The arrival and increasing ubiquity of digital imaging has sparked renewed debates in some quarters about the ontology of the photographic image over the last fifteen years or so, in relation to both still photography and cinema. Breathlessly predicted amongst these responses was the death of the "truth-value" of mechanically photographed images, the death of cinema (again), and the "death" of the live actor, replaced by computer-generated "synthespians." Digital visual technologies generate images that do not rely on an indexical connection to an external, real-world referent. With the distinction between mechanically photographed reality and highly photorealistic digital images no longer consistently discernible, the spectator might seem doomed to a perpetual state of perceptual crisis, whether contemplating still or moving photographs. But this is not a new problem. Timothy Druckrey is not the only writer moved to point out that photography's "deteriorating validity as fact" has little to do with "the mere substitution models provided by computer simulation; it is the result of deep problems in representation itself" (86). Indeed, any representation is, like photography, "a symbolic practice where meaning is determined by beliefs and generated through the connotative strategies of subject selection, framing and vantage point" (Legrady, 88), so that the question of indexicality as an indicator of some kind of real-world veracity is already deeply problematic even before digital images make their appearance. Moreover, "truth-value" is not really what is at stake when we look at mainstream cinema, its illusionist project well known to critics and cinemagoers alike over its history. The much more pertinent question about the presence of digital images in Hollywood's visual frame has to do with the potential impact of digital elements on the spectator's investment in a film's narrative and representational frameworks. Equally, while digital technologies have changed the means by which certain aspects of pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution are carried out, and offer different kinds of recording formats and image compositing processes, at base "commercial narrative cinema continues to hold on to the classical realist style where images function as unretouched photographic records of some events that took place in front of the camera" (Manovich, 183). This allows us to put in perspective the different directions digital effects work has taken. Hollywood's commercial rubric for blockbuster success has long stipulated effects-heavy spectacle, and digital imaging and compositing find an exhibitionist outlet in such films' spectacular set pieces. But at the same time, digital effects technology is put to ubiquitous but much more "invisible" illusionist use in removing any traces of the constructedness of the filmic world in almost all generic permutations of mainstream US cinema(budget permitting). Examples include removal of wire-work wires and the reference markers used in motion capture, digital grading to control light and color, and digital compositing techniques that bring together various image elements (2D and 3-D computer-generated images, live-action, traditional special effects) as seamlessly as possible. At the same time, synthespians have not heralded the replacement of the "live" star just yet; instead, they fulfill the function of human "extras" in many crowd scenes, from Titanic (1997) to Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and V for Vendetta (2006), or act as "stunt doubles" in films like Blade (1998), Die Another Day (2003), and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2006).
