De-aging effects of De Niro in The Irishman
CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) has a significant role to make de-aging of De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in The Irishman. Martin Scorsese, the director of The Irishman, decides to use CGI as a digital make-up to create 79 years old of Pacino looks like 39 years old.
Not only for illusion make-up, but CGI also use to produce a new digital creation, like Buck–the dog in The Call of the Wild. We can say The Call of the Wild as a ‘dog movie’ without an actual dog. The CGI technology makes the tense adventures of Buck in the snowy Alaskan forest possible to be brought into film in a realistic way.
We can find CGI technology in almost all films today, such as The Avengers, The Secret Life of Pets, The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many more.
Then, what is CGI? CGI is a computer graphics application, especially 3D, to make special effects and visuals effects. The functions of CGI are to create landscape images, architectural scenes, cloth and skin images, animation, virtual world to anatomical models.
Film industry started to use computer graphics in some science fiction films in the 1970s, such as Star Wars, Alien, and Westworld. The need of using computer graphics is driven by the motive to make spectacular special effects and visual effects that do not spend too expensive of a budget.
Before the use of computer graphics, film and television made special effects by manual effects, such as, using a skilled matte painter to paint the landscape background, wear masks and prosthetics organ to create monsters, and build a realistic miniature set for architectural scenes.
The use of CGI is really effective and fantastic. The filmmakers can build anything, even illusion worlds, without worry about the complicated manual effects and costly spending.
Biocybernetics Reproduction of Images
Have you ever thought that images can be reproduced like humans or animals in the cloning technique? According to W.J.T. Mitchell–professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago, the development of genetic and computational technologies have shifted cyberspace and biospace from the structure of organism to frontiers of technical innovation.
We can clone, re-animate, and create new images by the biocybernetics reproduction. CGI technology is one of the examples of biocybernetic reproduction of images. The prototype of biocybernetics reproduction are Jurassic Park films that re-animate the extinct animals by involving DNA codes and digital technology.
For Mitchell, in the age of biocybernetic reproduction, “images really do come alive and want things”.
What is biocybernetics reproduction? According to Mitchell, in his article The Work of Art in The Age of Biocybernetics Reproduction, Biocybernetics reproduction is a combination of computer technology and biology that is used in cloning and genetic engineering. It comes from “bios” and “cybernetics”. The word “cybernetics” comes from ‘steersman’ of a boat (Greek word). It suggests a discipline of control and governance. ‘Bios’ refers to the living organism sphere. The living organism is usually controlled by technology, but sometimes it also shows resistance of control, to maintain ‘its own life’.
Thus, biocybernetic does not only refer to control but also resistance against control. Mitchell sees that digital technology produces new calculation and control, such as computer viruses and terrorism. The Biocybernetic ranges from the cyborg creation to the advertisement scenes of consumers in a health club with vital signs tracker to keep her body ‘health’. This image of ‘healthy’ person controls the consumers’ desire for an ideal body.
The involvement of biocybernetics technology can make images truly alive and impose its control not only on the digital models in the film but also on our lives. However, we can also use the biocybernetics reproduction to resist against dominant control. Let’s say, Avatar film that tells an environmental message to stop degrading the environment, gives us a resistance image to the anthropocentrism in our everyday lives.
For Mitchell, thus, the biocybernetics reproduction is not only about the exact copy or improvement of the original, but also about “the attempt to control bodies with codes and image”.