Characters in movies and series live according to limited laws of time and space.

When a scene from the hero's childhood is presented, the director often chooses a child similar to him, but what if an elderly character needs to appear in the youth stage?

Come on, let's see how aging movie heroes return to their youth, and the difficulties that filmmakers may face for a short scene.

In the past, cosmetics (make-up) were the only way to change the age of the actor, and because of the poor quality of the old films, the viewer could not see the fine details on the actor's face, and it was possible to accept some exaggeration in the makeup, but with the production of modern high-resolution digital films, it is no longer Using make-up to change the age of the character is an appropriate option, as the viewer wants to see a real picture without compromising the quality.

In this context, the modern technology of de-aging appears, which is known as "CGI" and is part of visual effects (VFX), a term used to describe images that were created or processed to build realistic worlds through a computer without being Those worlds already exist, and it also includes voices and character builds.

CGI technology is one of the most important modern visual effects, which are two- or three-dimensional images and drawings, objects, or simulations of a person, and are used in science fiction films and dramas to create an optical illusion of a scene or person that does not actually exist, or to make some changes to it.

This technology was used for the first time in 2006 in the movie "X-Men: The Last Stand" (X-Men: The Last Stand) in flashback scenes that relive past events, for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.

Two years later, this technique was used in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, in order to show the age changes of Brad Pitt's character.

It was also used in the movie "Captain America" ​​in 2016, on the character of actor Robert Downey Jr., and on the character of star Michelle Pfeiffer in the movie "The Ant Man and the Wasp".

Trent Klaus, visual effects supervisor at Lola VFX, told the Hollywood Reporter that this technique allows the actor to maintain performance, as every feature of the face and body needs to be addressed. Especially when working with this technique on the face of a famous actor like Robert Downey Jr., which causes extra pressure to get back to the youthful look fans know.

The puzzling case of Benjamin Putin

The puzzling case of Benjamin Putin follows Brad Pitt's character Benjamin, who suffers from a condition in which he is born like an old man, and gets younger as he gets older.

The first hour of the film shows Brad Pitt's "digitally made" form from the neck up, and that part was connected to the bodies of different actors, and he did not use any makeup or photographic composition.

To achieve this, the VFX team faced 3 main challenges: the first was to make Brad Pitt look older, the second was to show all the fine details and features of his face, and the third was to fix the shape of his face in all shots and expressions, whether it was in daylight or candlelight. And whether he was talking, running, or crying.

In order to build the face of Brad Pitt at all ages, the team used the “makeups” (models) made by the realistic sculptor Kazuhiro, and they scanned them in very high resolution, giving them 3 levels of age for Benjamin, and then redirected the data on all the poses that Brad made House in the three models.

"Irish"

For the final installment of The Irishman, Martin Scorsese needed his heroes young again.

The film takes place between 1949 and 2000, and by the time the sequel was made, De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci could no longer play these younger roles with the help of make-up.

Veteran visual effects specialist Pablo Hellman told Scorsese that he could get past that hurdle.

Hillman worked with Scorsese for 10 weeks, to finally show De Niro in a form similar to the one he had in 1990, and this gave the green light to the film, as Scorsese was refusing any make-up or unrealistic expressions on the face of his heroes.

Robert De Niro appeared in one of the scenes with an appearance similar to what he was in 1990 (networking sites)

Hillman brought a new type of camera that allows Scorsese to film as he usually does, but in the process captures data on each actor's face so that the team can use it when needed.

That part of the work took the first two years, and for the next two years all the data was collected to create digital masks for each actor that help make him look younger than he is. With a few clicks on the reference images stored in the artificial intelligence systems, the wrinkles of the actors disappear and they look different.

Concerns about de-aging technology

Despite the use of this technique in many films and its great influence, there are some growing concerns about it, as it can reduce the chances of young actors getting a distinguished role, and it also reduces the roles of older stars, especially female actresses, by erasing the signs of aging. .

Despite the great success and realism achieved by digital faces in Hollywood, there are things that may disturb the audience sometimes, such as excessive sparkle in the eyes or the abnormal movement of the actor, or others.