ThatMocapGirl gives us a detailed look into The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (via MoCap Solutions) There is no other adventure like it. Over the last 14 years, beginning in 2001 with “The Fellowship of the Ring,” Peter Jackson has brought JRR Tolkien’s imagination to the big screen. We’ve journeyed together through the thrilling, visually and emotionally beautiful stories of Middle Earth. The time has finally arrived to say goodbye with the last in Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy: “The Battle of the Five Armies” due for release this December. But instead of mourning the loss of our fantasy fix, let’s look back at how the films triggered revolutionary movements of groundbreaking and timeless visual effects throughout the years, including the introduction and development of performance capture into the world of film. Back in the early days of The Lord of the Rings, planning and preparation was being carried out at the world renowned visual effects company WETA. Their goal was to make the introduction of the complex creature Gollum successful by integrating the performance of a fully computer generated character with the live action actors and on set. Motion capture, around that time, had mainly been used by the medical industry for studying joint-related illnesses and looking at knee and ankle movements for medical purposes. It was also being introduced into the video games industry but it was very much a peripheral activity in the entertainment industry. After Andy Serkis was chosen to play Gollum he approached the role as more than just turning up and doing his infamous Gollums voice on set. Tests were carried out using the technology to capture motion to help develop the characters movements, playing along side the other actors, into what would eventually become Andy’s performance, animated on to the Gollum rig built around Serkis facial features, voice, and acting choices. “So on Rings, we would block the rehearsals and then wed always shoot two passes of the same scene, one with me in the scene, and one where Id step out of the frame and the other guys would play to an empty space where I was just off camera. Shooting two versions gave us the option of either rotoscoping my performance or going back, sometimes up to a year later, to do the scene using motion capture.” Andy Serkis Serkis slightly altered his voice and body language to play the two as separate entities, the childlike Sméagol and the evil Gollum.” The performance was visually stunning, thanks to WETA’s team of artists. Andy’s performance was highly praised and went on to win the 2003 MTV Movie Award for Best Virtual Performance.” Gollum has become one of the most loved CGI character’s in film history and with his anticipated return for the “Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the improvements in the performance capture technology allowed WETA artists and Andy to bring him back to life once more. “The Hobbit” was blessed with the years of developed new filmmaking technology since “The Lord of Rings,” to help realize the dwarves, goblins and dragons that populate Tolkiens fantasyland. This time 48fps High Frame Rate cameras, new performance capture technology and motion-controlled 3D camera rigs allowed things to be done better than ever before. With Gollum, performance capture technology breakthroughs meant that WETA was able to finally be able to do the motion capture the way they always wanted to, on-set capture with Andy Serkis interacting with Bilbo in the enchanting riddle sequence with no restrictions to the performance and with 48fps offering enhanced opportunities allowing fast dialogue and fast, fleeting facial expressions to be captured with more subtlety which meant much finer animation detail in the rendered finished image. “Gollum is Gollum—though in ‘Lord of the Rings’ he’s 600 years old and in ‘The Hobbit’ he’s 540, so he looks a little bit more handsome. He hasn’t been tortured by Sauron at this point. He also looks incredibly more detailed. The fidelity to [my] facial performance is much greater, and the subtleties in the texturing and the eye movements. So he feels 100% real. Interestingly, at the higher frame rate of 48 frames per second, characters like Gollum work terrifically well,” said Andy Serkis While Gollum stole the CGI limelight in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the technology that went into creating him opened the gateway for further characters featured in “The Hobbit” to be brought to life the now more user-friendly performance capture combined with WETA Digitals stunning visual effects and talented artists. While most performance capture work has been used to realize humanoid characters Smaug the dragon, being portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” sets a much bigger challenge. Production could have taken the traditional route with Smaug, asking Benedict to come into a voice booth and record his dialogue. With the success of Andy’s performance being translated on to Gollum, Benedict was suited up and played out his performance on a mocap stage. That way the animators could have a record of what Benedicts body was doing, and it gave Benedict the freedom to give the physicality and intimate poses as he performed his dialogue. These movements and nuances could then be extended on to the dragon creating a hybrid, halfway between an animated character and a performance capture. A great example of how performance capture allowed a character to find its virtual feet for “The Hobbit” trilogy is the journey of the white Orc Azog. Orcs in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy had mainly been skillfully crafted together with the art of makeup and prosthetics and, even into the stages of principal photography. Azog was meant to be played by John Rawls using this method. As the story of Azog developed Peter Jackson wanted the Orc to stand out more and the decision was made to make Azog a fully CGI hero character. Performance capture played a big part in the quick turn around required to get the character up to the high standards needed with final deadlines approaching. Casting can make or break a performance using this technology, fortunately Manu Bennett, like Andy is suited to Gollum, had a muscular build and provided a great facial performance to aid bringing the now virtually stunning character to life. As “The Hobbit” and “The Battle of the Five Armies” approaches and brings the end of the adventures, the countless hours of hard work and dedication from WETA and its team has meant that we can continue to enjoy these wonderful films with their timeless VFX work for years to come (until the reboot that is!) The Lord of the Rings and Gollum plays part to performance capture history and the technology now has a place amongst the tools and techniques of visual effects and will hopefully be continued to be used to create, visually and most importantly emotionally stunning computer generated characters in films for years to come. Until next time, Im That Mocap Girl for MoCap Solutions! #motioncapture #vfx #film #lordoftherings #andyserkis #mocapsuits
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 18:25:27 +0000
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