|
-
News
- Features
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Not quite human
01/01/2008 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
With the release of Beowulf, says Mark, we got a chance to see how far the film industry has gotten in the realistic depiction of humans in animation. I thought it was just a little off of being realistic and they reminded me of the way humans looked in Shrek. Buy Clutch Cargo in the USA - or Buy Clutch Cargo in the UK  I read a harsh comment by somebody who wanted to be a little cruel who said they reminded him of the animation in Clutch Cargo. For the benefit of those who missed this program, Clutch Cargo was a hero in an almost-animated television series from the early 1960s.
Someone recognized that in animation you could save a lot of change from one frame to the next by just animating the mouth and that further you could film a mouth in live action and just superimpose it on the figure. Hence you could do this "Synchro- Vox" animation extremely cheaply if you did not mind that the end result looks so weird that it gives everyone who sees it the willies. It didn't help that the mouths they filmed, male and female, wore lipstick to make they show up better.
The effect was really bizarre. Small children would be traumatized by the half-human but not quite human enough effect. The approach was successful enough (or at least cheap enough) to be used on two other series Space Angel and Captain Fathom. You can see some Synchro-Vox from the series at the address below. The lantern- jawed fellow is Clutch Cargo himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MHg1-mpcUY
When I visited a museum at Mount St. Helens there was a creative display. It was supposed to be a woman lecturing to visitor and featured a mannequin that was made with a flat spot instead of a mouth. The mouth was projected to give almost the effect that the face was moving and the mannequin was speaking. Like Clutch Cargo the figure was absolutely motionless except for the face moving. It had the same sort of spookiness.
The thing is that if it were supposed to be a bear up there talking it would not bother us a lot. We often see in films like THE ROAD TO MORROCCO an animal talk through animation of the mouth. It did not bother a generation to see Francis the Talking Mule or his television descendent Mr. Ed talking (with the help of a little peanut butter on his gums). Wax museums do not seem to bother people, but it might if the figures moved.
It does not bother us to see a more human face talking. But there is something that is just on the edge between that we find spooky. Something very nearly human is a lot weirder than something that obviously is or obviously is not human is. And that seems ironic. This also seems to have some connection with the horror element of THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS where someone near to you starts seeming like a close replica rather than the person himself.
When I see a behavior that I cannot explain in humans I often think of what sort of a genetic advantage would it give humans. I probably am a little facile with my explanations. For example, why do we prefer cold beverages to ones that are room temperature? Probably when we evolved and were living more in nature cold water was freshly melted from ice. Warm water was more likely stagnant and less wholesome. That is the sort of analysis I give it.
So is there a genetic reason that nearly human is more off putting than non-human is or than human is. Perhaps while we were evolving something that looked like us only too different was not a good genetic choice for a mate. Because it looked sort of like us we could mate with it. But it probably had genes that were different from our genes and we want our genes to dominate the gene pool. This explanation is very similar (like identical) to my explanation of racial prejudice. This fear of the near human is probably a phenomenon very close to that of racial prejudice. We want to preserve genes that are like our own. (I hastily add that this is not a defense of prejudice; it is an explanation of the source.)
This distaste for near human is becoming a topic for discussion among roboticists and psychologists. As robots become more and more humanlike to make them more acceptable, they are reaching this point where they are just creeping people out just like Clutch Cargo did. Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori started looking at this phenomenon in 1970. He has this graph with nice smooth curves showing the acceptability of various artificial versions of humans as they become more and more like humans. (See the references below.)
He hypothesizes his data and I am skeptical of the possibility of getting real data, but it at least shows the idea that as you move from industrial robot to humanoid robot the acceptability increases. But when you start getting to corpses and zombies and prosthetic hands it drops off like a cliff. Then it increases again with a Bunraku puppet and it peaks with a healthy person. This low point of emotional acceptability is called the "Uncanny Valley".
You can find more information about the "uncanny valley" at the sites below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=853
Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2007 Mark R. Leeper
|
|
