In both the posthumous “holograms” and the de-aging performances, there are visual and auditory reference points upon which to build the entire holistic performance. In fact, some museums, like the Dalí Museum and the National Comedy Center, already leverage similar technology to engage visitors and give life to their subjects.Īs the projection technology is relatively simple, the truly impressive aspect of these “holograms” is nearly identical to the technology used in The Irishman the main, though obvious, difference is the posthumous aspect. Arts managers can take a lesson from the for-profit music industry’s playbook here. Dancers with a physical style iterative of Houston’s can be employed to wear non-optical motion capture suits, and the new choreography’s digital skeleton can be captured in a 3D environment and later projected with Houston’s likeness. Footage of past performances, therefore, can act as a 21st-century rotoscope for CGI rendering. One of the marketing points of the Houston tour is that it features new choreography, which cannot be obtained from any archival footage. For both Shakur and Houston, a plethora of performance videos and images exist that could hypothetically be projected, but they are not high-enough resolution to be directly projected with any convincing realism. Though these projections are not technically holograms nor are they very difficult to create, the development of the videos and images that are projected in live performance requires the CGI techniques and capabilities described in part one. The viewer’s perception of the hologram object changes as he or she moves in orientation to it, whereas no matter where the viewer sits in an audience for a live performance of these “holograms” or in a film, the viewer sees the same projection and image the changing vantage point does not create a different viewership experience. By definition, true holograms are static images captured on a special type of film and exposed using laser light rather than white light. These images, though they have the appearance of being three-dimensional from afar, are truly two-dimensional, much like the effect rendered by looking in a mirror. A newer iteration of the same mislabeled technology will be used in the recently announced posthumous Whitney Houston tour. The projected image was entirely two-dimensional and was achieved through the strategic use of a mirror and lighting. The technology used in this performance is not a hologram, but rather an updated version of the “Pepper’s ghost” stage trick that originated in the 1800s. This misnomer entered public consciousness upon the “ hologram performance” of Tupac Shakur at the Coachella music festival in 2012. This example of an aging actor’s more youthful image on-screen evokes similarities to a trend that has brought many to widely misuse the third term that requires explanation and disambiguation: the “hologram.” Holograms have been used as a shortcut term to describe the lately fashionable occurrence of posthumously incorporating the likenesses of deceased performers into live productions or films. In part one, the de-aging effects applied to Robert DeNiro in The Irishman were described. Understanding what this technology is and how it works will allow arts managers to evaluate whether similar technology can be used to improve the patron experience in their institutions.

That framework and information will be applied to this second part of the series, which examines how similar technology is leveraged in the “holograms” that have become more prevalent in live performances and museum spaces in the past few years. In part one, the history of and technology behind CGI and motion-capture is explained in detail.

Read part 1 here.ĬGI and motion-capture technology have disrupted filmmaking in the past two decades, and there are no signs that this trend is in decline.

Did arcane use motion capture