- “Gemini Man,” directed by Oscar winner Ang Lee, was made in such a technologically complex manner that no theater in the United States can show it in the form he planned.
- Lee shot the film at 120 frames per second, giving it a razor-sharp appearance. Lee hopes to see the film in theaters at that frame rate, with a 4K projector, and in 3D.
- All of those things are too much for American theaters to manage at the same time. The closest option is 120 frames per second in 3D on a 2K projector, which is accessible in 14 theaters.
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Why does Gemini Man have a different appearance?
The issue is, movies aren’t real, and attempting to make them real only serves to highlight how unreal they are. Our ability to suspend disbelief, which is required for the art form to function, is lost. The image’s smoothness and clarity don’t make us feel like we’re sitting in a room with the Gemini Man characters; instead, it makes us feel like we’re suddenly sitting on the set with the Gemini Man performers, watching them struggle through their lines. Yes, we see more details, but not always the proper details; some of my friends who saw Gemini Man at 120 frames per second grumbled about the film’s uncomfortable product placement, such as nicely lit Coke cans; I didn’t notice these at 24 frames per second. Worse, the film’s second significant innovation, the fabrication of a digital, younger version of Will Smith to portray Junior, is jeopardized by the high frame rate. We can clearly discern the character’s limited range of expression at 120 frames per second.
The somewhat dreamy, unreal frame rate of 24fps, it turns out, provides a required filter a cognitive distance between the viewer and the image, and that little dreamy, unreal characteristic may well be important to conjuring the illusion of cinema. The traditional frame rate has spawned an entire lingo. The movie enterprise would fall apart without it. I interviewed David Niles, an engineer and pioneer in HDTV technology, earlier this year for an article on motion smoothing. (I’m not going to delve into the differences and disputes between motion smoothing and high frame rates, but I believe it’s safe to say that, in its ideal condition, a motion-smoothed image would appear like a high-frame-rate image.) Niles informed me about tests he’d done where he showed the identical footage to viewers at varying frame speeds. “We’d record a sequence with two performers at 60 frames per second, or even 30 frames per second, and then shoot it at 24 frames per second and show it to audiences to see how they perceived it,” he explained. “People loved the actors better with 24 frames – they thought the performances were better.” This was essentially the same experiment I conducted on myself when I saw Gemini Man twice.
The strange thing is that Ang Lee is aware of all of this. He recognizes that increased frame rates necessitate a new approach to cinematic language. He recently told IndieWire, “It’s a separate media with different perceptions, different expectations.” “Digital isn’t interested in being film; it wants to be something else.” I believe we need to move past it and figure out what it is.” Ang Lee, on the other hand, with his solemn, classical film style, his passion for lengthy takes and gorgeous close-ups the same qualities that, in my opinion, make him such an important artist of our day is perhaps the major director least suited to attempting to make high frame rates work. Despite its thrilling action sequences, Gemini Man is mostly a classic drama, shot in a traditional style and played in a traditional manner. It’s an Ang Lee flick, after all! It has no right to be shot or displayed at such high frame rates.
There is a model for how high-frame-rate movie could function. Many independent films and documentaries were shot on high-end digital video cameras in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before high-definition cameras became commonplace in motion-picture production. These cameras were often shooting at slightly higher frame rates NTSC video ran around 30fps in the United States, whereas PAL video ran around 25fps in Europe. The filmmakers were well aware that these images did not have the appearance of celluloid. Even if you had the resources to adapt your footage to 35mm and screen it at 24fps, the resolution was inferior and the frame rate gave the visuals a distinctively un-film-like look.
If you choose a traditional shooting method for those early digital-video movies, your footage began to resemble a soap opera. People developed a more vrit approach, depending on handheld shots, fast-cutting, and intense, frequently fragmentary close-ups to get around the video difficulty. (The Dogme 95 movement influenced this style as well, with its slightly tongue-in-cheek “vows of chastity” for production processes.) As video allowed for more intimacy onscreen, parts of performance began to shift; the so-called “mumblecore” movement also emerged at this time. Intriguingly, the “shaky cam” aesthetic used in many mainstream studio films does as well. Michael Mann’s Collateral and Michael Mann’s Miami Vice both of which were shot by Dion Beebe, the cinematographer of Gemini Man take advantage of both the you-are-there intimacy and the frantic fragmentation of digital video.
Is Gemini Man a realistic character?
Is it merely a light show for the deafeningly deafeningly deafeningly de I honestly don’t know how to think about this perplexing, very unsatisfactory film. It’s either a dreadfully uninteresting rip-off of a shit-blows-up thriller, or it’s a fantastically subversive satire on Hollywood’s approaching dark future a slick bit of meta-commentary on itself, la Black Mirror.
None of it was enjoyable for me. And I can’t deny that I was a little afraid when I exited the cinema.
Gemini Man employs some hyper-realistic technology to make a very weird movie
On one level, Gemini Man is a straight-to-video vehicle for Will Smith, an action star who, at 51, is still ripped and capable of going about shooting stuff. (The screenplay includes Hunger Games’ Billy Ray, ShazamDarren !’s Lemkey, and Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff, among others.) There are two Will Smiths in this Will Smith comedy; the plot, which contains no surprises, concerns Smith as elite agent Henry Brogan attempting to retire from his career of killing people but learning he’s being pursued by a 23-year-old version of himself. Clay Verris (Clive Owen), who runs a clandestine private military company called Gemini, sent younger Will Smith to kill senior Will Smith. You’re aware. As if they were twins.
Probably, you’re wondering how a younger Will Smith makes an appearance in the film or maybe you aren’t! After all, this year’s great prestige drama (Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman) features de-aging effects. The filmmakers created a digital mask of Will Smith at 23, sometimes using old footage of Smith, and then stretched it over the face and body of current Will Smith, rather than using de-aging, which uses special effects to smooth out the signs of aging on an actor; the best way to describe the movie’s process is that the filmmakers created a digital mask of Will Smith at 23, sometimes using old footage of Smith, and then stretched it over the face and body of current Will Smith.
The end result looks a little uncanny, but overall fairly convincing especially because we’re used to seeing Will Smith, who is 23 years old. (Having hours and hours of footage of Smith at that age undoubtedly helped.) For the most of the film, Henry and fellow agent Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are chasing down Henry’s doppelgnger, who goes by the unoriginal title of “Junior,” with the help of a pilot named Baron (a charming Benedict Wong). There are numerous fights and chases, as well as numerous explosions. The twists may be seen from 100 miles away. It’s all right.
The Smith mask isn’t the only piece of technical wizardry in the picture (which isn’t surprising given Lee’s history of messing with technology in films like 2016’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk). It’s also shot at 120 frames per second (rather than the standard 24 frames per second) and in ultra-high-definition 4K 3D yet there isn’t a single cinema in the United States that can show it in that format. The film will be shown in 14 theaters across the United States in 120 fps 2K 3D, which is the closest you’ll come to Lee’s intended viewing experience.
But it should suffice to get the idea. Gemini Man is made to look hyper-realistic and super-detailed, as if you’re sitting right there in front of the camera, and to make the double-Smith effect and extreme action sequences feel natural.
All I can say is that I had to watch the action parts by looking aside and then glance up every few seconds since I became ill almost immediately. If you’re prone to motion sickness, be cautious. Also, blinding lights some explosions appear to be designed to sear the retinas in a manner akin to a real flaming inferno loud noises, and, well, whatever you’d expect to see at a theme park attraction.
Is Gemini Man the future of what movies will look like?
Actually, it’s the movie that has me concerned. There’s a way to read Gemini Man as a film about the bleak future of filmmaking, tied up in the things that will give rise to that future a stretch, to be sure, but one that the language supports.
Gemini Man’s insistence that its characters can’t figure out that Will Smith’s identical younger self is his clone is one of the least convincing aspects of the film. I’m not sure; I guess I just assume that super-charged fighters with ties to secret paramilitary organizations and/or elite defense agencies wouldn’t be surprised by cloning at this time.
Anyhow. Clay Verris created Junior, who is clearly Henry’s clone. The world, it appears, requires a “new breed of soldier,” since the trouble with guys like Henry is that when they’re young, they’ll do anything you tell them, but as they get older, they “get a conscience” and quit obeying orders. So Verris and his friends decide to clone Henry, but there’s a catch “Things like empathy and the ability to feel any grief are “edited out.” As a result, they’ll develop subhuman super-soldiers capable of carrying out all of the world’s warring without hurting genuine humans.
Ignore the fact that we’ve seen this concept in a million sci-fi and action films. What’s strange about Gemini Man is that it feels like a proof of concept for something that’s been proposed before (most famously in the crazy 2014 film The Congress): the inevitability that, when technology improves enough, actors’ likenesses would eventually replace the actors themselves. “Performances” in films will be provided by fully animated yet hyper-realistic computer-generated copies of well-known performers, with licensing fees paid to the actual human. With enough time, the phantom will triumph over reality, obviating the necessity for originals entirely.
This method of thinking has some logic to it. Actors, believe it or not, are also humans. They have peculiarities. They become ill, have their bodies pierced, or have tattoos. They can become difficult to handle, walk off set, or get too preoccupied with one project to shoot another. They don’t want to do naked scenes, and they want to be compensated more for working in hazardous settings; their stunt doubles are brilliant, but there are some things they can’t do. They also like to be compensated.
Imagine the possibilities if you could precisely replicate any actor and the cost savings (and revenue potential) for a studio that controls the rights to, say, a perfect replica of Keanu Reeves, Angelina Jolie, or Will Smith, while sharing licensing with the actor’s estate. You may disbelieve that it will ever be done; yet, unless the industry unions intervene, I believe it will happen within the next decade. It’s been done before, with performers like Peter Cushing being resurrected for Rogue One. And if you can recreate actors, you can also create them, eliminating the need to hire people to perform all of those roles where no one knows the actor’s name in the first place.
I have other issues with Gemini Man as well: it looks bad, like motion smoothing on a huge screen, and it’s difficult to identify what to look at with everything in focus in the frame. In some ways, it’s as if the artistry has been plucked out of cinema’s visual soul. If this high-frame-rate filming approach takes over blockbuster films, hopefully someone will figure out how to make it more appealing, or we’ll just get used to it like we have in the past; after all, movies have always been driven by technological advancements.
However, the idea of gradually eliminating the necessity for actors from the filmmaking process makes me concerned about what else we’ll try to eliminate. Composers? Cinematographers? Writers and directors, who are they? At the moment, technology is unable to replicate the human touch convincingly. But if we become accustomed to generic, shallow, insipid, derivative storytelling and flat-looking imagery, and merely go to the movies to be made to feel as if we’re in the center of an explosion, that’s exactly what we’ll get. (And, to be honest, Gemini Man’s lines may have been created by an AI capable of simulating the delivery but not the content of a joke.)
In Gemini Man, there’s a theory that these clone assassins have no souls, therefore it doesn’t matter if they die. They are amoral. And it’s hinted that generating subhuman clones of real humans is a step on the route to becoming less than human ourselves, which we’re supposed to find strange enough to celebrate when Verris dies.
In fact, the film appears to be self-aware of the fact that it is battling for the essence of humanity’s destiny. In the final scene of the film, Henry, Junior, and Danny are arguing about Junior’s college major. Engineering? What exactly is computer science? No, Danny replies, you should major in humanities! To succeed in the future, you must maintain a connection to the past. The scene feels tacked on, but it also serves as a mini-manifesto for the film as a whole.
Junior says at the end of the film that he’ll make his own decisions, so I think that’s what Hollywood will do as well. But seeing the method and the critique of the approach in the same film makes you wonder if it has any idea what it’s doing. After all, seeing your exact counterpart, or doppelgnger, is considered a sign of impending death. So, if Gemini Man is the future of big-budget filmmaking, I’m hoping Hollywood is concerned.
Who was the clone of Gemini Man?
In the film, Will Smith played two different personalities. He played Henry Brogan, a middle-aged assassin who was on the run from the government. Junior, a younger clone of himself, was the second character, and he was after Henry.
Is CGI used by Gemini Man?
In truth, we only see one Will Smith in the movie, even when we assume we see two. According to the actor, who spoke at a Paramount event covered by Inverse: “It isn’t anti-aging… I am not the young character. That character was entirely generated digitally. They didn’t stretch some of the lines in my image. It’s a CGI character in the same manner that The Lion King is. My performance is being used to produce the CGI parts. The skin is a CGI creation. My skin isn’t like that.”
Lee collaborated with visual effects company Weta Digital to create a completely seamless young CGI counterpart of the 51-year-old actor. According to CinemaBlend, at a round table discussion, the filmmaker said: “You’ll have to come up with a fresh method. Junior being a CG character is, I believe, a prerequisite for this; it’s the full package. Not only do we do the face, but we also do the rest of the body. Nobody goes into detail about the levels like we do.”
Lee went on to say that he did it for the following reasons: “It’s a different attitude than watching a conventional movie, even if it’s 60 frames per second rather than 120 at 2K… I believe it was because of this that I felt compelled to, because you can’t put on cosmetics, erase wrinkles, change your hairdo, and appear younger, or cast Will Smith’s son to play him and call it a clone. That will not be possible with this material.”
Traditional make-up was also out due to the incredibly high frame rate and sharpness, as it was likely to show up on screen. Instead, the visual effects studio created a younger Will Smith based on the actor’s appearance during The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and his early flicks like Bad Boys.
Smith joked about it to the Hollywood Reporter, saying, “I got to watch all the horrors I committed in entertainment.” Not only that, but Lee said he had to duplicate his earlier, less subtle performances, adding of his previous work, “I had to copy my earlier, less nuanced performances.” “That’s not a good sign. That is something I require of you.”
What is the appearance of a Gemini man?
Gemini is an outgoing sign. He’s constantly eager to try something new and adventurous. Because he requires constant stimulation, he is adaptable and capable of performing multiple tasks at once. He’s a competitive person who enjoys a good challenge.
Why do high frame rates appear strange?
When Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” series’ first two films were released in 2012 and 2013, theatergoers and film critics focused on one aspect that had nothing to do with the plot. Jackson’s choice to shoot the films at 48 frames per second (fps) rather than the industry standard 24 fps sparked outrage.
High frame rate (HFR) films, such as those shot at 48 frames per second (fps), are a relatively new trend in filmmaking. High-frame-rate filming improves image realism, minimizes strobing (jerky or uneven visuals) and blurring in action situations, and generates smoother slow motion scenes. Isn’t that fantastic?
A Gemini male is what kind of person he is.
Gemini men and women share the same characteristics as Gemini women, but they express them in different ways.
Gemini males are extroverted to the point of being obnoxious. They’re a lot of fun to be around since they’re so energetic, but they also want to be the center of attention, so hanging out with them at parties may grow boring. You should spend one-on-one time with them if you truly want to get to know them. If you’re dating a Gemini man, keep in mind that he’s a big flirt, so don’t expose him to your gorgeous pals.
Gemini women are enthusiastic about life but cautious when it comes to love. Gemini women stress over major decisions in their lives due to their brilliance and indecisiveness. Be patient with a Gemini lady if you’re dating her; she may take longer to commit to a serious relationship. Gemini women, on the other hand, are clever and outgoing, and you’ll always enjoy spending time with them.
What characteristics does a Gemini guy seek in a woman?
It won’t matter if you’re out and about or spending a quiet night in since the Gemini man who likes you will want to do anything with you. He wants to be with you all of the time!
A Gemini man desires to spend as much time as possible with the woman of his dreams.
A Gemini man’s attractiveness is based on spending quality time with him and having a good laugh. You’ll notice the extra effort he puts into your relationship if he’s into you. It’s possible that you’ll never see each other for an extended period of time.
How did they manage to turn Victor Hugo into Will Smith?
Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, and Benedict Wong feature in the action thriller Gemini Man, directed by Ang Lee. The story follows a hitman who is hunted down by a younger clone of himself. Thanks to the talents of Weta Digital’s artists, both characters in the film are played by Will Smith.
While the film featured a variety of visual effects (as well as other firms who contributed to those VFX scenes), Weta was responsible for the amazing advancement in facial work shown in Gemini Man.
To create the 23-year-old version of 51-year-old Will Smith, the production team decided not to use compositing to age Smith, as several Marvel films have done so successfully. Rather, the team chose to create a younger Will Smith who is entirely digital. The end product is some of the most innovative digital human work ever created. The realism, rendering intricacy, and behavior of the computer character sets a new standard for digital humans.
The Weta team began with a scan of Will Smith on the USC ICT Light stage, as well as a number of photo shoots and turntables. Weta was not attempting to re-create Will Smith, but rather a younger version of him, who is referred to in the film as Junior. Weta built a precise likeness of 51-year-old Smith as a stepping stone to the 23-year-old version of the actor in order to accomplish this. Weta even photographed the “backside of his teeth” during their photoshoots, according to visual effects supervisor Guy Williams of Weta. Williams collaborated alongside Bill Westenhofer, the production VFX supervisor, and Sheldon Stopsack, the co-visual effects supervisor.
Over the course of the film, Weta photographed Will Smith on three times. Weta did a shot three times: once during early prep, once during the shoot, and once at the conclusion. At the start of the production, the crew undertook a FACS session, scanning not only actor Will Smith but also Chase Anthony, a young African American actor, at USC ICT. He was scanned for a reference of juvenile skin texture. “Chase Anthony, a 23-year-old male, has skin that resembles Will Smith’s when he was younger, but not in terms of face shape. We performed two photo shoots with Victor Hugo and one with him.” Hugo acted as Junior’s on-set reference for Will Smith, as Williams noted.
The production took a “AB” style to shooting. This referred to Will Smith portraying Henry Brogan in real time on camera, with Victor Kigo, his acting partner, portraying Junior. The roles would later be reversed. Will Smith had someone to react to, someone to act with, an eye line, and someone who could provide him more than simply someone reading lines back to him using this method. “Victor Hugo is an actor, and he was attempting to provide enough of a performance to support Will’s. As a result, you have this lovely synergistic performance from them both.”
Weta later assisted in the setup of a mo-cap stage in Budapest at the end of the shoot. The crew re-captured all of the AB performances. “We switched the equation such that Will Smith was now Junior and Victor was the 51-year-old Will,” says the producer. Other actors, such as Benedict Wong or anyone else who was crucial in the action, returned to the mocap stage to reprise their roles. Providing the ideal acting atmosphere for Will Smith was one of the driving forces behind this production. “One of the things I told Ang from the beginning was that Weta’s digital performance would only ever be as good as Will can offer you,” Williams stated. Weta advised the cast and crew to view the Mocap as just another day of performances rather than a technical exercise. “We put a lot of effort into making the Mocap work as well for Will and the other performers as possible.” The crew decided against having Will shoot one role in the morning and then switch to the other in the afternoon. It would have been difficult for the actor to keep such a schedule, and “it would have burnt an hour and a half in the middle of our filming days, with makeup and outfit changes – which you can’t afford to lose,” Williams argues.
The crew would set up Will Smith with exact tracking markers on his face on days when they were just filming Junior, and then he would wear the infrared head-mounted camera rig (HMC), which was powered by a battery setup carefully attached to the small of the actor’s back, beneath his clothes. Because the HMC employed infrared light, no visible light was cast on other performers, props, or Junior’s costume. Through Will’s outfit, the infrared lights/dots on his vest could be seen. “They show up as discrete dots through the garment, which helped us track his torso,” Williams explained.
Weta maintained that the show must come first, “and to that end, the body is a part of the show.” That’s why we said we couldn’t put a Will (Junior) head on another actor since the body wouldn’t match Will’s performance.” However, Williams goes on to say that if the scenario consisted just of Will performing as Junior in solitude, that was no longer the case. “Suddenly, the performance is linked to the body.” So now we only have the option of replacing the head.” The team was capturing the head and body in situ at the same time. “We’d do a flawless track of the head back onto the shoulders by mocaping the shoulders.” That’s what we’d term a ‘b-side only’ shot.”