Motion Capture

Last week I mentioned the Motion Capture technique that was used in The Hobbit movies. Motion Capture refers to the practice in filmmaking of recording the movement of actors and using the data to animate digital characters in order to get a more realistic and human like performance. As the technology gets better and better, we see this technique being used more often. Motion Capture gave us the Hulk in The Avengers, Davy Jones and his crew in The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and practically everything in Avatar. The Hobbit franchise is no stranger to Motion Capture either, using the technique to create many of the orcs, and even capturing the facial expressions of Benedict Cumberbatch to give Smaug the dragon more emotional range.

And you can't talk about motion capture with to bringing up the Master of Motion Capture Performance, Andy Serkis. It seems that Serkis has spent the better part of the last decade and a half wearing a motion capture suit, with the roles of Caesar in the last two Planet of the Apes movies, King Kong in the recent reboot, and of course, Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. His performances in all his roles are phenomenal, and to get an idea of the amazing work that goes into bringing some of his characters to life, check out this video on the Nature Video youtube channel.