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AI robot 'Erica' will star in $70 million sci-fi movie 'b'
Erica will be Hollywood's first AI actor.
The CGI ghost of James Dean will star in a Vietnam War movie
More than 60 years after his last film, James Dean will return to the screen in Finding Jack. In an exclusive, The Hollywood Reporter shares that the iconic actor, who passed away in 1955, has been posthumously cast in a major supporting role. Production house Magic City Films plans to use photos and videos to recreate Dean in CGI.
Netflix deal with Hollywood union promises better conditions for actors
Netflix regularly works with unionized actors (they're ubiquitous in Hollywood), but usually on a show-by-show basis. Now, though, it's establishing a deeper connection. The service has signed a roughly three-year contract with SAG-AFTRA that provides expanded coverage for union work. It now recognizes "performance capture" (think motion capture) and dubbing as covered work, giving actors in those fields the same labor protections as others. The people voicing the English-language version of your favorite anime might have better pay and working conditions, to put it one way.
The strange life of video game voice actor Ashly Burch
It took two years for Ashly Burch to record all of Aloy's dialogue in Horizon Zero Dawn. This was after about a year of auditioning for a mysterious new project from the creators of the Killzone series -- Burch had no idea what this new game was or even which role she was auditioning for. She had no idea it was the beginning of a new mainstream, multi-million dollar franchise from Sony Interactive Entertainment, and she didn't even realize she was reading for the lead role. "I think I'm just extremely lucky," Burch says. "I had no idea what Life is Strange was going to be when I auditioned. I had no idea what Horizon was going to be when I auditioned."
Disney makes facial capture tech more practical for movies
If you don't see facial motion capture everywhere in movies and video games, there's probably a good reason for it. In order to train a capture system to match expressions, you frequently have to record the actor making all kinds of faces in different conditions... that's a lot of effort, especially for studios that don't have much time or money. Disney Research has a better way. It recently developed a face capture system that uses only a tiny number of recordings and synthetically generates the data you need to train the system. The solution is a uniformly-lit multi-camera rig (only one camera is active, the rest are for lighting) that creates an adjustable 3D model of the actor's face that you can use to create the info you need.
Video game voice actors may go on strike
Voice acting in video games is serious and often thankless work. You have to recite hours of dialog that doesn't always get heard, and only a handful of actors (like Nolan North, John DiMaggio and Troy Baker) have high-profile careers. However, they're now fighting to get a bigger piece of the pie. The actor union SAG-AFTRA is considering voting for a strike that would push for more payments and greater rights for game voice actors. It's proposing that these performers should get bonuses every time a game sells 2 million copies, and stunt pay when they have to strain their voices -- think about every game where your character screamed from taking damage. The guild also wants stunt coordinators for motion capture work, and it hopes to prevent companies from both hiring their own unionless staff as well as instituting fines over relatively arbitrary faults, such as failing to audition for small roles.
Edward Snowden held a secret chat with the actor portraying him
Many actors in biographical movies will interview the real people they're portraying to get a feel for their mannerisms and values. However, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is going the extra mile to make sure that he's correctly representing NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone's upcoming movie. The star has revealed to The Guardian that he held a secret, four-hour meeting with Snowden in Russia to understand the fugitive. How secret? Gordon-Leavitt was not only advised to avoid recording the conversation, but (for a while) to avoid even acknowledging that it took place -- not surprising when the US likely wants to watch Snowden's every move.
Foul Play to enter stage left on PS4, Vita
Mediatonic's theatrical side-scrolling brawler Foul Play is heading to PS4 and Vita, the developer announced in a recent post on PlayStation Blog. Players take on the role of Baron Dashforth, a mustachioed demon hunter who retells his tales in front of a live audience, defeating waves of extras in the one-night-only performance. The co-op enabled beat-em-up doesn't feature a traditional health bar, but rather gauges the audience's interest with each passing moment, and closes the curtains for boring actors that take too many hits from the combat-trained extras. Foul Play launched on PC and Xbox 360 in September 2013 before arriving on Mac and Linux in October. Our four-star review of the game deemed the story as "superb" and the fights "frantic and fast." Mediatonic did not offer a release date for the PS4 and Vita versions as of yet, but it will be Cross-Buy compatible, so owners of both platforms need only buy it once. [Image: Mediatonic]
Comedian Jay Mohr rejoins star-studded Saints Row cast
Former Blizzcon host Jay Mohr is again lending his voice to the Saints Row franchise, a series that also boasts Hollywood notables such as Neil Patrick Harris, Burt Reynolds, and in possibly the greatest cameo appearance ever, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Mohr broke the news on Twitter, stating simply, "About to do my voice over work for new Saints Row video game." Alongside this message Mohr posted a photograph of the recording studio he was using where a screen clearly shows several fan-favorite Saints Row characters. Unfortunately, Mohr's image offers no further hints at what the actor's involvement might be in the Saints Row universe. Saints Row 4 is a new enough game that this recent recording session may be related to an upcoming, as yet unannounced DLC addition for the game. On the other hand, the game is also old enough that developer Volition could have pulled Mohr in to record lines for Saints Row 5. While not necessarily a direct indicator of his role, Mohr previously voiced Dane Vogel, antagonist of Saints Row 2. Whatever the case, we likely won't know more any time soon. Mohr's become coy since his initial reveal, and neither Volition nor publisher Deep Silver will say anything further. Edit: This article has been altered to note that Jay Mohr previously appeared as a voice actor in the Saints Row series. [Image: Flickr]
Actor teases new Kingdom Hearts voice work
Jesse McCartney is a voice actor for the Kingdom Hearts series; he's played Roxas for a few different games now. Earlier today, McCartney tweeted that he was "recording the next chapter" of the series, along with a picture of Roxas on a monitor, which you can see above. Unfortunately, the tweet and picture featuring the game have been removed; however, an earlier update confirmed McCartney is currently "behind the mic" working on something.The question remains: what game in the Kingdom Hearts series is McCartney working on? The likely answer is it's the North American release of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix, which features Final Mix, Chain of Memories, and 358/2 Days. Time will tell.
Google Knowledge Graph explains related content, finds the six degrees with less Bacon
We had a bit of a laugh with Google's Kevin Bacon calculator. Not everyone needs to tie their searches to the star of Footloose, though, which is partly why Google is pushing out an update to its Knowledge Graph that explains how searches turn up related items. The effort is starting with actors, celebrities and their links to any movies and TV shows they've starred in. Looking for Orson Welles and mousing over Rita Hayworth's portrait reminds us that the two luminaries were married for years, for example. We won't know when the more intelligent searches will expand, but at least we won't be quite so confused if the animated Transformers movie appears next to Citizen Kane.
Sony brings the Holodeck to life, throws in giant sea monsters for free (video)
The Holodeck is real and there's no Lt. Barclay to make things awkward. Using a combination of a Steadicam, multiple EyeToy cameras, PlayStation Move controllers, projection mapping, motion tracking, spandex-clad actors and giant rubber sea monster tentacles, Sony Europe, Studio Output and Marshmallow Laser Feast shot three web videos to highlight the immersiveness of movies rented or purchased from the PlayStation Store. Impressively, the shots rely exclusively on visual tricks, with zero editing or postproduction work. Is this the future? See for yourself after the break and relive the joy of the Holodeck without having to interrupt Worf from one of his weird workout routines.
Netflix busted for using actors in crowd at Canadian launch event
Netflix certainly didn't have much trouble attracting interest in its Canadian launch today -- the country's waited long enough, after all -- but it looks like it nonetheless went a bit too far in its efforts to build up buzz at its press event. It turns out that many of the onlookers at the event were actually actors hired by Netflix, at least some of whom went as far as to talk to the press and pass themselves off as regular people -- regular people who happen to be really enthusiastic about Netflix, of course. An information sheet handed out to the extras reportedly even told them to "play types" and "behave as members of the public" who just "happen upon a street event for Netflix and stop by to check it out." After word of the shenanigans got out, Netflix quickly issued an apology, of sorts -- the company's VP of corporate communications, Steve Swasey, said that he was "unaware" that a script was handed out to the extras, and that "some people got carried away and it's embarrassing to Netflix." Update: Netflix has now issued a more complete apology on its blog -- saying flatly, "we blew it."
Mark Hamill talks about game voice acting, Batman role
Mark Hamill has made a name for himself over the years with his game work, with high-profile roles in games like Full Throttle and Wing Commander 3. Not to mention his legendary performance as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, which he reprised for Arkham Asylum. But Mark Hamill already had a name, and it was "Luke Skywalker." An interview with CVG suggests that the move was intentional. Hamill described the attitudes he faced when he started working in games. "I'm sure there's a range of opinions, from 'You're slumming it', or 'Can't you get more legitimate work?'," he said. "But that snobbishness comes with the business." He relished the opportunity to merge his animation and game careers with a return to Joker's smarmy mania. "I thought this will be one last chance to play Joker. And it was so much fun to play a character who is clearly insane." Here's a surprise: the reason Hamill hasn't performed Luke Skywalker's voice in one of about a million Star Wars games isn't because he's not interested in reprising the role (though he isn't): nobody ever asked him to. How has that never happened? So many games have been made based on the three movies that an established video game voice actor starred in, and it just never came up?
Heavy Rain features 10 voiced languages, subtitles in 6 more [update]
Heavy Rain will be fully voice acted in 10 languages, with subtitles available for all spoken languages, plus six more languages. These details were disclosed during a presentation at GamesCom this afternoon, when Quantic Dream founder David Cage introduced Pascal Langdale (pictured right), the actor playing the English-speaking version of Heavy Rain's Ethan Mars, and discussed the extensive voice work necessary for the game's many branching scenes. Knowing a single Blu-ray disc can store language data in bulk, we were curious about how many language options would be available in the game. As it turns out, if Cage had brought in all of Mars' voices, the room would have gotten pretty tight. Check out the confirmed list of languages after the break. (We're still waiting for official confirmation on a couple -- the Quantic Dream team couldn't name them all off the top of their heads.) Update: Heavy Rain's associate producer and localization manager, Romain Castillos, has given us the official list of languages and subtitles. %Gallery-70367%
Wakamaru's latest gig: distraught thespian, clothes rack
After a failed career of house cleaning and guarding your kids, Mitsubishi's Wakamaru was left with a choice: toll booth operator or actress -- she chose the latter, easier option. Osaka University's 20-minute play titled, "I, Worker," focuses on a young couple whose seductive (don't you think?) housekeeping robot has lost her will to work after struggling with the idea of human servitude. The play is expected to go full-length by the year 2010, at which point we expect Wakamaru to extend her brooding to the insatiable lust she feels to violate her programming and enslave humanity. It's not like she can pull off a broad emotional range thanks to that chiseled face of apprehension anyway.
Actor Ken Lally mo-capped as Resident Evil 5's Wesker
Umbrella stockholder Albert Wesker will have more than classy shades and sadistic banter to his credit when he returns in Resident Evil 5, complete with moves from a General Hospital heartthrob. IGN reports that the former S.T.A.R.S. captain will be played by stunt man and former daytime TV actor Ken Lally, who will lend an extra motion-captured step to Wesker's swagger.The actor, whose on-camera resume also includes playing "The German" in two episodes of Heroes as well as an unnamed security officer on Enterprise, got his combat chops early on as the son of an N.S.A. operative, leaving us hoping that this role will be a case of art imitating life. Well, without that whole virus thing.
Video games give B-list actors a second chance
While some of you might recognize the gap-toothed gentleman pictured above as actor Keith David, from such films as "The Thing" or "Requiem for a Dream", we'd wager that more of you know his voice -- David is arguably the most prolific celebrity-turned-video game voice actor on the planet, picking up roles in Fallout, Saints Row, Planescape: Torment, Mass Effect, and, of course, providing the guttural dialogue for the Arbiter in Halo 2 and Halo 3. Though his on-screen career isn't booming, David has found a comfortable niche in the video game voice acting market.According to a recent Reuters article, he's not the only celebrity to slip through the cracks of big screen Hollywood, only to find solace and celebrity in video games. Terrence 'T.C.' Carson, whose career dried up after his role in the moderately successful sitcom "Living Single", has voiced a number of video game characters -- including everyone's favorite brooding Spartan, Kratos. Michael Ironside of Top Gun and Starship Troopers fame provides the voice of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher.These kinds of jobs are quickly gaining popularity in Hollywood, says Reuters, as voice work provides a much steadier paycheck than that of on-screen roles. We see it as a win-win situation -- down on their luck actors with distinct voices can find a nice amount of celebrity in the gaming realm, and as a result, we don't have to suffer through another era of wretched, Tenchu-esque voice acting. God bless you, Keith David.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children reports from Hollywood
For the Final Fantasy fans lucky enough to be near Hollywood yesterday night -- and in line for free tickets during the middle of a regular workday -- there was much rejoicing to be had as Advent Children celebrated its U.S. theatrical premiere in style.Siliconera has a write-up on the event with quotes from most of the American voice actors in attendance, who, along with the audience at hand, watched the film in English for the very first time. Lip synching may have been off due to the low-resolution print the actors had to work with, but even Rachel Leigh Cook -- pictured here with her character Tifa Lockheart -- declared herself a new fan of Final Fantasy after the show.Helpful Joystiq Contributor epobirs also had something to report from the screening yesterday, where he gives us an Ain't-It-Cool style rundown of the event. If you want the rest of his reflections on the requirements of the Academy in Oscar nominations, as well as what it takes to "assert your hetero nature ... after watching a movie packed with metrosexual men," simply continue reading below for more. Siliconera's report can be found by clicking on the image of Ms. Cook above or the Read link below. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children will be out on DVD/UMD April 25th.[Thanks, epobirs; image of Tifa courtesy of Eyes on Final Fantasy]
