During the summer I’ve dropped down a few questions that I could explore for the thesis. These would either come up randomly during the enjoyment of some visual work or as I was checking off the mundane actions of my “To Do” list. One of the questions was based around the famous trilogy “Lord of the Rings”, specifically on the advancements that were achieved in the production. The other kept coming back towards the piece made for our Term 1 submission, specifically the technology behind de-aging, its development, and ethical questions that could be raised.
As the final term approached, I’ve been inclining towards more of the latter idea, having already started the research. It’s a very new topic, so there haven’t been written many academic pieces about it and the research was eventually based on countless online articles that I’ve found. De-aging in itself is one of those specific visual effects practices that are not very common and when it’s done is always discussed upon. Change of scenery from Earth to somewhere on Mars or to an entirely made-up world, use of countless new creatures, effects for portals or magical powers became way more common and almost routine in cinema, that it doesn’t come off as a surprise or something extraordinary for the audiences. The discussion and critique would only be constant if VFX turns out to be very badly done or, on the opposite, quite spectacular. Yet, when we would see faces so familiar to us, but de-aged, that would for sure stir up the new emotions and provide various reactions, followed up by another Twitter explosion of comments about it.
That may be the reason why I settled down on the topic of de-aging and not my lack of satisfaction or acceptance for the original piece I made for Term 1. As I compiled web articles, that appeared to be written by accredited cinema or VFX journalists, I started noting down any facts that were to be mentioned and discussed upon in my final work. I found a good article on an Artlist blog about the history of tech development, but it was very much summarised and had very little detail of how VFX was achieved. Other than that, it was hard to find a specified source that guides how the technology started off or developed throughout, so I noted down the timeline and tried my best in presenting it in a well-written manner to the reader. This helped me to narrow down the structure for the thesis and separate it into various sections.
Diving deeper into how films were made, the process and research behind each movie were very interesting to explore, but I did note that tedious listing of facts behind the scenes made my essay ever so slightly boring and hard to follow. So I tried breaking it down with my own evaluation, thoughts, and scrutinisation of what a specific achievement would mean for the industry. It didn’t come to my realisation that the hardest section I had to write about (the ethics and morals of it, to be precise) became my favourite out of it all, as I pushed myself and really thought about raising questions, which I believe should be necessary for the future of the industry. Coming back to the many articles I’ve read, it was important to separate out and highlight what various industry professionals themselves were asking, in order to build a greater foundation for the discussions that are already taking or at least start to be taking place.
Around two weeks before the deadline, I had my first draft, but it still appeared to be very raw and monotonous. I haven’t mentioned any arguments that I was taking, so it was crucial to decide upon what will I be arguing about. Going back, it was easier to notice any inconsistencies or lack of idea flow to my thesis, so I focused on adding or adjusting the sentences, to make the work more readable and easier to follow. Going over the entire essay helped me to word my conclusion better and more precisely, as well as adjust any sections that I wasn’t sure about or which were too long.
It was in a painstakingly long process, with a lot of slow or very fast pacing weeks. However, I enjoyed it, as it helped me to strengthen my skills in research, evaluation of a movie, scrutinisation, writing skills and generally made me question a lot more about specific processes and their intentions or future implications. I want to thank Laurie, for the help and feedback that he provided us, as his ideas and guidance very often would help me out getting over the obstacles.