The great Carrie Fisher, the first actress that played princess Leia, can’t be recreated. She was iconic and different in a way that made her iconic. However, with great lengths in technology, we’re able to create a vision of Carrie past.
Ghost acting is a popular new art that allows younger people to “transform” their faces into that of another. The science and technology behind it is astonishing but even more so, the visual effect.
From Technology Review:
When it came to the role itself, [actress Ingvild Deila] spent about three days in a studio getting scanned by Industrial Light and Magic, and only one on set. To create the scan, the visual effects gurus showed her a picture of Fisher that she had to mimic. Hundreds of lights were then flashed around her to capture detailed images of her face in a variety of lighting conditions.
This scan served as the base on which Fisher’s 19-year-old face was overlaid for the final scene. “It was so strange. I could tell it’s me, but it’s also definitely not me,” she says. “It’s hard to describe that feeling. You now can see a bit of what it feels like with apps like Snapchat where you can put layers and swap faces.”
Read the entire story over at MIT Technology Review.
Image: Lucasfilm/Ingvild Deila