Three decades later and digital technology has become all-pervasive in film and television production. From the pitched battles of "Middle Earth" in the latest instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to real-time Internet-based editing and post-production software, digital technology has revolutionised what we watch on the big screen and idiot box.
At the high end of the market artificial intelligence techniques enabled New Zealand-based digital effects studio WETA Digital to pit tens of thousands of Uruk hai and Orcs against Elves, humans, tree herders and the odd hobbit, thanks to MASSIVE software.
"You need a hundred thousand people in battle, you can't just go out and shoot that," says Stephen Relgelous, MASSIVE software developer.
Instead, the Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment (MASSIVE) software captures hundreds of specifically choreographed battle movements for each of its "agents". Furnished with the crouched stance and stabbing movements a few hundred Orc "agents", were set against similar numbers of the more graceful upright Elf "agents" in a trial run of the monumental battle scene which would eventually feature tens of thousands of digital participants.
Drawing from over 300 action cycles, the artificially intelligent 'brain' of each agent continuously selects its movements, depending on the stimulus provided. WETA Ditigal conducted a series of out-takes featuring a limited number of participants, enabling technicians and developers to perfect the software and agents' responses, all in preparation for the final cut, which involves tens of thousands of agents.
Similarly actor Andy Serkis spent hundreds of hours dressed in a spotted motion capture suit creating the physical movements for the tortured and tragic Gollum. These movements then formed the basis for the animation of his character, whose eventual appearance is both alien and hauntingly human. Not only was he busy in the motion capture labs, Serkis had to be present throughout the shooting of the film, bouncing around the set in a unitard body stocking so as to provide animators with his character's eventual positioning.
If anything, such animation techniques will eventually provide actors with far more work, rather than cutting back on their contribution as was feared with the release of fully animated features such as Columbia Pictures's 2002 release Final Fantasy.
Broadcasting bytes
Ripples from the digital revolution have spread beyond the large film production studios. Inexpensive video editing software, such as Avid and Final Cut Pro, have radically changed the way in which film and television is created.
In the late eighties, post-production coordinator for SBS, Tim Woolmer, first came across a non-linear editing technology by the name of Editron, which ran off pneumatic processors at the North Sydney TAFE. He joined SBS just in time to see the last of the zinc tape, edited using a chemical solution, which enabled the producer to see the stripes between frames. The reel was then literally cut and taped together again.
According to Woolmer the first wave of digital production software hit SBS in the mid-nineties, when the broadcaster first invested in Heavyworks and Avid suites.
"Admittedly broadcasters came to digital production technology fairly late in the piece," concedes Woolmer. "But the distinction between film production and television production has to be drawn, broadcasters hang onto equipment until it falls apart, especially if they know it is reliable."
Whereas the IT industry is often characterised by an attitude which prizes rapid replacement cycles and tolerates high levels of bugs and quirks in newly-released software, broadcasters opt for more robust technologies, that have been extensively tested and fully debugged.
"Instead of a five-year plan technology vendors expect you to have a two-year plan, where equipment is virtually obsolete before it leaves the factory floor. We still have arguments with technology suppliers because we don't want all the bells and whistles, which will just take up more processing, we just want something which works reliably," Woolmer says. "People are used to a PC failing, or a network going down, but if five seconds of black go to air at a network - heads will roll."
Despite the cautious attitude, Woolmer says some technologies have affected a radical change in the way television is produced.
"Producers can now make changes right up to the last minute," Woolmer says. "So if there is a last minute change in a story a current affairs program such as Dateline can update its program just prior to going to air."
This is the first part of a ZDNet Australia film industry trilogy. Click here for part two - Price and proliferation, or here to read the third and final chapter - The future is connectivity.
