Oscar for motion capture?

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/02/oscars-performance-capture/

Should Andy Serkis performance as Ceaser be nominated for an Oscar? Is motion capture animation or digital make-up? Should we see the actors face? What about wearing a mask in the role, isn't that the same? Should motion capture be nominated in the category animated movies, or is it "cheating" the classic animation?

I personally don't know if Andy Serkis should win the Oscar, but I feel the technology has developed and he should be at least nominated . well, maybe he'll get an oscar for his role as Gollum? Or maybe Benedict Cumberbatch will have a shot at the oscar as Smaug the dragon, even though Smaug isn't human-looking like Gollum or Ceaser? I wonder... maybe mo-cap will be accepted by the oscar-comitee in the end... who knows!

Tricky one this- even all the way back to Disney's first feature, Snow White, they used actors for the motion and drew over them using an early rotoscoping method- for all its sophistication and technologue modern motion capture is basically the same thing. Th e main differenc eI would dsy if the modern version can capture much more of the actors facial acting skills, but Serkis is still the exception rather than the rule- its more common for the persoin who is motion captured to be a different person than whoever does the charcaters voice. Do you have two awards when that's the case?

It is tricky. Take Avatar for instant, would you give the award to the actor or all the people behind making it work, or both? and happy feet, they use mo-cap to capture the dancing, but not the face. It is still mo-cap, but not in the same way. god, it is tricky!

I would argue it is still closer to animation than it is to acting. Yes the actors performance is the the basis for the animation but its still the quality of the animation which sells it or not. So who deserves say an oscar for Gollum? Serkis for the performance (i dont actually think it was oscar worthy but for arguments sake lets say it was) or the animators at WETA?
I'm willing to bet the animators spent many more hours bringing Gollum to life than Serkis spent acting on set.

The difference between motion capture and rotoscoping is that in the process of rotoscoping the actors were just creating a reference for the animators who did the heavy lifting. With motion capture technology, the actor's movements translate directly to the movements of the digital character. Back when The Lord of the Rings came out you still had to have regular computer animators fill in facial expressions and the like, but the technology has improved in the decade since then. Now, mocap actors' facial expressions are also recorded directly instead of being used as a reference.

Avatar, whatever you think of the movie, represented that leap forward in technology. Their featurettes about the technology are a little bit over the top in their excitement, but the technology, especially the virtual cameras at about 5:00 minutes in, is truly remarkable.



If you can't or don't want to watch the video, then the gist of it is that there isn't even a delay before the director can see the actors in the CGI environment. The director can also interact with the CGI environment directly by walking around the mocap stage with a fake camera that is connected to the virtual camera in the computer. There is very little disconnect between the live-action performance and the finished product, and on Avatar the animators mostly just added embellishments like the characters' ears and tails that obviously couldn't be mocapped.

I wouldn't say that every mocap performance is "true" acting, but it is increasingly the case. The Serkis model of one actor doing both performance capture and voicework is catching on too. That wasn't just done in LOTR and Avatar, but also Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Adventures of Tintin (admittedly, this one is more similar to traditional animation than the others on the list) and other films in recent years. I don't think it's fair to compare motion capture to rotoscoping anymore.

I agree the technoligy makes it a different beast but you speak of it as if the computer magicly does these things- it does not, it requires programmers at the bottom, and designers in the middle and artists at the top of the procss just to get to the stage where those cameras (and yes they are amazing) do what they do, never mind once you get to post.
If you are handing out a single award how do you decide who gets it- the performer under all the technology or the people who create the technology?

They could have a one-off special award, as there arent many candidates, its just Andy, Andy and yes Andy again.

Very true he does seem to have cornered the market in mo-capping.

"If you are handing out a single award how do you decide who gets it- the performer under all the technology or the people who create the technology?"

They are separable. If the people doing the technology are not adding in emotion, then the actor deserves an award. The technology to create the modern King Kong character deserved an award, even though there was not a whole lot for the actor to bring to the role. Easy to imagine both at once, such as Gollum in RoTK.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I agree the technoligy makes it a different beast but you speak of it as if the computer magicly does these things- it does not, it requires programmers at the bottom, and designers in the middle and artists at the top of the procss just to get to the stage where those cameras (and yes they are amazing) do what they do, never mind once you get to post.

How does the involvement of designers or artists negate anything about mocap? With traditional, live-action film you have costume designers and make-up artists involved in creating the characters, refining their on-screen appearance, and assisting the actors in getting the right performance. Never mind once you get to post. The process is different, obviously, because so much of it is done with computers, but it's still comparable. All forms of screen acting require the involvement of people who will never appear in a single frame, but the core of the matter is that with motion capture you have actors on a set, interacting with props and with each other and just, well, acting. It's different from pure live-action, but it's closer to that than it is to animation or rotoscoping.

If you are handing out a single award how do you decide who gets it- the performer under all the technology or the people who create the technology?

Acting awards are for the performers, no? There are separate awards for design, art, technology, etc.: both physical and CGI.

Pettytyrant101 wrote: Very true he does seem to have cornered the market in mo-capping.

I think this is rather unfair to all of the other actors who have also driven the artistic side of motion capture forward over the past 10-15 years. LOTR wasn't even the first film with a mocapped CGI character integrated into live-action, and films like Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar have significantly improved the technique since then.

No but it was the first to do it convincingly. And I think the constant work needed to create the imagery and illusion necessary for cgi mocapping is beyond that of costume designer. The costume designer only has to pick the fabrics, they dont have to make it move every time the actor does.

Perhaps not, but they do have to make sure that all the individual copies of the costume are consistent, and that the costume's appearance stays the same from day to day, and that when something happens to it (for example, damage during a battle) the costume has the appropriate altered appearance whenever it is worn in a later scene, regardless of what order the scenes were shot. That's considerably more effort than picking the right fabrics, and while it might not be as time-intensive as mocap work is for digital artists, it's still comparable in that both are facilitating the performance, which in both cases is given by the actor.

NB I italicized that last part since it's the central point but it seems to have escaped attention.

Yes but how do you define that?- how much of the success of Gollum is down to Serkis's performance and how much to the look of Gollum? I would say its 50/50 and therefore to give just the actor the award for it seems unfair to me.

Yes, most definitely both for Gollum. I think whatever argument there was here is pretty much settled as soon as people clarified their points.

What do you mean by the "success" of Gollum? I would say that the quality of any given performance, on its own merits, is separate from how good a character looks. That's true of both live action and motion capture. I would have a hard time taking seriously any acting award that ignores quality performances because they don't like the appearance of the character. The appearance is in the hands of digital or physical artists, who have their own awards, as Halfwise already pointed out.

But with mocappingits more a blending of two things than just acting fromunder some prostetics. Any animation is acting, watch any doco on animators at work at you can see that. No matter how much might be involvoed in the job a costume designer is not also acting in any sense- an animator is-its part of the performance in a way costume is not.

it depends on the amount of animation, and how much of it is done automatically by computer. This would take some work by the academy, but I think at some point they can decide approximately how much credit each gets. And if the animators are just following the actor's expressions, but bring a lot to the table themselves, then they both deserve an award.

Eldorion wrote:

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I agree the technoligy makes it a different beast but you speak of it as if the computer magicly does these things- it does not, it requires programmers at the bottom, and designers in the middle and artists at the top of the procss just to get to the stage where those cameras (and yes they are amazing) do what they do, never mind once you get to post.

How does the involvement of designers or artists negate anything about mocap? With traditional, live-action film you have costume designers and make-up artists involved in creating the characters, refining their on-screen appearance, and assisting the actors in getting the right performance. Never mind once you get to post. The process is different, obviously, because so much of it is done with computers, but it's still comparable. All forms of screen acting require the involvement of people who will never appear in a single frame, but the core of the matter is that with motion capture you have actors on a set, interacting with props and with each other and just, well, acting. It's different from pure live-action, but it's closer to that than it is to animation or rotoscoping.

If you are handing out a single award how do you decide who gets it- the performer under all the technology or the people who create the technology?

Acting awards are for the performers, no? There are separate awards for design, art, technology, etc.: both physical and CGI.

I have to agree here, Mo-cap is like digital make-up, really, and is more similar to acting in front of a camera, than animation.

Eldorion wrote:

Pettytyrant101 wrote: Very true he does seem to have cornered the market in mo-capping.

I think this is rather unfair to all of the other actors who have also driven the artistic side of motion capture forward over the past 10-15 years. LOTR wasn't even the first film with a mocapped CGI character integrated into live-action, and films like Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar have significantly improved the technique since then.

the actor who did davy jones, did a great job.. really, his face and emotions were captured really well with the technology. They played in action! they weren't in a studio.

as far as Gollum, he had to be filmed twice. therefor I think both should get an award.

I noticed that Mo-cap didn't too well on the oscar front this year, ROTPOTA was nominated, but didn't win for special effects (Hugo did, haven't seen the movie, but it looks cute and Howard Shore made the music, so I might).

I have a feeling that maybe after the last Hobbit movie maybe mo-cap will be nominated (thinking Benedict here as Smaug, I have high hopes, I know)

Really interesting article on the topic of creating Gollum that probably leans more towards Petty's position in this old debate (was it really two years ago? geez).

'Lord of the Rings' Animation Supervisor Randall William Cook Speaks Out on Andy Serkis -- Cartoon Brew

Clearly there's been some drama in the computer animation and/or motion-capture worlds, but Mr Cook manages to mostly avoid the personal snittyness and instead gives a fascinating look at the SFX process from a different perspective than is usually given.