Manufacturing of the narrative for the film is described within the contextual meaning and technical considerations of the facial performance in the cinematic experience. Previously in the earlier stages of the project there were several talents chosen to act the character. The difficulty of the narrative design is the presence of two personalities. This lies at the core of the research project.
This is intertwined within the fictional context and the design of the character personality. To be precise, the possibility of writing the screenplay had a degree of creative freedom beyond actor performance. Essentially there is no split between artificial intelligence and human personality within one physical body. Considering the possibilities of computer animation, anything can be a reality and it can be manipulated. The artificial side of her personality is emotional and has a human element; it is capable of experiencing strong human emotions.
The factual approach of working with the actress had the specific problem of two personalities becoming apparent in a realistic way. In particular, the fluctuation of the emotional wave between artificial cold and human highly emotional sides. This way we could approach the story from three separate angles, the body, the artificial intelligence and the human being. This poses the question of whether the human is real and is truly her, or simply a programme code remaining in the network of data. If this is truly her, what is her existence?
Ideally the original design of the narrative has to demonstrate the character having two separate entities overpowering the body rather than one. Sandy, the human side as the representation of conscious in the material body, is aware of her own existence by having reflection to her memory. Artificial intelligence is a separate life form inside her body on the cellular level. This makes them both come together as one.
Specifically, on the landscape of the film the evolution of human kind is realised with the voice over at the end of the film whispering the words “Nothing Ends”. Additionally, this is supported with the cyclic nature of the medium able to play in the loop as the idea of reincarnation. We see this as the problem occurring frequently when the ghost wakes up and the remained memories of the real person are in conflict with the purposes of the artificial intelligence.
CONTEXT
Two weeks prior to performance capture, the actress was briefed with the script. This was essential in order to give space for her to draw on the storyline. From the film director’s perspective, she was not given any of the details around the character or any back story behind the performance. This left the actor with the ability to co-create the story and correct the lines of the script. Ideally, the entire performance had to be recorded in one continuous shot to avoid editing and to create natural transitions between artificial intelligence and human identities.
The main concern with this was the experience with previous tests recorded as separate takes. The most problematic was the state of the human being that is completely different for the particular line of the dialogue. Facial expressions are driven by the underlying anatomy of the human face, muscles and bones and triggered by the facial nerve receiving its signals from the human brain.
This includes the craft of the believability to separate entities and the seamless transition between the two.
S P L I T
The second session of the performance capture introduced the idea of co-creation with the actress bringing the development of the story and dissecting it on a deeper level. In order for the human being to act and react in a genuine manner there needs to be a buffer of time before and after the reaction or action. This allows for the emotion to settle before the transition to the second personality begins. At this stage of the creative development, the actress was introduced to the background of the story to explain how the character got into the current situation.
Secondly, she had the ability to explore the character in a profound way by changing the lines of the script and connecting with the human side of the personality. The performance capture was done separately and the other person was acting the second personality as if the reaction is unexpected. This expanded personalities by themselves as separate entities and dwelled on the specifics of each. At this stage the technical limitation of the continuous shot is compromised by the idea of post editing and merging personalities after the fact.
MERGE
After the editing stage the decision was made to step back to the original approach of recording the acting of the two personalities simultaneously. This involved a process of deep collaboration with the actress to explain the lack of truth behind the performance. The key reason for this is physiological. In feature animation and the process of creating virtual humans there is a degree of believability to convey realism of our biological nature.
Gaze and facial expressions are very dependent on the internal emotional state of the person and the natural transition between two personalities overpowering the body. This is only possible to recreate naturally within the human mind. This had to be consciously driven and became the main discovery of the project. This is the genius of the project around design of performance for emotionally driven narrative. The second aspect of realism around the psychology of performance is to mimic the environment of the character during the capture session. The actress was left alone in an isolated room where her movement was restricted to sitting on the chair and mostly articulating her facial expressions during the act.