Digital Audrey Hepburn -- Galaxy Chocolate, "Chauffer" -- Framestore

There's a video which has gone viral recently; it's a commercial starring the late Audrey Hepburn as she enjoys a Galaxy Chocolate bar.

The video's popularity is due to the lifelike quality of the Hepburn character within:  a sort of marvel and mystique surrounds her returned image, sensationalized as though it were a new Audrey film, while simultaneously enjoying our knowledge that it is not Audrey we see, but a creation.

Galaxy  Chocolate's "Chauffeur" 
with Audrey Hepburn (?)*

Framestore, the CG effects company behind the simulated Audrey, culled together a library of Hepburn imagery:  film clips; media bits; photographs; news reels; etc.  Anything which had Audrey in it, they utilized to piece together the animation.

They pinned the pieces onto the best Audrey Hepburn look-alike they could find, although, if what I understand is correct, none of the look-alike was in the final video.  She figured as a sort of skeleton to give the digital Audrey an anchorage in the film.

(read about the process from Framestore)

"The biggest challenges in recreating an authentic and unmistakable Audrey Hepburn TM 
proved to be the eyes and smile [...] originally the team had hoped to use the real eyes and build the CG face around them, as post-production progressed it became clear that recognition was key to the success of this ad and, close though the actress was, full CG was the only way to get it right."

Duplication, simulation, celebrity, commodity...

Post-modern much?

The Digesting Duck of Vaucanson

( via wikipedia )

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* June 8th, 2013 UPDATE:  Originally, I had embedded the full Galaxy advertisement, however the video I linked to has since been taken down from YouTube.  I've taken down the link and replaced it with a still from the advertisement.

screen grab of the broken link 

as it appeared my blog

Hepburn's estate/children had signed a deal for the use of Audrey's image in the advertisement; part of the deal stated that viewership was to be limited to audiences in the UK....

...An odd agreement to make, considering the ubiquity of the internet.

And, of course, Hepburn is a Hollywood symbol, so this is naturally going to be popular in the USA (i.e. home of Hollywood).

Suffice to say the video went viral, and viral viewership heeds to no 'physical' Geography...

Lots of these links are going down.

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 [ The Virtual Audrey ]

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