I haven’t seen Here yet, but man, it feels like this stuff is finally… here, huh.
What is the valley I mentioned above? Why, the Uncanny Valley, of course.
As Metaphysic VFX supervisor Kevin Baillie explains: “If you look at somebody and there’s something not quite right with their face, that’s our lizard brain telling us, ‘oh, that person is sick, I’d better stay away’”.
It very deliberately creates a feeling of revulsion in us, as a safety mechanism. But as you’ll see, there’s really some incredible work showcased in the below video from Vox.
You should also take a look at Metaphysic’s website to see more of the work they’ve done. It’s a pretty crazy list of popular movies and clips. This video of Dr Dre and Snoop meeting the young Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr is… mindblowing. Not perfect, given it wouldn’t have had the full Hollywood budget or timeline, but incredible.
Here’s the trailer for Here.
It looks like a beautiful tearjerker of a film (and Bob Zemeckis is an incredible director), but I also had to chuckle at the irony that Robin Wright has previously played an actress who signs her exclusive likeness rights over to a studio.
If this sort of thing grabs you, you should check out the Corridor Crew channel on YouTube, where a group of visual effects engineers and artists regularly break down (and criticise) the current state of computer generated imagery in movies.
The video below is one of many they’ve produced to explore this realm, right through to outright replacing actors.
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