In the Q & A period of Jon Landau's speech at the Austin Game Conference (www.gameconference.com) Landau was asked if he saw the end of real actors being used and being replaced by "synthetic characters". (note this is the real-time blog by Joyce Schwarz, on-location at the Austin Game Conference ballroom --note it is our best effort to capture the responses and comments as they were made in real-time). As a courtesy, we have also included links at the end of this blog and other posts on the AGS to other press coverage FYI and for comparison purposes.) FOR MORE INFO ON LANDAU go to IMDBJon Landau Note, Landau explained at the beginning of his presentation that he is an advisor along with James Cameron for Multiverse www.multiverse.net.
Surprisingly, Landau replied to the question about 'replacing actors' by saying that he sees the opposite happening -- he sees the end of the animator because of performance capture...Landau talked about an upcoming time when animation is replaced by performance capture sequences of human actors. In fact, he actually said that he saw eliminating the animator.."no offense," he said to the audience which was probably filled with game animators, game designers and others who were hoping that the opposite was true that reel actors would replace the real ones.
(Note --made on 9/10/06 -- later. in talking with Softimage demo dude in the Austin Game Conference exhibit arena, blogger Joyce Schwarz mentioned this and the Softimage guy explained that animators are usually involved in the performance capture process also..so we're not sure if Landau meant animators like Disneys who animate frame by frame by hand for by computer or whether Landau's aware that animators are generally part of the implementation of performance (or motion capture) capture into the FX process)
NICE Q & A PERIOD....with Landau...
The nice Q & A period may have been even more fascinating than Landau's speech which in some sequences sounded like an advertisement for MULTIVERSE.
OTHER AUDIENCE QUESTIONS are in bold and Landau's response is in italics below...
WHAT DID YOU DREAM ABOUT LAST NIGHT -- Landau talks about producing the movie AVATAR and dreams about the story and the universe we are creating and how we can make it better.
IF YOU WOULD MAKE A GAME WHAT WOULD IT BE -- it would be a game of AVATAR.
MOVEMENT FROM MMOs to CASUAL GAMES...what can we learn from the movie experience regarding the casual aspects. "I think there is a room for both. I think that what the movies offer is very different than what television offers. I believe that the MMO side of this will create an extended experience...I play in both worlds whether on my console at my office or at home...future of MMOs are huge."
DIGITAL PROJECTION compared to sound provided by 70MM prints-- people didn't go to those theaters because they looked better ---but because theatres proviced 6 track sound to envelop the audience. "I think 3D and Digital Projection will be at first for Tentpole movies...our goal and if you watch a high quality 3D presentation the screen plane goes away...screen plane is barrier to the story that you're telling the audience -- 3D is about bringing down the screen plane".
PHYSICAL DESIGN OF MOVIE THEATRE --Landau said that it is happenstance that multiplexes with tiered seating lend themselves to new technologies. "Great thing about digital projectcion you can run anything -- you can run a videogame...you can show the last concert of ROLLING STONES...you can see SUPERBOWL...you can see OPENING OF THE OLYMPICS where theatre evolve is big question but digital projection is important."
Landau --invites audience to go next door for the MULTIVERSE presentation.
Blogger note-- the posts by Joyce Schwarz live from the Austin Game Conference were posted in REAL time...please excuse any typos and lack of quote marks -we will go back and clean up spelling, grammar and quote marks this weekend. If you find any inaccuracy in quotes from the transcription, please email me at [email protected] and I will either make corrections or add your comments. As far as I know Hollywood2020 may have the only real time transcriptions of the panels and the Jon Landau speech from Austin Game Conference. Note, in no way are we saying that this is an ACTUAL word for word transcription...it's solely the best report that our blogger could do real-time from the audience without any advance notes or outline from the sessions
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