Digitalising history
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Discovery brings cutting-edge computer imaging technology to its new TV show starting this Saturday, "Virtual History". Raja Balasubramanian, the channel's Vice President, Marketing, talks to SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY about the digital wonders of recreating history.
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"The Making of Virtual History" on Discovery Channel, Saturday, 21.00.
THIS IS no clinching question in a beauty contest. But suppose you were given a chance to skip the present, which one of the times would you prefer - the future or the past?
To go to the future seems a likely reply if you are the one seeking a quick outcome of what is happening around you today. But on second thoughts, won't going back to the past be a lesson in itself? Now that you are living in a present born of the past, wouldn't you like to reel back in time? To see what went wrong, when, to savour what was right and better then?
If you are game for it, let's head for the pages of history that hold significance for many. More specifically, the brand new show of Discovery to be splashed on your TV screen from this Saturday, Virtual History. A show that uses cutting-edge technology, perhaps for the first time for a television show, to recreate important moments in history.
Says Raja Balasubramanian, Vice President, Marketing, Discovery, "This two-hour show on Saturdays and Sundays would focus on the days that shook the world. It would try to recreate for our viewers the famous conspiracies and trials with the help of cutting-edge digital technology." Using look-alike actors and the latest in Computer Generated Imaging, used normally in Hollywood films, the show will bring back to life many a famous historical character in the style of a real film archive. Balasubramanian says the production house Tiger Aspect took three years to develop the show contents and consulted as many as 15 historical experts, more than 250 books, besides rummaging through 150 historical collections and 2500 period stills.
Starting with plaster casts made out of the actors' heads, a sculptor uses them as a base upon which he fashions the faces of historical figures. These are then laser scanned to create digital copies and textured.
Computer imaging
During shooting, the actors wear specially designed rigs with markers, which help later in the replacement of their faces with the computer generated versions. The actors then repeat their lines, and their facial movements are recorded and processed to apply them to the computer generated faces, thus bringing them to life.
"The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler" on Discovery Channel, Sunday, 20.00.
Clearly excited about the production of this computer generated history, the channel plans a curtain raiser for the series this Saturday between 8 and 8.30 p.m., showing the making of the show. "Then on Sunday, we shall show The Secret Plot To Kill Hitler at 9 p.m. It is a documentary that tracks the events of July 20, 1944, the day when Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg plotted to kill Hitler at his Wolf's Lair bunker in Poland with an explosive hidden in his briefcase," he adds.
Other episodes include stalwarts like Winston Churchill, Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and others. Chasing intrigue, the series would also dig into the Da Vinci Code.
Continuing the process of adding new shows as the year rolls on, Balasubramanian says, "Some time in May we shall have a programme A Year Without Summer, depicting how in the 1800s in New England, there were no sun rays for a full 12 months."
In June, Discovery plans to start the series Science of Star Wars showcasing movies on the subject. Looks like it would be the turn of the future to zoom into your box then.
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