UNIT 2 Media
Warm up-Thinking about the Topic
Look at the three images.
1 Where would you find creatures like these? Have you seen any of these creatures or similar creatures before?
1 Talk about them with your partner:
a. Do any of them look like real people?
b. How were these creatures made?
c. Think of some words to describe each picture.
2 Now, work together with a partner to make some sentences about the images. Speak, do not write.
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Beginning to Read
Skinning to Identify the Writer’s Purpose
It is very important to gain an overall idea of the reading passage structure and the writer's purpose BEFORE you try to complete the IELTS reading exercises.
Computer Generation of Animated Characters
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A
Ask any young person to tell you the names of some famous movies and the chances are that many of those mentioned will be popular because of computer-generated special effects. Movies such as ‘Star Wars ', 'the Matrix' and; Harry Potter' rely heavily on computers to create special fantasy and space effects. Others, such as the famous 'Lord of the Rings' movies, created surprisingly lifelike humanoid characters using sophisticated computer-generated techniques. The creative effort that lies behind these creatures is amazing. However, genuinely 'human' characters, indistinguishable from real actors, are still not quite possible, although we are getting very close to this elusive goal.
The process of imagining and developing a computer-generated character is complex, involving many stages. The first stage is to design the look of the character, and to create a three-dimensional model on the computer. The model must be able to move in a realistic manner and, most importantly, its face must mirror human faces when it laughs, frowns or talks. One way to achieve this is by building a real skeleton of the model. After using lasers to scan the real model into the computer, controls are added that allow the bones and muscles to be moved around.
This is where computer animation comes in. Because people are so conscious of how 'real' faces look, many detailed controls are needed on the computer to move the different features of the face. Up to a hundred may be needed to move the muscles of the face, so that the character's eyes, skin, mouth and other features all look natural to our eyes.
After designing all of the components of the face and body, and the computer controls, the character is ready to move, or be animated. One way of achieving this is called motion capture, where a person acts out the character, and his movements are captured by video camera and uploaded into the computer. Another way is key-frame animation, where, instead of modeling actions from a real person, the animators use the controls to move all of the parts of the body and face to create movement on the screen. These methods are often used together in creating an animated character; both of them are slow and painstaking, requiring hours of effort and planning.
Enormous computer power is needed to make animation look real. For the 'Lord of the Rings', thousands of processors and numerous workstations were used to create all of the characters and special effects. There were up to 160 people working on computer graphics for these three movies, which took approximately 4 million processing hours. It is estimated that the same process would have taken up to 200 years on a 4-gigahertz PC!
However, despite all of this extremely sophisticated and expensive technology, creating a real human face is still a challenge for our animators. People are very sensitive to facial expressions. We can immediately pick if a face is not human,
B C
D
E F
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and we often have a strong reaction to this. The closer the face is to looking truly human, the more negative this reaction can be; this effect has been christened the 'uncanny valley' by Japanese roboticist*Masahiro Mori. However, he also suggests that once the animation gets close enough to the real thing, we begin to feel positive about it once more. So, maybe future Tom Cruises or Lindsay Loans will be computer generated, and we will never know the difference.
* an expert on design, construction and use of robots
4 Read the first sentence ONLY of each paragraph in the reading passage and answer the question below. Take NO MORE THAN FIVE minutes to do this.
Does this reading passage:
a. Give a history of something? b. Describe how something is done? c. Compare and contrast two things?
d. Discuss a problem and give a solution?
Scanning for Specific Facts
Sometimes in IELTS readings you need to look quickly over the reading passage to find facts, dates, numbers or names. It is important to practice focussing your eyes ONLY on the information you need.
5 Look quickly at the passage and write down the letter of the paragraph which contains the following information. Take no more than THREE minutes to do this!
a.__________ Masahiro Mori
b. __________Key frame animation
c.___________160
d. ___________Star Wars
e.____________ Three-dimensional
f. ____________ A hundred
6 Now, match the information above to the following. Write the letter of the paragraph where you will find this information beside each one.
a. ____________Movie name
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