I think there will come a time when graphics and storage capabilities are advanced enough to empower one person or a small team of creatives to create a studio of characters with completely lifelike qualities. This studio will be run entirely from a desktop computer. The principles will produce full length motion pictures and their characters will, if the movies are accepted by the masses, become stars, and be cast over and over again. The stars will age and have virtual lives followed by tabloids feeding on the off screen stories the creatives supply them. People will have favorites, just as they do now. Virtual stars will have virtual weddings, affairs and divorces. They will plug real products and seem to consume them. They will give interviews with real reporters and have real books written on their behalf. They will do virtual drugs and go to virtual rehab. It’s what people expect. Hackers will be the new paparazzi. They will even die the tragic deaths of stars gone supernova. People will mourn. And the creatives will bury them, only to bring a new face on to the red carpet.
The successful studios will have almost no overhead and be insanely profitable. Studio creatives will enjoy a status no studio executive of today has ever experienced. They will have more than just the power to create a star, they will have the power to delete one. And people will know it, and reward the creatives in appeasement.
There will be a million times more studios than we know of in this day and age. Distributing a movie will be a simple upload gesture, much like You Tube and self publishing is now. The number of movie personalities will be overwhelming, but absorbed.
I’m not sure where it will take the human race. I’m not sure if we will be more connected with each other through our wider selections of likes and dislikes that we can share with others, or if we will descend further into a virtual world where we follow fake people and emulate fake lifestyles. I suppose some will and some won’t.
But I know one thing for sure – it will happen.
Groovy Guru