What kind of new face does opera show under digital technology?

Mondo Entertainment Updated on 2024-02-29

A few days ago, a live broadcast event with the theme of "When Technology Meets the Beauty of Opera" attracted more than 7 million people***The biggest attraction of this live broadcast is that with the help of artificial intelligence, 6DOF and other digital technologies, nearly 50 classic plays can meet the audience with a new look, and the audience can experience the "singing, reading, doing, and playing" of opera at zero distance.

The live event, initiated by the Art Development Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Tencent, kicked off the "Digital Renewal Action of Chinese Opera Culture", showing the huge potential of digital technology to empower the inheritance and dissemination of Chinese opera.

Artificial intelligence restores opera images and reproduces the style of old artists.

The live broadcast presented a high-definition video compilation of nearly 50 classic opera works, including classic works such as "Xiaoyaojin", "Jiujiangkou", "Ancient City Meeting" and "Tianxian Pei", involving different genres such as Peking Opera, Kunqu Opera, Yue Opera, Sichuan Opera, Henan Opera, Ping Opera, Cantonese Opera, Huangmei Opera, Huai Opera, and Qin Opera.

Most of the images of these opera works were taken in the forties and fifties of the 20th century. Due to the long time of storage, many works have various problems such as mutilation, shaking, scratches, flickering, noise, blurring, etc., and some films and tapes even break when touched. In order to reproduce the opera images on film, the film had to be restored.

The use of artificial intelligence technology can greatly improve the efficiency of restoration. According to a restorer, the manual restoration process is complicated and cumbersome, and it takes several months for an experienced restorer to complete the restoration of an opera film. Artificial intelligence has deep learning capabilities, and with the increase of "repair experience", it can quickly find the optimal repair plan from the "repair memory" in the face of various problems in images.

Renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's classic "2046" returned to the big screen on January 19 with a 4K restoration after a 20-year absence. China News Agency, Hong Kong**.

Artificial intelligence restoration technology can not only fill in the defects, but also pay attention to the details and texture of the image, which can make the image more delicate and vivid. For example, the opera film "Tianxian Pei" was filmed in the 50s of the 20th century, and now not only the picture is blurry, but some of the characters' faces are also obscured by noise. In the restoration, artificial intelligence technology is used to not only reproduce the contours of the character's face, but also simulate the details of the character's face, and even every hair strand and eyelash can be perfectly presented.

Today, many people have not seen Mei Lanfang and other famous opera actors, through the restored high-definition opera works, we can not only see the true faces of famous actors, but more importantly, we can appreciate their original performance skills. Kunshan contemporary Kunqu Opera actor Lin Yujia said.

The nearly 50 repertoire of this live broadcast are the first batch of works restored by the "Digital Renewal Action of Chinese Opera Culture" using artificial intelligence restoration technology. "Our philosophy is to repair the old as before, not only to improve the clarity and other enhancements, but also to restore the sense of age of the restored works to the greatest extent, such as color tone, sound quality, etc., and try to retain the characteristics of the past era. Xu Xiaozhong, head of Tencent's multi-lab expansion center, who participated in the restoration work, said.

The use of artificial intelligence technology to restore opera images is regarded by industry experts as an innovative measure for the inheritance of opera culture. Peng Wei, director of the Creation and Research Center of the National Peking Opera Company, believes that the restored opera works presented to the audience not only retain the charm of traditional opera, but also add visual impact, and comprehensively enhance the artistic and social value of opera.

The restoration of opera images is not only a technical experiment, but also an artistic experiment. Shu Zhan, head of the Digital Culture Lab of Tencent's Sustainable Social Value Division, said that he hopes that through the restoration of the first batch of works, it will not only precipitate technology, but also promote the formulation of corresponding restoration standards.

The digital engraving record provides a new means for the research, teaching and learning of opera.

The camera slowly advances and focuses on the dancers. ** The "Concubine Mei" is wearing a pale pink long-sleeved dance dress, with a long skirt swaying to the ground, flying vertically, like a flying wild goose, which is the most classic dance in the excerpt of "Concubine Mei" - Amazing Dance.

The live broadcast uses 6DOF technology to deconstruct the Amazing Dance, and shows the actors' very small movements and demeanors such as wrist rotation and eye wave rotation in high definition. The audience can "walk freely" in the picture, choose different perspectives**, and can also zoom in and out of the dancer's facial expressions at will.

The significance of 6DOF technology is not only to enrich the live broadcast content in three dimensions and enhance the immersion of the first place, but also to provide a new means for the research, teaching and learning of opera.

Programming is the main feature of the art of opera, singing, reading, doing, and playing. Traditional opera requires the actors to be stylized in every move on stage, and each programmed action has certain content and technical requirements, such as "Qiba" means that the general will appear, and "walking" means traveling at night. The difficulty in learning opera lies in learning opera programs, because all programs have to be "picked" one action at a time.

6DOF technology can record every action detail and subtle expression of the opera actor in 360-degree high-definition shooting frame by frame, and can also be repeatedly magnified**. This kind of digital engraving record makes every move and style of opera performance clear at a glance, providing a standard paradigm for opera learners. By repeatedly amplifying the relevant program actions, fans can learn opera by themselves without apprenticeship. Wang Mengting, an actor of the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera Troupe of the Beijing Peking Opera Company, said.

The changes in the way of filming, recording and presentation brought about by new technologies also have different significance for the inheritance and research of Chinese opera. For example, many precious unique skills in opera and martial arts are rarely seen on the stage and almost lost due to the difficulty and rigor of the inheritance of skills and movements. Using 6DOF technology to record the performance of martial arts actors in 360-degree frame-by-frame high-definition shooting, and then when zooming in**, the relevant skills and movements are decomposed, and the essentials of the action can be summarized. Shu Zhan said that according to these, opera teaching courseware can be produced, which greatly improves the effect of opera teaching.

According to Wang Kui, director of the Institute of Chinese Opera at the Chinese Academy of Arts and president of the Chinese Opera Society, the video materials of Chinese opera are an important basis for recording, inheriting, protecting and researching the art of opera. Today, there are hundreds of theater troupes across the country, each with at least a few hundred plays, and it would be an extremely valuable asset to be able to record all the troupe's works in a panoramic way using technical means like 6DOF.

Create a new ecology of opera inheritance and explore a new model of opera culture.

The use of artificial intelligence image restoration, immersive DOF, point cloud modeling and other technologies can make classic opera images look new, make the opera program action more three-dimensional, make the opera communication methods more diverse, and let the audience get a richer immersive experience.

Digital technology has brought much more to the art of opera. Wang Kui pointed out that digital art has now intervened in all aspects of the inheritance and dissemination of opera, and is helping to create new ecology and formats for opera. For example, with the use of webcast technology, the live broadcast of opera is in full swing. According to the live broadcast data released by Douyin, there will be 231 types of opera dramas broadcast on the platform in 2022, with more than 800,000 live broadcasts, a total of more than 2.5 billion viewers, and an average audience of 3,200 per game, which is equivalent to a medium-sized performance every live broadcast. The live broadcast of opera not only opens up more space for the dissemination of opera culture, but also gains more young audiences, which shows that a new opera ecology is taking shape in the "cloud".

Wang Kui believes that opera should not only use digital technology to improve the speed of communication, expand the scope of communication, and retain stage moments, but also introduce digital technology into the creation of opera, enrich the expression of opera, and shorten the distance between the art of opera and modern audiences.

From the creative level, with the help of digital technology, lighting and other scenes can be used to create many scenes that cannot be presented by traditional stage art techniques, so that the real environment and the virtual world can be perfectly integrated, creating a new stage space for opera performances. The relevant person in charge of the Art Development Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said.

If traditional culture wants to gain vitality, it must return to the current life and meet the trendy aesthetic needs of young people. Wang Kui believes that with the help of digital technology, it is not only necessary to make classic opera works achieve high-definition permanent preservation and convenient dissemination, but also to make opera a national tide and make opera glow with new brilliance in the new era environment.

In addition, digital technology can also provide solutions to the copyright problems of opera. Experts pointed out that the use of blockchain and other technologies to establish a digital resource library of traditional opera can provide effective support for the copyright protection and digital storage of opera, and provide efficient assistance for the market-oriented operation and copyright confirmation of opera. (END) (Original title: Digital technology gives new wings to opera).

Reporter Han Yeting.

*:Light**.

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