'Within five years, the best actor is going to be a digital actor,' predicts computer graphics maestro Will Anielewicz.

As the 2000 movie "Space Cowboys" nears its climax, Clint Eastwood buckles up his space suit and goes for a space walk to repair an errant Russian satellite. Now, as Eastwood was 69 when the movie was made, there was no way he was about to be suspended upside down, bounced and jostled around as the scene called for.

No problem. The solution was to create a "digital double" - a computer-generated Eastwood doppelganger, complete with a superimposed image of the actor's famously grizzled visage.

It's just the sort of thing CG (computer graphic) maestro Will Anielewicz specializes in. As one of the oldest hands at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), the biggest player in the high- tech, high-stakes Hollywood special effects business, Anielewicz produces some of the most eye-popping images to burst from the big screen. He has crafted key scenes in "The Perfect Storm" (2000), "The Phantom Menace" (1999), "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001), "Men In Black II"' (2002) and the soon- to- be-released "Terminator III." In "A.I." he created the entrance scene to Rouge City, in which Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment zoom along a causeway in a futuristic roadster toward gigantic lips that form the entrance to the city. In "Men in Black II," he put together the mesmerizing sequence in which the evil alien Jarra comes apart to reveal a nest of flying saucers, each piloted by a mini Jarra, which then attack Will Smith en masse.

On the leading edge of CG imagery since its inception in the 1970s, Anielewicz now predicts the field is on the verge of achieving the "holy grail," a fully digital, computer- generated human character that is indistinguishable from flesh and blood. Within five years, Anielewicz wagers, such a character will beat out the carbon-based competition to win an Oscar.

"I believe that at some point a digital actor is going to be a superstar," said Anielewicz in an interview on a recent trip to promote the Japan release of Maya 5, the latest computer animation software from the Canadian firm Alias/Wavefront. "Within five years, the best actor is going to be a digital actor."

While real actors will not likely be put out to pasture for some time to come, stunt actors will have to look for new work, Anielewicz says, since almost any dangerous stunt can now be simulated from the safety of a computer terminal.

"There's a whole new phenomenon in the past five or six years, called the 'digital double.' We can now accomplish such realism with digital stunt doubles that it's pretty much making stunt actors obsolete."

Based in the San Francisco suburb of San Rafael, ILM was set up by George Lucas in the 1970s. While it is still the biggest player in the industry, a handful of newer firms-such as Sony Pictures Imageworks and ESC, which did the bulk of effects for "The Matrix: Reloaded" - are challenging ILM. The 2002 Oscar for effects went to "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." It featured the not-quite-human Gollum, created by New Zealand's Weta Digital, and which Anielewicz calls one of the most impressive CG creations yet.

"I hate to admit it, but I think the Gollum creature was quite an achievement. It was very believable," he said.

As with Gollum, each new CG achievement is closely scrutinized by the competition, who then look for ways to go one better. While digital characters such as those in 2001's "Final Fantasy"' are "milestones," Anielewicz says, they "aren't good enough."

"There are still so many issues that need to be worked out: muscle twitches, skin pores, translucency, eye motion, reaction to lighting. There is just so much expression that has to be put into human beings."

So, for the time being, Anielewicz must content himself with lesser miracles. On "A.I.," he supervised the creation of Rouge City, an accomplishment he calls "beautiful" and "inspiring." For "Men in Black II," the challenge was more "technical." Each Jarra saucer had to be superimposed with the face of the main character, made especially difficult by the character's long, matted hair.

"Hair has a very strange, refractive nature to it, and in this particular case it was wet and matted and had to move around, hitting his shoulders."

To achieve this, Anielewicz had to create special software packets, called "shaders" to "describe how light and surfaces interact."

Another of his specialties is shiny metal surfaces," making him an obvious choice for "Terminator III," for which he crafted some of the weapons and helped put the "skin" on the Terminator robot.

Cool as it all sounds, it's a long way from Anielewicz's beginnings in the mid-1970s as a computer student at Toronto's York University. He stumbled onto computer art quite by accident while generating contour maps. When a programming error spewed out crazy line patterns, Anielewicz found the results enchanting. Soon he was creating his own images and calling himself a "computer artist," virtually coining the term. He even sold some works and held exhibitions at Toronto galleries.

"I did nudes, I did erotica, I did images of Albert Einstein. There might have been half a dozen people in the world toying with computer graphics and making artwork."

He tried combining studies in computers, philosophy and art for a master's degree at York, but his advisers soon questioned the validity of what he was doing. After a computer science professor told him: "This computer art thing of yours isn't going anywhere," Anielewicz gave up, even though he was sure he was on the forefront of a major new art form.

In 1979, he saw a strange ad in the newspaper. "Seeking experienced computer animators," it read. There was no such thing.

"I walked in and I think the fellow realized he wasn't going to find any experienced computer animators, so he hired me."

For six months, Anielewicz was the only employee of Omnibus Video, which was developing graphics for TV commercials and broadcast. Anielewicz was involved in creating the graphic onscreen lettering for the weekly sports program, "Hockey Night in Canada." After it appeared, every network in North America wanted its own graphic logo, and the company expanded into Los Angeles and New York. Eventually Omnibus went bust, but not before Anielewicz left in 1984, becoming the first employee of another Toronto firm, Alias Research (later, Alias/Wavefront), which was developing a user-friendly artist's workstation. The company convinced General Motors it could use the system to design vehicles, and today, Alias workstations are used by every automaker.

In 1986, Anielewicz left to set up his own company. A decade later, having reached the limits of what was possible in Toronto, he decided to respond to a friend's invitation to join ILM, just in time to work on "The Phantom Menace." It was a dream come true, since he had been a fan of the original Star Wars movies as a youth.

Now 50, Anielewicz is a senior figure in a company where the average age is 28. As a result, he is often brought in to consult on films he is not directly working on.

ILM recruits from around the world, and of the firm's 500 or so technical employees, Anielewicz says about 5 percent are Japanese, including several animators. During his visit, he was impressed with new CG facilities being developed here.

"They are putting together buildings and studios and computer systems all in preparation for what they think is going to be a major source of work in the industry," he said.

He has been asked to return to lecture and help develop curriculum, something he should be well-qualified for, since he is already an adjunct professor at Canada's Sheridan College, a leading school in the field. Eventually, however, he wants to return to his "roots" as a "pure" artist.

"If I had total financial independence I would probably get back to doing computer art for the sake of art, without being told by anyone what the shape should be, what the color should be."

In the meantime, he will have to continue toiling in the San Francisco suburbs, putting hair and skin on fierce creatures, and answering calls from his wife, Vanessa, as to when he'll be home, with: "I'm rendering dear," meaning, "anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours."

And while CG effects are seen as a young person's field, Anielewicz's family turns that on its head. His 20-year-old daughter, who "has probably been inside more computer studios than any kid alive," wants nothing to do with the business-she plans to be a lawyer. (IHT/Asahi: June 7,2003)