Although Andy Serkis has been working as a professional actor since 1989, his breakthrough role was not for playing a human character at all but rather, for his motion-capture portrayal of ‘Gollum’ in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ film trilogy. But despite the critical acclaim for his performance and the Oscar buzz at the time, Andy was not nominated for an Academy Award.
Fast-forward to 2011 and the buzz about Andy’s motion-capture role as the leader of the primate revolution, ‘Caesar,’ in ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ is heating up the Oscar talk again. This time the motion-capture pioneer is speaking out because he believes it is important that people understand the despite all of the technology, motion-capture performers are still actors playing a role.
In a recent interview with the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ Andy acknowledged, “I am a bit evangelical, I know, but performance-capture is still misunderstood. Ten years down the line, people say, ‘Oh, so you did the voice of Gollum?’ Or people go, ‘You did the movements for [King]Kong?’ It’s frustrating, because I play Gollum and I play Kong. It is acting.”
Andy further explained to the BBC, “I never approach a live action role any differently to a performance-captured role. The process of acting is absolutely identical.”
Slate.com noted that other performances with heavy use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) have received an Oscar nod, such as Brad Pitt in the title role of ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ Although 155 artists were used “to create the digitally-rendered, motion-captured face Brad Pitt wore for the first hour of the film,’ Slate.com writer, Nina Shen Rastogi, made the insightful observation that the audience always knew it was an actor portraying a character but for non-human roles, such as the Na’vi in ‘Avatar’ or the chimpanzees in ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ it is much more difficult for an audience to recognize the human actor behind the character.
Although Andy called the process of motion-capture “digital make-up,” there may be some confusion between the type of performance he is referring to and other uses of CGI technology. For example, the bulls in the Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz flick, ‘Knight and Day,’ were completely created by visual effects directors through capturing the movements of bulls in a bull ring by triangulating cameras on each animal and then using that information to produce motion vignettes. The vignettes served as the foundation to animate digitally created bulls throughout the chase scene sequences in ‘Knight and Day.’
In motion-capture performances, an actor literally performs the role, just as a live-action performer would. There are actually two parts of the process, the first is the performance and the second is the character transformation through visual effects artistry. In ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ Andy frequently acted alongside his co-stars, including James Franco, Freida Pinto and John Lithgow. The only difference was that Andy wore a motion-capture suit to record all his movements so that visual effects artists could transform his character into the chimpanzee, ‘Caesar.’
To learn more about motion-capture technology, watch this behind-the-scenes featurette featuring Andy Serkis and WETA special-effects artists creating their magic in ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes.’
What do you think? Should motion-capture performers like Andy Serkis be considered for acting Academy Awards alongside live-action actors?
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External Links:
Slate – Can a Motion-Capture Performer Win an Oscar?
NY Magazine – So, Could Andy Serkis Really Win an Oscar for Playing a CGI Ape?
BBC – Andy Serkis says special effect films should win awardsThe Telegraph – Can Gollum get the precious Oscar nod?
