However, in the beginnings of 1990s, the interest in photorealism resurged again as effect of the development of digital cameras which could offer a more precise image. (Kench, 2022; Tate, 2023; Wainwright, 2019)
- What are the origins of photorealism in filmmaking and what were its initial uses?
- How is photorealism used in filmmaking nowadays and important is it?
- Importance of photorealistic VFX to replace dangerous live action scenes. (Maio, 2021; Wadmare, 2021)
- Importance of VFX to replace impossible to shot environments such as outer space scenes or fictional environments. – (Dinur, 2022 – The Reality of the Unreal, pg. 18)
- Importance of VFX for health and safety issues like the use of virtual production when the global pandemic hit and travel to different locations was not a possibility.
- Does photorealism quality depend purely on the new digital technologies’ high definition? (Dinur, 2022 – Image Quality and Photorealism, pg. 19)
- Why is photorealism not accepted by all audiences?
- Uncanny valley. (Dinur, 2022; Manovich 2002)
- Has the audience become more used to photorealism, therefore, more exigent about it? (Failes, 2021)
- Is photorealism considered emotionless?
- At what point photorealism starts to become surrealism?
- Non-photorealism in filmmaking to foreground the work of digital effects artists. (Jeng, 2023)
- Photorealism costs and workload. (Agrawal and Auryn 2009; Cooper, 1999)
- Photorealism used for malicious intentions, issues caused, and solutions in place to help avoid this. (Meena and Tyagi, 2019)
- Industry professionals case studies. (Melki, 2019)
- What could be the future of photorealism in filmmaking? – (Dinur, 2022)
- AI as a tool to help with photorealism demands in film industry. Would AI replace human labour as digital VFX has shadowed handmade VFX artists and animators’ jobs?
- Virtual production – high resolution screens installed in life action shooting. Helping with green screen spill issues? Problems when shooting outdoors or moiré issues? Once shot, can background not be replaced?
- Is Unreal Engine helping filmmaking industry to speed up their work process and to reach a more photorealistic look? (Failes, 2020)
Bibliography
Agrawal, A., and Auryn (2009).Non-photorealistic Rendering: Unleashing the Artist’s Imagination (online). Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5167490 [Accessed 25 April 2023]
Cooper, D. (1999). Personal Thoughts on Non-Photorealistic Rendering (online). Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/563666.563690 [Accessed 25 April 2023]
Dinur, E (2017). The Filmmaker’s Guide to Visual Effects: The Arts and Techniques of VFX for Directors, Producers, Editors, and Cinematograrphers. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Dinur, E. (2022). The Complete Guide to Photorealism for Visual Effects, Visualization and Games. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Failes, I. (2020). EPIC’S GOAL WITH NEXT-GEN UNREAL ENGINE IS PHOTOREALISM (online). Available at: https://beforesandafters.com/2020/05/14/epics-goal-with-next-gen-unreal-engine-is-photorealism/ [Accessed 23 May 2023]
Failes, I. (2021). WHAT IS PHOTOREALISM? WELL, SOMEONE LITERALLY JUST WROTE THE BOOK ON IT (online). Available at: https://beforesandafters.com/2021/11/30/what-is-photorealism-well-someone-literally-just-wrote-the-book-on-it/ [Accessed 23 May 2023]
Jeng, J. (2023). Sidelining Photorealism: ‘Speed Racer’ and Articulation of Digital Effects Labour (online). Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KLOqEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA153&dq=photorealism+in+film&ots=r8349MlY8s&sig=aEhMvSbwORZ1C0leMCKO8dpnEns&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=photorealism%20in%20film&f=false[Accessed 25 April 2023]
Kench, S. (2022). What is Photorealism – The Art of the Real Explained (online). Available at: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-photorealism-definition/ [Accessed 23 April 2023]
Maio, A. (2021). What is VFX? Defining the Term and Creating Impossible Worlds (online). Available at: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-vfx/ [Accessed 30 May 2023]
Manovich, Lev (2002). The Language of New Media. First paperback edn. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Meena, K. B., and Tyagi, V. (2019). A Novel Method to Distinguish Photorealistic Computer Generatd Images from Photographic Images (online). Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8985711 [Accessed 25 April 2023]
Melki, H. (2019). An Investigation Into The Creative Processes In Generating Believable Photorealistic Film Characters (online). Available at: https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/78290411/Henry_Melki_Thesis.pdf [Accessed 25 April 2023]
Tate (2023). Photorealism (online). Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/photorealism [Accessed 30 May 2023]
Wadmare, S. (2021). Recent Trends Visitation in VFX and SFX in the Animation World (online). Available at: http://ilkogretim-online.org/fulltext/218-1617213160.pdf?1682423818 [Accessed 25 April 2023]
Wainwright, L. S. (2019). Photo-realism. Encyclopedia Britannica (online). Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/Photo-realism[Accessed 30 May 2023]