Roy Orbison hologram concert in L.A. invites awe and debate
In the darkened Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, hundreds of people couldn’t wait to see legendary rocker Roy Orbison. A live orchestra pumped up the crowd with a medley of his hits. Old photos of him flashed across a giant screen.
Then, the crooner appeared to rise magically from the stage, wearing his signature light grey suit, black shades and jamming on a red Gibson guitar to his 1960 hit “Only the Lonely.” Fans screamed as they quickly positioned their smartphones to record the spectral image.
“This is as good as seeing him in person as you’ll ever get,” marveled 71-year-old Ray Sadowski, who paid about $200 for a pair of tickets to the Tuesday night show.
Thirty years after his death, Orbison (at least the digital version of him) is going on a national tour, the latest and possibly the most ambitious example to date of how holographic technology is transforming the music industry. The hologram’s 65-minute show, which features 16 songs and orchestral accompaniment, is among the first full-length concerts to feature a holographic dead singer.
Such images and shows are becoming more common, as families of deceased celebrities look for new ways to prolong and capitalize on their legacies. But as technology evolves and it becomes easier to create three-dimensional, lifelike visuals of artists, there’s growing debate over how those images will be portrayed — and whether they truly represent how the artists behaved when they were alive. That has prompted some celebrities to add language in their contracts about holograms and to be more meticulous about selecting who is in charge of their estates. It has also sparked threats of lawsuits from estates to bar companies from profiting from a celebrity’s image without their permission.
“This is a big issue,” said Aaron Moss, a partner with law firm Greenberg Glusker. “With new technology, you could essentially make somebody an unwitting and involuntary actor in a film that a celebrity has no part of.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-orbison-hologram-20181006-story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
