#Des231 Assignment 3

For my 2nd assessment in Design 231, I was tasked with concepting, prototyping and designing an artifact from the future I envisioned in my previous assessment's (Assessment 1) insight.

This insight was that " in the future even the actors themselves will be replaced by CGI."

In order to help manage the workload for this assessment, and provide me with a constant set of goals, Assessment 2 (A2) was split into three distinct phases:

1. Research and concept

2. Develop

3. Fabricate

Each of these phases was to be completed in roughly two - three weeks, with each having their own challenges/unique problems and difficulties.

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Phase 1: Research and concept

During the first two weeks of working on this assessment I researched different topics and ideas related to my previous assessments insight. I started by writing down 10 different people, places and things, that related in anyway to movies and the VFX industry in general (as seen in the image below)

After writing down these words, I the created a quick systems map to show the state of the current movie industry.

I then brainstormed, using these words as a starting point, 12 different artifacts These ranged wildly, from a full body 3d scanner, to a short film featuring a 3d actor. The full list of artifacts were:

After coming up with these 12 initial ideas, I then set upon whittling them down until only three remained. My criteria for choosing the final three was primarily based on two factors: 1) that the artifact could be created in the remaining four week period, and 2) that the artifact could plausibly exist within the near future. The final three ideas I was left with were:

1. Physical DVD/blu ray case of a movie featuring all CGI actors

Physical media, e.g. DVDs and Blu Ray will still exist in the future as people are still interested in physical media, much like the Vinyl (which has seen a resurgence in recent years) fans are interested in owning the movie. Much like merch, DVD’s are becoming more like collectors pieces, and while they have declined in sales, they will always be created for large films/blockbusters with lots of Fans (Dade, H. 2014)

2. Futuristic device for capturing an actor's face/likeness

As actors become increasing tied into big budget franchises, their likenesses - used for things such as toys, and other marketing promotions, will need to be constantly up to date with each films release. This device would allow for an actor to capture their likeness within seconds, saving both themselves, and the studio, time and money.

3. Futuristic Movie poster featuring CGI actors

While physical posters may not be a part of the future, movie posters (or the digital equivalent of them) will seemingly always be needed to promote a film. My poster will include moving elements, and feature a large variety of different actors, both past and present, recreated in CGI and brought into a future film.

After choosing these three Ideas, and after much consideration, I eventually decided to go with idea number 3, mainly because I believed that out of all three of my chosen artifacts, it had the most potential to actually exist. While DVD's may not exist in the future, I am almost certain that promotional images created for movies will. The idea also interested me greatly, and sparked more ideas than the other artifacts did.

After choosing my initial concept, I then proceeded onto phase 2.

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Phase 2: Develop

For the second phase of this assessment, I began to develop my initial concept into a stronger idea, creating three mood boards that showcased various posters, as well as what my possible design may look like. I did this through the use of various mood boards, featured below:

(Mood board 1)

(Mood board 2)

(Mood board 3)

After being inspired from my mood boards, I then began designing my poster:

(Initial concept 1)

(Initial concept 2)

These posters were all inspired by the various marvel posters, as well as this poster design I found while searching Pinterest:

Created by Dettrick Maddox aka Mr design Junkie (whose Facebook can be found here)

For the animated aspect of my poster, I decided to leave much of the screen behind the actors heads blank, and have various superheroes e.g. Ironman, and Spiderman swing/fly through the poster, similar to the alien ships featured in this poster design from the second independence day film, Independence Day: Resurgence (Seen below)

For the list of actors included in the poster, I wanted to use a combination of famous dead actors who had been recreated in CGI and alive actors who were open to the process of being CGI'd into films (Feser, M. 2020), or were a part of large budget franchises that had already scanned their likenesses for toys, marketing etc. This criteria was developed in this particular way, as I believe that they were the most likely actors to be/continue to be CGI'd in blockbuster films

I have chosen to create my poster in Adobe Photoshop, as I have some previous experience in this program.

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Phase 3: Fabricate

I then began to create my poster, using the original Spiderman homecoming poster for text placement/title placement inspiration.

After adding guidelines, I then replaced the Spiderman logo with my own custom variant, changing the yellow to another one of Spiderman's colours, blue.

(before image of the logo, taken from Spiderman; Homecoming)

(After image, with the blue)

I then placed in the various background elements into my poster, eventually settling on a stock image of a stormy sky to be my main background.

(Background 1 design)

(Final background design)

I then added the general layout of the foreground elements, including the spider (Which was eventually changed to the fatter spider form the comics seen in the final image)

(Spiderman costume from Spiderman: Homecomming. Notice the fatter spider symbol)

And began cutting out my actors

The final Spider, with a number of actors present, the various colors are are a nod to famed comic artist Jack Kirby, who was the inspiration for a number of comic book posters including this one from Thor: Ragnarock (Ching, A. 2018).

Unfortunately, I could not get the animated portion of my poster completed in time. This would have featured various moving actors (similar to the posters seen here) instead the actors in my poster are all stationary.

My three final posters:

(My final poster design)

(My poster design on display at Event Theatres on Queen Street)

(My poster design, on display at a movie theatre, situated next to re-releases of Justice League and Star Wars)

Both the Iron Man and Spiderman character and their related trademarks used in this poster are propriety of both Disney, Marvel, and Sony Entertainment. My use of these characters and trademarks, as well as the likenesses of other celebrities is covered under parody law (Included in the NZ copyright law act of 1994) my use of these characters is in no way meant to reflect reality, and I am making no profit off of their use (FindLaw, 2017)

All smoke effects and background images come from: Unsplash stock images (https://unsplash.com/photos/heIaYq6A7tg)

After completing my poster, I then wrote up my 300 word description of the artifact. This was surprisingly difficult, as the amount of information I wanted to deliver kept going over the word count. The final product, while lacking in a lot of areas (especially in regards to the aftermath of the films release) was the best version I could come up with, that fit into the word count limit. While it is impossible to reference things that never happened, I have included some references into the description in order to give additional context to certain ideas, as well as give them additional precedence.

My description of the final artifact:

This animated movie poster was originally created for the sixth feature film in the long running Disney/Marvel SpiderMan movie franchise, “Spiderman VI: End of the Spiderverse. Although this poster resembles many of the other physical animated posters created during the mid 2040’s, it is particularly notable for being the first to feature a main cast of fully lifelike CGI characters, all of whom were based on the likeness of various actors, both (at the time) living, and deceased. 

While the exact reasons why this film was chosen by Disney/Marvel to be the first to feature a fully CGI cast were never disclosed, we can infer from both second hand sources, as well as the general socioeconomic climate at the time, that the ongoing Covid-34 pandemic (the third such pandemic in just 21 years) played a large factor (Hook,L. 2020). With stay at home orders consistently being lifted, and then reintroduced across the continental United States (The New York Times. 2020), Disney/Marvel may have decided that the costs associated with having to constantly test and isolate the cast and crew were too high, and that while more expensive at first, using CGI actors would eventually become more profitable as the virus seemed to have no end in sight. 

This theory is also backed up by the new CGI actors that were added to Spiderman VI (notably James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Downey Jr and Audrey Hepburn) all being based on actors who had previously been recreated by VFX studios for other projects (). As their models were already created, the costs associated with adding them into the film were significantly cheaper than recreating an actor completely from scratch. All CGI actors in the film were portrayed by specially trained voice and performance capture artists, whose addition on the poster was a first for the industry. 

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References:

1. Hook, L. (2020, October 29). The next pandemic: where is it coming form and how do we stop it? https://www.ft.com/content/2a80e4a2-7fb9-4e2c-9769-bc0d98382a5c

2. The New York Times. (2020, October 29) See How All 50 States Are Reopening (and Closing Again) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html

3. Hayes, D. (2014, August 18) Six Reasons Why DVDs Still Make Money — And Won't Die Anytime Soon. Forbes.com. July 8, 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/dadehayes/2013/07/08/six-reasons-why-dvds-still-make-money-and-wont-die-anytime-soon/

4. Feser, M (2020, January 4) Resurrecting Actors: Has CGI Gone Too Far? https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/resurrecting-actors-cgi-in-film/

5. FindLaw (2017, June 8) Parody: fair use or copyright infringement https://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/parody-fair-use-or-copyright-infringement.html

6. Ching, A. (2018, February 27) Waititi Details Kirby's Influence on Thor: Ragnarok in Commentary Clip https://www.cbr.com/thor-ragnarok-taika-waititi-jack-kirby-influence/#:~:text=If%20you%20noticed%20a%20Jack,part%20of%20director%20Taika%20Waititi.&text=%22It%20made%20me%20really%20happy,Waititi%20said%20in%20the%20clip.