4 ms·

Will they need to pay royalty to the family? What if they want to add a digital Robert DeNiro without paying the real actor? Is that something one could do? Ju

Will they need to pay royalty to the family? What if they want to add a digital Robert DeNiro without paying the real actor? Is that something one could do? Just trying to wrap my head around this.

dhoulb 13y ago
I presume his fee for the film will stand, and will go to his estate. Much more interesting question if you talk about an actor who isn't involved with a film at all, either because they passed away a while ago, or they're just busy doing something else! I guess it'd be like selling image rights. Imagine if you could buy the rights to Mark Wahlberg for your Indy production? You get a Maya model and high quality scans included in the cost. Maybe you buy it from Shutterstock... Mental.
zevyoura 13y ago
Audrey Hepburn's digital likeness was used in a galaxy commercial, and her estate was paid for the rights, so there is some precedent here.
chasing 13y ago
Well, Hoffman's already got a contract to appear in the film. So it's probably just an amendment to that. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was some sort of death clause that covered situations like this. At least, I would hope they would. Movies are expensive investments. People die.
chasing 13y ago
I was just poking about and found this article: http://www.motioncapturesociety.com/resources/articles/synthespians/92-sky-captain-laurence-olivier-back-from-the-dead http://www.motioncapturesociety.com/resources/articles/synth... Has this snippet, which (if accurate) might start to answer your DeNiro question: '[Copyright law professor] Mr. Beard notes that a patchwork of laws governs the use of dead actors' images. '"California protects the images of celebrities for 70 years after death, which is the same as under copyright law,'' he said. "New York, on the other hand, does not have postmortem protection. So Bogart, who died as a resident of California, has state protection, and Cagney, who died as a domiciliary of New York, does not."'

Will they need to pay royalty to the family? What if they want to add a digital Robert DeNiro without paying the real actor? Is that something one could do? Just trying to wrap my head around this.

dhoulb 13y ago

I presume his fee for the film will stand, and will go to his estate. Much more interesting question if you talk about an actor who isn't involved with a film at all, either because they passed away a while ago, or they're just busy doing something else! I guess it'd be like selling image rights. Imagine if you could buy the rights to Mark Wahlberg for your Indy production? You get a Maya model and high quality scans included in the cost. Maybe you buy it from Shutterstock... Mental.

zevyoura 13y ago

Audrey Hepburn's digital likeness was used in a galaxy commercial, and her estate was paid for the rights, so there is some precedent here.

chasing 13y ago

Well, Hoffman's already got a contract to appear in the film. So it's probably just an amendment to that. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was some sort of death clause that covered situations like this. At least, I would hope they would. Movies are expensive investments. People die.

chasing 13y ago

I was just poking about and found this article: http://www.motioncapturesociety.com/resources/articles/synthespians/92-sky-captain-laurence-olivier-back-from-the-dead http://www.motioncapturesociety.com/resources/articles/synth... Has this snippet, which (if accurate) might start to answer your DeNiro question: '[Copyright law professor] Mr. Beard notes that a patchwork of laws governs the use of dead actors' images. '"California protects the images of celebrities for 70 years after death, which is the same as under copyright law,'' he said. "New York, on the other hand, does not have postmortem protection. So Bogart, who died as a resident of California, has state protection, and Cagney, who died as a domiciliary of New York, does not."'