#NewsBytesExplainer: Comprehending concept of de-aging technology in films

"What? How does he look so young?" Have you also gasped while watching a film after seeing a much younger side of some actor? If the film was shot in contemporary times, how did the actor look so different? This happens due to de-aging, which is used to, as the name suggests, make an actor look much younger. Let's look at prominent examples.

As per Respeecher, "De-aging is a 3D effect technology used to make an actor look younger. To do so, post-production studios typically edit a digital image or apply computer-generated imagery (CGI) overlays or touch-ups to the necessary scenes." Notably, before technology took quantum leaps, makeup and prosthetics were widely used to achieve this effect, though it was not as impactful, quite understandably so.

Respeecher says actors are filmed with small markers on their faces to synchronize the 3D subject's movements with that of the actor's head. An invisible 3D version of a head is created, which is synchronized with the actor's head movements. "On top of this head, an editor puts 'patches' from the cloud of points, which are filters for the original image's skin," it says.

Hollywood has been utilizing the de-aging technique successfully for a long time. For example, in a flashback sequence in Captain America: Civil War, the makers showed an extremely young Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ant-Man and The Wasp, It: Chapter 2, and The Irishman are some other examples of films that made optimum usage of this technology.

In Bollywood, the technique was used for Sushant Singh Rajput in MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and for Shah Rukh Khan in Fan. It was even more critical in Fan since the film featured SRK in dual roles. More recently, Aamir Khan leveraged this technique for multiple scenes in Laal Singh Chaddha. The film's female lead, Kareena Kapoor Khan, went through the same process.