Hacker Cinema
The Congress
2013 · Film · 123 min
Directed by Ari Folman
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
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74 comments on Hacker News
FYI it's got an amazing film adaptation by Ari Folman in his 2013 "The Congress". The most emotionally striking film I've ever watched.
Makes perfect sense to me! ;)
THE CONGRESS - Entering The Animation Zone - Film Clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pqzaZcivh4
THE CONGRESS clip1- Miramount Nagasaki Lobby:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPGhw4nACfk
This actually explains it pretty well:
The Congress - Escape from Reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ1hFKDCpd8
An EPIC scene from "The Congress" (2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMI8HWhqEc
The Congress (2013) Scan Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
HN thread about "Bruce Willis Sells Deepfake Likeness Rights So His 'Twin' Can Star in Movies" and The Congress discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33044479
>According to director Ari Folman, some elements of the film were inspired by the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem in that similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment business, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36209861
>People who haven't used psychedelics don't tend to get or appreciate The Congress as much as those who have.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34953477
>I just watched The Congress -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film) -- and WOW, it was excellent.
Some of my favorites (no particular order):
- The Martian
- Arrival
- Snowpiercer
- Annihilation (a bit scary in some parts, but not really horror overall)
- The Congress
- Ex Machina
- Her
- Children of Men
- Blade Runner & the new Blade Runner
- Gattaca
- District 9
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Elysium
- Terminator 1 & 2
- Upgrade
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Mad Max (new one) and Fury Road
On the cheesier side:
- Demolition Man
- Judge Dredd (both the original and the new one)
- Terminator 3 and beyond
- Matrix movies
Grand vistas but slow and sometimes boring, and often haughty / overbearing:
- The new Dune movies
- 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel (some other number, like 2010 or something, can't remember)
- Interstellar
- Inception
------
Of all of those, my top 3 would be the first three (Martian, Arrival, Snowpiercer).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash , or much of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick , especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series)
Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver_(film)
Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
Or Nineteeneightyfour and so much more...(yawn)...
Or
Not a great movie, but one part of "the Congress" was interesting: if a famous actor or actress gets older, they could choose to sell the rights to their likeness to an AI company.
"This is why we can't have good things". Something that was created for the benefit, has been mis/ab-used and now is being removed.
I am also thinking (more and more lately) the movie The Congress (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/) and how easy it will be very soon to make a company without human actors. The mega-big studios can train AI by feeding it all their movies, then feed it with the scenario (this is where we - the humans come in - the famous "prompt engineers"), and a movie will be created.
Now, to the above scenario there will be a lot of corrections (can't walk in the air/water/nails)(can't open with killing a dog unless "John Wick" or "Sacred Games")(Sandra Bullock can levitate in "Gravity" but not on "Speed")(etc.)
Eventually if you hire 1000 people to watch 2 iterations of the new movie per day and make corrections to each (100025 = ), the AI will learn and improve on these unrealistic outputs and eventually you can produce movies weekly.
Yo Netflix people, if you haven't started doing this already, START! :) (oh and make a follow-up series on Sacred Games while at it)
EDIT: that's quite a tangent, but I can imagine the day where I will be asking my Paramount-AI "hey, make an original Star Trek series based on this-and-that, I want to binge it next weekend!" (or show me the one you created for someone else)
Side note: If anyone liked The Princess Bride or actress Robin Wright, she was in a little-known 2013 movie about Hollywood starlets selling their likeness rights for replication. It was kinda before its time (few years too early, I guess) and gets pretty trippy in the second half, but was a very interesting watch.
It was called "The Congress": https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
The other movie to watch besides "her" is https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/152795-the-congress The Congress (2013) Based on Stanisław Lem's novel "The Futurological Congress." Robin Wright, who plays a fictionalized version of herself, facing dwindling career prospects, agrees to sell the rights to her digital likeness to a film studio, allowing them to use a computer-generated version of her in perpetuity.
But the big reveal here: actors don't even need to sell this. AI will just take it and claim well it's different enough. In fact, if you are a B or C celebrity you might have your agent get you a million dollars or so for these rights during this grey period. Go ahead and take the million because a few years from now the price will be zero.
Imho Sam Altman is the (kind of guy) who will do his best (and worst) to get what he wants. He talks slowly and in a smooth tone. He gets sh*t done for sure, and if the opposition doesn't survive, so be it.
I also think that he has bullied/twisted enough arms to get 'his way', but Scarlett doesn't give a poop about some tech-bro. He is a nothing to her.
Also, this tech-bro is stupid enough to not understand that her voice, as well as her image are of great value to her, and if she 'loses her voice', and her voice becomes a toy to everyone's whim, she will be losing money/contracts/etc. in the future. Or he does understand and he simply didn't care until the backlash.. (wuss...)
I would love to have the voice of Majel Barrett if I am to ever get an Alexa or a similar device. But Scarlett's voice would very soon be used for dirty-talk, if 'this' was to happen.
And I suggest the movie "The Congress" (2013!!!)(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/) with Robin Wright, that sets the discussion about AI, voice/image of actors, etc.
Reminiscent of the movie The Congress, in which Robin Wright's character, a famous actor, is hustled by a movie studio into giving up her likeness for them to continue making films starring her, in perpetuity.
"The Congress" is to "The Futurological Congress" is to Stanislaw Lem like "Blade Runner" is to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is to Philip K Dick.
Both great movies loosely based on both great but very different books by great authors, each with something unique and deep and important to say, that all stand on their own and are worth knowing.
My favorite "Scan Scene" from The Congress (Ari Folman's film based on Stanislaw Lem's novel "The Futurological Congress"), in which Harvey Keitel's character "Al" tells Robin Wright's character "Robin" the twisted tail of "Joey Fairytail"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
The film "The Congress" will end up being the most on point prediction of our future in ever. I can't believe it. Im in shock.
Despite her guild-protective outlook, Bateman is sharper than most on these issues. But the avalanche of capabilities is going to make things ever-weirder, ever-faster, no matter the labor negotiations & lobbying by incumbent studios & performers.
We may be less than 10 years from sufficient computing power & algorithms enabling even hobbyist-level actors from rendering realistic Hollywood-like televisual entertainment with whatever actors & special-effect they choose, no matter what the law & contracts say.
An underrated, dark/dystopian movie on related ideas is 2014's 'The Congress', starring Robin Wright as a fictionalized version of herself in the near future, streaming on Peacock & rentable everywhere else. Tip: read/view absolutely nothing about it for best effect.
Is that what the whole Hollywood strike is about though?
re: this film -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
Anyone here who has seen the 2013 movie 'The Congress', loosely based on the Stanisław Lem novel 'The Futurological Congress'? I wonder why it's not being mentioned when it comes to copying and replacing actors by AI..
An enjoyable old movie on this topic - https://www.inverse.com/culture/hollywood-sag-strike-ai-the-congress
It seems that the plot of Stanislaw Lem’s “The Futurological Congress”, adapted into the film linked below, is fast becoming reality. The convergence between virtual reality and intellectual property here is a fascinating one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
It's also a key plot point of The Congress (2013), the scanning process of the actress is even in the movie trailer.
Jeff: We at Miramount, want to... want to scan you. All of you - your body, your face, your emotion, your laughter, your tears, your climaxing, your happiness, your depressions, your... fears, longings. We want to sample you, we want to preserve you, we want... all this, this... this thing, this thing called..."Robin Wright".
Robin Wright: What will you do with this... thing ? That you call Robin Wright?
Jeff: We'll do all the things that your Robin Wright wouldn't do.
The Congress https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
This is the plot of “The Congress” with Robin Wright as herself.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
Who knew that The Congress (2013)[1] would be so prescient...
[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
An EPIC scene from "The Congress" (2014): A short but entirely mesmerizing drug come-down, reality dissolving scene from the film "The Congress" (2014) based on the 1971 novel "The Futurological Congress" by Stanisław Lem. All rights to the makers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMI8HWhqEc
The comments on this youtube video are actually spot on and excellent!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8314622
DonHopkins on Sept 14, 2014 | parent | context | favorite | on: The Future According to Stanisław Lem
I just watched The Congress -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film) -- and WOW, it was excellent. Quite different from the book The Futurological Conference that it's based on: for example, it had cockroaches playing poker instead of sewer rats playing bridge. ;) But well worth watching for its unique take on the entertainment dictatorship. If you liked Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Looker, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you won't be disappointed! Something weird happens in the middle of the film, that's all I'll say...
>According to director Ari Folman, some elements of the film were inspired by the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem in that similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment business, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.
It took longer than its length of two hours to watch, because I had to stop and rewind to replay and and freeze frames frequently. (Check out what's going on in the fish tank while she's saying "I wish you could see me animated, it's pretty sick. It's like a genius designer on a bad acid trip. Oh my god, I don't know, I look like a combination between Cinderella on heroin and an Egyptian queen on a bad hair day".)
I'm going to have to watch it many more times, because there were a lot of details to absorb -- time will tell if it's up there with Blade Runner as one of my favorite movies very loosely based on a great book.
https://culture.pl/en/article/ari-folman-on-the-genius-of-stanislaw-lem
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15175516
DonHopkins on Sept 5, 2017 | parent | context | favorite | on: The sudden death and eternal life of Solaris
I really loved the movie The Congress, directed by Ari Folman, an adaptation of The Futurological Congress. Like Blade Runner's relationship to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it was a lot different than the book, but shares some deep ideas, and stands on its own as a great movie.
The scene in the USC ICT's motion capture studio was riveting, with Robin Wright playing a partly fictionalized version of herself, and Harvey Keitel playing her agent, baring their souls to the giant emotion capturing machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30069100
DonHopkins 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]
Paul Debevec created the Light Stage to capture high dynamic range reflectance fields (including clean high resolution normal/bump/gloss/texture maps) of human faces. It uses hundreds polarized LED lights and cameras, plus lots of image processing, to separate the lighting effects of specular reflectance (glossy shine) from subsurface scattering (glowing skin), so you can reconstruct the 3D image and relight it under different conditions, environments, and viewing angles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Debevec
https://www.pauldebevec.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_stage
"The Light Stage With Paul Debevec" - 360 Video (captured with JauntVR panoramic camera):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujwI4dimDA
Digitizing Photorealistic Humans Inside USC's Light Stage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6QJT5CXl3o
Paul Debevec: Light Fields, Light Stages, and the Future of Virtual Production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAe2dUJxe3w
A Light Stage was featured in the 2013 film "The Congress", which is a 2013 film adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's book, "The Futurological Congress", directed by Ari Folman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress
I really love that movie and the book it was based on, which both raised some interesting issues: Like Blade Runner's relationship to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it was a lot different than the book, but shares some deep ideas, and stands on its own as a great movie.
The Congress Official Trailer (2014) Robin Wright, Jon Hamm HD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
The scan scene in the Light Stage at USC ICT's motion capture studio was emotionally riveting and technically realistic, with Robin Wright playing a partially fictionalized version of herself, with Harvey Keitel playing her agent, baring her face and soul to the sparkling panoptic all encompassing emotion capturing machine.
The Congress (2013) Scan Scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
[...]
My first Show HN as I attempt to leave job-life for the indiehacker promised land. Go rough not easy on me ;)
I started out trying to make regular kids books but I couldn't get the visual continuity down. Next to that, people kept saying that if it's Print on Demand then they'd want to write the stories themselves (mind blown emoji) as if they couldn't already do that with self-pub options for the last 20 odd years :-D but I don't wanna be "that guy" telling people they're wrong.
So this is what I came up with.
Pretty curious what ppl here think about the future of personalised entertainment... feels to me like a lot of stuff will head this way. Like that documentary "The Congress" starring Robin Wright a little while back.
The privacy concerns of running dreambooth on images of children are also interesting... my thinking is that this is aimed at people who already share images of their kids on socials, but I'm definitely flexing out of my normal zone of comfort here. You could call it selling out. That said, I f**g love the product :)
In a way, it's similar to the actors selling their digital images in the movie The Congress. It's inevitable.
Looks like we're halfway to fully selling rights to the whole image of an actor predicted in the move "The Congress" [0] (Do yourself a favor though and watch first half only.)
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/reference/
Came here to write the same.
But then I'd like to add that despite her brilliant play in The Congress, it would be too wishful to expect that, as a person, she's as deeply aware of implications of depicted techno-medical fascist future as her film character is. Acting is just her daily job, after all.
I can also perfectly imagine some inhumane owners of the film industry indulging in an exquisite psychological torture of making an actress play herself getting digitized in a movie, only to find herself realizing the same scenario in her real life later.
This adds even more eerie recursion to the already outlandishly eerie and recursive Congress. Let's wait and see if they'll actually merge Miramax and Paramount into Miramount one day.
It's ironic that Robin Wright is now doing in real-life what she did in the movie, The Congress. (She sells her likeness to a company that generates movies/VR with it).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
Yes, the film "The Congress" was quite loosely based on the Stanislaw Lem book "The Futurological Congress", but in the same way that the film "Blade Runner" was quite loosely based on the Philip K Dick book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep".
Both the books and the both the movies are excellent and unique and stand on their own, all having a lot of interesting important things to say, both in common with each other and on their own.
>According to director Ari Folman, some elements of the film were inspired by the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem in that similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment business, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.
The Congress was written and directed by Ari Folman, it stars Robin Wright.
I've written about the film "The Congress", based on Stanislaw Lem's book "The Futurological Congress", starring Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel, and featuring Paul Debevoc's Light Stage, which explores the issues of actors selling their likeness so their twin can star in movies:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8314622
DonHopkins on Sept 14, 2014 | parent | context | favorite | on: The Future According to Stanisław Lem
I just watched The Congress -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film) -- and WOW, it was excellent. Quite different from the book The Futurological Conference that it's based on: for example, it had cockroaches playing poker instead of sewer rats playing bridge. ;) But well worth watching for its unique take on the entertainment dictatorship. If you liked Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Looker, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you won't be disappointed! Something weird happens in the middle of the film, that's all I'll say...
>According to director Ari Folman, some elements of the film were inspired by the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem in that similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment business, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.
It took longer than its length of two hours to watch, because I had to stop and rewind to replay and and freeze frames frequently. (Check out what's going on in the fish tank while she's saying "I wish you could see me animated, it's pretty sick. It's like a genius designer on a bad acid trip. Oh my god, I don't know, I look like a combination between Cinderella on heroin and an Egyptian queen on a bad hair day".)
I'm going to have to watch it many more times, because there were a lot of details to absorb -- time will tell if it's up there with Blade Runner as one of my favorite movies very loosely based on a great book.
https://culture.pl/en/article/ari-folman-on-the-genius-of-stanislaw-lem
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15175516
DonHopkins on Sept 5, 2017 | parent | context | favorite | on: The sudden death and eternal life of Solaris
I really loved the movie The Congress, directed by Ari Folman, an adaptation of The Futurological Congress. Like Blade Runner's relationship to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it was a lot different than the book, but shares some deep ideas, and stands on its own as a great movie.
The scene in the USC ICT's motion capture studio was riveting, with Robin Wright playing a partly fictionalized version of herself, and Harvey Keitel playing her agent, baring their souls to the giant emotion capturing machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30069100
DonHopkins 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]
Paul Debevec created the Light Stage to capture high dynamic range reflectance fields (including clean high resolution normal/bump/gloss/texture maps) of human faces. It uses hundreds polarized LED lights and cameras, plus lots of image processing, to separate the lighting effects of specular reflectance (glossy shine) from subsurface scattering (glowing skin), so you can reconstruct the 3D image and relight it under different conditions, environments, and viewing angles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Debevec
https://www.pauldebevec.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_stage
"The Light Stage With Paul Debevec" - 360 Video (captured with JauntVR panoramic camera):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujwI4dimDA
Digitizing Photorealistic Humans Inside USC's Light Stage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6QJT5CXl3o
Paul Debevec: Light Fields, Light Stages, and the Future of Virtual Production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAe2dUJxe3w
A Light Stage was featured in the 2013 film "The Congress", which is a 2013 film adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's book, "The Futurological Congress", directed by Ari Folman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress
I really love that movie and the book it was based on, which both raised some interesting issues: Like Blade Runner's relationship to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it was a lot different than the book, but shares some deep ideas, and stands on its own as a great movie.
The Congress Official Trailer (2014) Robin Wright, Jon Hamm HD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
The scan scene in the Light Stage at USC ICT's motion capture studio was emotionally riveting and technically realistic, with Robin Wright playing a partially fictionalized version of herself, with Harvey Keitel playing her agent, baring her face and soul to the sparkling panoptic all encompassing emotion capturing machine.
The Congress (2013) Scan Scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
"Rouen Revisited" is an earlier interactive kiosk project that Paul Debevec and Golan Levin created in 1996 at Interval Research Corporation, based on photogrammetric modeling techniques he developed at UCB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao3kf0YQ31c
https://acg.media.mit.edu/people/golan/rouen/
>Between 1892 and 1894, the French Impressionist Claude Monet produced nearly 30 oil paintings of the main façade of the Rouen Cathedral in Normandy. Fascinated by the play of light and atmosphere over the Gothic church, Monet systematically painted the cathedral at different times of day, from slightly different angles, and in varied weather conditions. Each painting, quickly executed, offers a glimpse into a narrow slice of time and mood. We are interested in widening these slices, extending and connecting the dots occupied by Monet's paintings in the multidimensional space of turn-of-the-century Rouen. In Rouen Revisited, we present an interactive kiosk in which users are invited to explore the façade of the Rouen Cathedral, as Monet might have painted it, from any angle, time of day, and degree of atmospheric haze. Users can contrast these re-rendered paintings with similar views synthesized from century-old archival photographs, as well as from recent photographs that reveal the scars of a century of weathering and war.
>Rouen Revisited is our homage to the hundredth anniversary of Monet's cathedral paintings. Like Monet's series, our installation is a constellation of impressions, a document of moments and percepts played out over space and time. In our homage, we extend the scope of Monet's study to where he could not go, bringing forth his object of fascination from a hundred feet in the air and across a hundred years of history.
Here's a paper about "Multifocus HDR VIS/NIR hyperspectral imaging and its application to works of art" that references his work, about how you can capture the 3D texture and hyperspectral reflectance field of artwork in a way that you could dynamically relight in different conditions and environments, interactively view in VR, use in high quality computer games and renderings, etc:
https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-27-8-11323&id=408878
>Multifocus HDR VIS/NIR hyperspectral imaging and its application to works of art
>Abstract: This paper presents a complete framework for capturing and processing hyperspectral reflectance images of artworks in situ, using a hyperspectral line scanner. These capturing systems are commonly used in laboratory conditions synchronized with scanning stages specifically designed for planar surfaces. However, when the intended application domain does not allow for image capture in these controlled conditions, achieving useful spectral reflectance image data can be a very challenging task (due to uncontrolled illumination, high-dynamic range (HDR) conditions in the scene, and the influence of chromatic aberration on the image quality, among other factors). We show, for the first time, all the necessary steps in the image capturing and post-processing in order to obtain high-quality HDR-based reflectance in the visible and near infrared, directly from the data captured by using a hyperspectral line scanner coupled to a rotating tripod. Our results show that the proposed method outperforms the normal capturing process in terms of dynamic range, color and spectral accuracy. To demonstrate the potential interest of this processing strategy for on-site analysis of artworks, we applied it to the study of a vintage copy of the famous painting “Transfiguration” by Raphael, as well as a facsimile of “The Golden Haggadah” from the British Library of London. The second piece has been studied for the identification of highly reflective gold-foil covered areas.
[...]
>5. Conclusions and future work: In this study, a complete framework is introduced for the hyperspectral reflectance capture of a painting in situ, and under high dynamic range conditions. Both the high dynamic range and the focusing problem due to chromatic aberrations have been overcome by using multiple captures with different focus positions and exposure times. A final hyperspectral reflectance cube has been computed using weighting maps calculated for both sample and flat fields and the quality of this cube has been tested and compared with a spectral cube captured in the usual LDR and single focus way. Our results show that the proposed method outperforms the best low dynamic range capture acquired. The sharpness index, as well as the color and spectral metrics show that it is possible to achieve good quality spectral reflectance images using a hyperspectral scanner in non-controlled illumination conditions. Moreover, as an example application, highly reflective golden material has been segmented from a facsimile. Our results show that by applying the proposed framework for capturing and processing, those areas which saturate the sensor in the usual capturingway, can be correctly exposed and segmented using the HDR multifocus capture. In future research, a new version of this framework will be developed including piecewise cube stitching for blending different cubes captured in different regions of big paintings. This will allow us to get closer to the painting and retrieve higher spatial resolution data, whilst still maintaining the spectral resolution and performance achieved in this study. Moreover, we will use the spectral reflectance images computed in this study, together with X-ray fluorescence measurements for the non-invasive pigment identification, in order to help the dating of ancient paintings and other works of art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspectral_imaging
“The Congress” is precisely on point: It’s a movie by Robin Wright (2014) about actors signing off their numeric rights to a corporation, and going to a congress to meet other virtualized actors. It made me extremely sad, because it shows what happens when everyone lives in an illusion. It’s really hard to describe the movie, as it’s so unexpected, but so aligned with today’s Bruce Willis signing off his deepfake rights.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/zkDyKWKNeaE
Reminds me of Stanislaw Lem’s The Congress film adaptation.
See also: the first act of the movie The Congress. Princess Buttercup will be producing new work for a long time.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_16
Good book, not so great movie.
This is the premise of the film The Congress, based loosely on Stanisław Lem's The Futurological Congress.
see the film "The Congress" where Robin Wright does exactly this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDyKWKNeaE
>“I’m not sure what direction arcades are going in other than to say there’s a focus on retro games to the point of it seeming like addiction to nostalgia,” DeMarco told me. Around the corner, at a station for Plinko Burger, gamers squeezed bottles of ketchup and mustard with ferocious concentration. One booth over, players of Buy! Sell!, a stock-trading game, controlled it by shouting instructions into analog touch-tone telephones.
This description of the GDC trade show floor reminds me of a scene from Ari Folman's film "The Congress" (2013), when the personality stock traders were all freaking out:
THE CONGRESS clip1- Miramount Nagasaki Lobby:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPGhw4nACfk
A much more realistic scene from that same film, which says a lot about the game and entertainment industry:
The Congress (2013) Scan Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
You may also enjoy The Congress.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
Paul Debevec created the Light Stage to capture high dynamic range reflectance fields (including clean high resolution normal/bump/gloss/texture maps) of human faces.
It uses hundreds polarized LED lights and cameras, plus lots of image processing, to separate the lighting effects of specular reflectance (glossy shine) from subsurface scattering (glowing skin), so you can reconstruct the 3D image and relight it under different conditions, environments, and viewing angles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Debevec
https://www.pauldebevec.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_stage
"The Light Stage With Paul Debevec" - 360 Video (captured with JauntVR panoramic camera):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujwI4dimDA
Digitizing Photorealistic Humans Inside USC's Light Stage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6QJT5CXl3o
Paul Debevec: Light Fields, Light Stages, and the Future of Virtual Production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAe2dUJxe3w
A Light Stage was featured in the 2013 film "The Congress", which is a 2013 film adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's book, "The Futurological Congress", directed by Ari Folman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress
I really love that movie and the book it was based on, which both raised some interesting issues: Like Blade Runner's relationship to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it was a lot different than the book, but shares some deep ideas, and stands on its own as a great movie.
The Congress Official Trailer (2014) Robin Wright, Jon Hamm HD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
The scan scene in the Light Stage at USC ICT's motion capture studio was emotionally riveting and technically realistic, with Robin Wright playing a partially fictionalized version of herself, with Harvey Keitel playing her agent, baring her face and soul to the sparkling panoptic all encompassing emotion capturing machine.
The Congress (2013) Scan Scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
"Rouen Revisited" is an earlier interactive kiosk project that Paul Debevec and Golan Levin created in 1996 at Interval Research Corporation, based on photogrammetric modeling techniques he developed at UCB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao3kf0YQ31c
https://acg.media.mit.edu/people/golan/rouen/
>Between 1892 and 1894, the French Impressionist Claude Monet produced nearly 30 oil paintings of the main façade of the Rouen Cathedral in Normandy. Fascinated by the play of light and atmosphere over the Gothic church, Monet systematically painted the cathedral at different times of day, from slightly different angles, and in varied weather conditions. Each painting, quickly executed, offers a glimpse into a narrow slice of time and mood. We are interested in widening these slices, extending and connecting the dots occupied by Monet's paintings in the multidimensional space of turn-of-the-century Rouen. In Rouen Revisited, we present an interactive kiosk in which users are invited to explore the façade of the Rouen Cathedral, as Monet might have painted it, from any angle, time of day, and degree of atmospheric haze. Users can contrast these re-rendered paintings with similar views synthesized from century-old archival photographs, as well as from recent photographs that reveal the scars of a century of weathering and war.
>Rouen Revisited is our homage to the hundredth anniversary of Monet's cathedral paintings. Like Monet's series, our installation is a constellation of impressions, a document of moments and percepts played out over space and time. In our homage, we extend the scope of Monet's study to where he could not go, bringing forth his object of fascination from a hundred feet in the air and across a hundred years of history.
Here's a paper about "Multifocus HDR VIS/NIR hyperspectral imaging and its application to works of art" that references his work, about how you can capture the 3D texture and hyperspectral reflectance field of artwork in a way that you could dynamically relight in different conditions and environments, interactively view in VR, use in high quality computer games and renderings, etc:
https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-27-8-11323&id=408878
>Multifocus HDR VIS/NIR hyperspectral imaging and its application to works of art
>Abstract: This paper presents a complete framework for capturing and processing hyperspectral reflectance images of artworks in situ, using a hyperspectral line scanner. These capturing systems are commonly used in laboratory conditions synchronized with scanning stages specifically designed for planar surfaces. However, when the intended application domain does not allow for image capture in these controlled conditions, achieving useful spectral reflectance image data can be a very challenging task (due to uncontrolled illumination, high-dynamic range (HDR) conditions in the scene, and the influence of chromatic aberration on the image quality, among other factors). We show, for the first time, all the necessary steps in the image capturing and post-processing in order to obtain high-quality HDR-based reflectance in the visible and near infrared, directly from the data captured by using a hyperspectral line scanner coupled to a rotating tripod. Our results show that the proposed method outperforms the normal capturing process in terms of dynamic range, color and spectral accuracy. To demonstrate the potential interest of this processing strategy for on-site analysis of artworks, we applied it to the study of a vintage copy of the famous painting “Transfiguration” by Raphael, as well as a facsimile of “The Golden Haggadah” from the British Library of London. The second piece has been studied for the identification of highly reflective gold-foil covered areas.
[...]
>5. Conclusions and future work: In this study, a complete framework is introduced for the hyperspectral reflectance capture of a painting in situ, and under high dynamic range conditions. Both the high dynamic range and the focusing problem due to chromatic aberrations have been overcome by using multiple captures with different focus positions and exposure times. A final hyperspectral reflectance cube has been computed using weighting maps calculated for both sample and flat fields and the quality of this cube has been tested and compared with a spectral cube captured in the usual LDR and single focus way. Our results show that the proposed method outperforms the best low dynamic range capture acquired. The sharpness index, as well as the color and spectral metrics show that it is possible to achieve good quality spectral reflectance images using a hyperspectral scanner in non-controlled illumination conditions. Moreover, as an example application, highly reflective golden material has been segmented from a facsimile. Our results show that by applying the proposed framework for capturing and processing, those areas which saturate the sensor in the usual capturingway, can be correctly exposed and segmented using the HDR multifocus capture. In future research, a new version of this framework will be developed including piecewise cube stitching for blending different cubes captured in different regions of big paintings. This will allow us to get closer to the painting and retrieve higher spatial resolution data, whilst still maintaining the spectral resolution and performance achieved in this study. Moreover, we will use the spectral reflectance images computed in this study, together with X-ray fluorescence measurements for the non-invasive pigment identification, in order to help the dating of ancient paintings and other works of art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspectral_imaging
I think it will be the opposite, like in the movie "Congress" - where a popular actress sells the rights to her likeness, voice and behaviour to a movie studio, she gets fully scanned and then they proceed to make movies with "her" in it using CGI. I think people like seeing specific actors, after all that's why celebrities are a thing.
And "The Congress" movie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
(It's inspired by a book that I haven't read, so I'm not sure if the same idea we're discussing is also in the book... But it's definitely in the movie.)
It's an excellent opportunity to remind everyone about a truly great book by Lem: "The Futurological Congress" [0] and its interesting movie adaptation "The Congress" [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
The Congress is my absolute nightmare movie, despite the beauty of it. I find it depresses me because we all live some part of our lives as an illusion, and it’s tempting to go even further; In fact, are we so far into an illusion that we don’t notice our life is destructed?
The recent "Nobody" is a good twist on action, as well as "Hardcore Henry" is interesting. When the storyline takes unexpected turns, or uses clichés as bait and does not follow through on the cliché can be fresh. In general, a feature length film is too short to do many literary works justice, and serialization does a far better job relating a quality story. For example, Netflix's "Ozark" would not be called "action" in the feature film sense, but the intellectual violence in that show is far and above stupid gun/car/fist violence. Films like "The Congress", "Terminator 2", and "Tropic Thunder" represent the best the Hollywood feature film system can produce.
I stumbled across The Congress when it was on Netflix and took a chance on it out of curiosity. It was such a wild ride, and stuck with me enough to watch it again a month or two later. I highly recommend the film, and especially to watch it without reading anything about it first.
I have a mental debate over "The Congress" being the best film I've seen in the last 10 years. There is so much there, I find new incredible mental gum with every re-watch that occupies my mind for days.
Interesting. I hope the models were paid adequately, considering that they can now use them effectively for free infinitely.
Reminds me of the movie The Congress.
Obviously this technology has a long way to go, but it seems that that actors should feel less secure about their jobs being resistant to automation.
Holy Plate of Shrimp! I was just recommending a movie to a friend by comparing PKD and Lem:
Hey have you seen The Congress???!?!?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDyKWKNeaE
I like it almost as much as Blade Runner, which it parallels, by being a movie based on a (Stanislaw Lem / Philip K Dick) book that it's inspired by but a lot different from, but the movie stands on its own and has something unique and interesting to say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress
Both the book and the movie are excellent but different!
There's a riveting dramatic scene on a Light Stage, where Harvey Keitel provokes emotional responses from Robin Wright for capture by the Light Stage. Lots of cool techno blinking lights. And it's actually technologically and anatomically correct! It accurately shows how a real Lightstage actually works.
The Congress (2013) Scan Scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
Light Stage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_stage
Paul Debevec:
https://ict.usc.edu/profile/paul-debevec/
The plot and story touch on deep issues!
About how the movie industry is being turned upside-down! But much bigger than that. What happens to actors?
And how do consumers "consume" characters and celebrities?
They literally consume them not just like but AS drugs!
It's visually delicious -- you can see some consumption here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPGhw4nACfk&ab_channel=AlexGAlexG
Reminds me of the Congress movie, based on The Futurological Congress but only slightly as it goes its own direction. In it actors sign off on their image to the movie studios, the studios no longer need the actors only the rights to put them in movies. They can create them in anything they want, always young, always available. This gets extrapolated out further as the film progresses.
A Cryptochemocracy government iirc, that book is amazing. They made a movie that is very very loosely inspired by it, just called "The Congress." Nowhere near as awesome as the book by any stretch, but excellent animation and some great sound bites.
I also recommend The Congress (2013) movie which is based on the novel.
Yes! I also really enjoyed the Futurological Congress. The film rendition, while straying from the short story significantly, is still worth watching I think. https://imdb.com/title/tt1821641
See The Congress: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641
We should expect living actors to be signing away their likenesses for when they are dead.
If we're talking about overlooked movies with weird animation styles based on books by titans of '70s science fiction, i'll mention The Congress:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHBl43lMJY0
It is, IMHO, better than that trailer suggests.
There are many of them. they are not made by the US film industry. Check out "Mr. Nobody", check out "The Congress", "Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind"... come on now, these are masterworks.
Speaking on fixating on trivial points -- ;) -- I really love the emotionally stunning and deeply self referential scene at the crux of the movie, between Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel, in Paul Debevec's Light Stage studio at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies.
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/3d-body-scan-and-emotion-capture-in-the-congress
http://gl.ict.usc.edu/LightStages/
>"You know that weird sensation when it feels like everyone around you is participating in some mild mass hallucination, and you missed the dosing?"
Yeah, Stanislaw Lem wrote a book about that, which Ari Folman made into a movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMI8HWhqEc
>An EPIC scene from "The Congress" (2014)
>A short but entirely mesmerizing drug come-down, reality dissolving scene from the film "The Congress" (2014) based on the 1971 novel "The Futurological Congress" by Stanisław Lem. All rights to the makers.
Such a great movie. Quite different than the book, but they both stand on their own and deal with fascinating issues, and it's well worth reading and watching both, like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner.
>The Congress Official US Release Trailer (2014) - Robin Wright Fantasy Movie HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDyKWKNeaE
For anyone interested in seeing how this could play out in the future, I recommend watching The Congress. It has a somewhat low IMDB rating, but I liked it as it addresses the corporatization of identity and the extent some people will go to live vicariously : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
You've just described the plot of The Congress: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_congress/
There's more to the movie than that, but that's the first act. Goes a little deeper, and gets a bit weird after that; preserving the "image" of Princess Buttercup gets the ball rolling, though.
I can recommend the movie "The Congress" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film) - it deals with an actress who sells off the right to her digital likeness.
IIRC the movie The Congress (2013) is about this (before it transitions into a full on acid trip)
This is a major plot element of the 2013 film "The Congress". I highly recommend it.
When I look at the future, I think back at these videos.
Hells Club:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QajyNRnyPMs
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYlTtA7-ks
Where I would like this to go. Is either being able to take scenes from different films and create mashups like this.
Or perhaps, getting a whole bunch of extras. Narrating lines and acting in-front of basic sets with green screens. Then putting the faces of recognizable actors and using something like Lyrebird for the voices. Where actors have sold the rights of their faces, voices and personality for cheap.
Now you have a $100m movie for the cost of $100k.
A similar premise of the film: The Congress.
-----
I really think in about 5 years, when the software is there and the dedicated IaaS to train the sets is commonly available. We'll start to see some really cool stuff.
Reminds of "The Congress" by Ari Folman. "Robin Wright is an aging actress with a reputation for being fickle and unreliable, so much so that nobody is willing to offer her roles. [...] Robin agrees to sell the film rights to her digital image to Miramount Studios in exchange for a hefty sum of money and the promise to never act again. After her body is digitally scanned, the studio will be able to make films starring her, using only computer-generated characters."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
This is essentially the starting plot of The Congress. Not exactly a good movie, but definitely a very interesting one.
Hmm. I watched about 15 minutes of it, and thought it was very amateurish, and the reviews aren't great. From the clips I've seen, the animation is also pretty terrible.
As far as I've read, plot has absolutely zero to do with The Futurological Congress. The only similarity is that there's something in the movie called the "Futurological Congress" and that there's some kind of attack on it.
If you think it's worth seeing, maybe I'll give it another go.
I really loved the movie The Congress, directed by Ari Folman, an adaptation of The Futurological Congress.
Like Blade Runner's relationship to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it was a lot different than the book, but shares some deep ideas, and stands on its own as a great movie.
The scene in the USC ICT's motion capture studio was riveting, with Robin Wright playing a partly fictionalized version of herself, and Harvey Keitel playing her agent, baring their souls to the giant emotion capturing machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPAl5GwvdY8
It's actually supposed to be based on The Futurological Congress [1] by Dick's contemporary Stanislaw Lem, although they changed it beyond recognition. The only thing the book and the film have in common is that there's a congress. I didn't enjoy the film at all, but I can recommend the novel, which is excellent.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-Tichy/dp/0156340402
There is a subplot in "The Congress" where the actress Robin Wright (of Princess Bride fame) agrees to be digitized so that they can use her likeness in films. Part of her contract is that she may never act again. It makes me wonder how long it will be before we start seeing digitized actors who have not died, and what kind of rights/residuals they will get.
It was a strange film; I enjoyed it. Fans of Philip K. Dick would do well to watch it--it reminded me a lot of his work (though it was not based on anything he wrote).
@rawnlq: "We should be more optimistic that all of these UI issues will be figured out once it actually gets adoption."
The future as nightmare more likely. The theme of the video is how this technology is going to further alienate people rather than facilitate communication. You can already see a contemporary version where people everywhere, faces buried in their devices obsessively txting and no doubt looking up their 'friends' on Facebook. Anything but instigate a conversation with the person sitting next to them. See 'The Congress (2013)' for an interesting variation on the theme. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
Check out the other stuff from USC Institute for Creative Technologies and Paul Debevec on their YouTube channel [1]!
Ari Folman's cult-worthy movie "The Congress" [2] is bladerunneresquely based on Stanislaw Lem's psychedelic black humor fiction book "The Futurological Congress" [3].
At the apex of the movie, there's a riveting climactic scene where Robin Wright (playing a fictionalized version of herself) and Harvey Keitel use Paul Debevec's Light Stage [4] to capture her essence [5].
They show it in the trailer [6], but it's best to watch the whole film from start to finish without knowing what to expect. I really enjoyed it, especially the light stage scene, and not just because of the blinking lights -- the actors gave a spectacular performance.
The movie raises a lot of interesting issues, and I highly recommend it! [7] [8] [9] [10]
[1] USC Institute for Creative Technologies Graphics Lab: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOgm-72B_tibAM2I5j-mBiQ
[2] The Congress (movie): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
[3] The Futurological Congress (book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress
[4] Light Stage 6: Relighting Human Locomotion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgUW1RN8QNM
[5] Light Stage 6 Anomaly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9gY3C2TeHE
[6] The Congress trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rNSTizOsws
[7] ‘The Congress’ Trailer: Is This Live-Action/Animated Hybrid the Wildest Sci-Fi of 2013? http://www.slashfilm.com/the-congress-trailer-is-this-live-actionanimated-hybrid-the-wildest-sci-fi-of-2013/
[8] The Congress and the End of Actors: http://scienceandfilm.org/articles/2496/the-congress-and-the-end-of-actors
[9] Pixel Perfect: The scientist behind the digital cloning of actors. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2
[10] Watch: The Future of Acting in the Technological Age: http://www.indiewire.com/article/watch-the-future-of-acting-in-the-technological-age-20150525
I just watched The Congress -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film) -- and WOW, it was excellent. Quite different from the book The Futurological Conference that it's based on: for example, it had cockroaches playing poker instead of sewer rats playing bridge. ;) But well worth watching for its unique take on the entertainment dictatorship. If you liked Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Looker, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you won't be disappointed! Something weird happens in the middle of the film, that's all I'll say...
>According to director Ari Folman, some elements of the film were inspired by the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem in that similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment business, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.
It took longer than its length of two hours to watch, because I had to stop and rewind to replay and and freeze frames frequently. (Check out what's going on in the fish tank while she's saying "I wish you could see me animated, it's pretty sick. It's like a genius designer on a bad acid trip. Oh my god, I don't know, I look like a combination between Cinderella on heroin and an Egyptian queen on a bad hair day".)
I'm going to have to watch it many more times, because there were a lot of details to absorb -- time will tell if it's up there with Blade Runner as one of my favorite movies very loosely based on a great book.
http://culture.pl/en/article/ari-folman-on-the-genius-of-stanislaw-lem
There's a nice movie that touches the topics of addiction, dependence and dreams: The Congress (2013): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/